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Any success using subtitles?

  Tags: Subtitles
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
13 messages over 2 pages: 1
atama warui
Triglot
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4701 days ago

594 posts - 985 votes 
Speaks: German*, English, Japanese

 
 Message 9 of 13
19 August 2012 at 2:04pm | IP Logged 
Using your mother tongue's subtitles (a strong L2 might be okay too) is an okay method to acquire vocab, expressions and get used to some of the features of the sounds of the language.

TL subs are for people who can read them fluently. European languages with roman letter alphabets are obviously much easier to do this way than languages with foreign scripts.

No-subs (RAW versions) are great as soon as you can pick some info from it. Must be somewhere in the intermediate range.

I'd say you can "do" mother tongue subs right away, TL subs depending on your TL, and RAWs are the pinnacle, profitable when everything else is not efficient anymore.

Nevertheless, anything's great as long as it's fun. You don't need max efficiency or max effectivity, you need max diligence.

Edited by atama warui on 19 August 2012 at 2:05pm

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tiagocunha
Diglot
Newbie
Brazil
Joined 4862 days ago

24 posts - 27 votes
Speaks: Portuguese*, English
Studies: French

 
 Message 10 of 13
20 August 2012 at 11:35am | IP Logged 
As I said in another thread, watching TL movies with TL helps a lot. But I'm trying to
quit subtitle use when I watch English movies, however it depends on the accent/vocab
used.
1 person has voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6703 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
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 Message 11 of 13
20 August 2012 at 12:31pm | IP Logged 
The good thing about subtitles is that you then can hear the original language - but with the abbreviations and glaring errors you can't trust them as translations of the things people say on the screen. With written sources you can live with bad translations because you have time to think things over, but with TV speech you haven't got that extra time. So I doubt that it is worth using them as a learning tool.

However they have another great use which for me may the most important of all: I can turn down the sound and listen to something else, but still watch documentaries in English about my favorite subjects.
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irishpolyglot
Nonaglot
Senior Member
Ireland
fluentin3months
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Speaks: Irish, English*, French, Esperanto, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Sign Language
Studies: Mandarin

 
 Message 12 of 13
23 August 2012 at 11:54pm | IP Logged 
I'm a huge fan of L2 subtitles with L2 audio - it helped me associate the sounds and the spelling when I was learning Spanish. In Spain they tend to speak quickly, so even if I'd theoretically understand something written and presented to me, I'd find it incomprehensible when spoken.

Subtitles of Spanish TV really made a huge difference in this. I'd recommend it myself! I wouldn't recommend L1 subtitles though. I'd find that would force me to think via translations, and it would slow me down if I'd get lazy and read rather than listen (which isn't that big of a problem with L2 subtitles).
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5395 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 13 of 13
24 August 2012 at 12:25am | IP Logged 
irishpolyglot wrote:
I'm a huge fan of L2 subtitles with L2 audio - it helped me associate the sounds and the spelling when I was learning Spanish. In Spain they tend to speak quickly, so even if I'd theoretically understand something written and presented to me, I'd find it incomprehensible when spoken.

Subtitles of Spanish TV really made a huge difference in this. I'd recommend it myself! I wouldn't recommend L1 subtitles though. I'd find that would force me to think via translations, and it would slow me down if I'd get lazy and read rather than listen (which isn't that big of a problem with L2 subtitles).


I've started doing this (L2 audio, L2 subs) for Spanish for movies for the Super Challenge. As long as I'm not interrupted much, I can follow a lot of stuff this way.

The biggest problem I've had is that frequently the subs don't actually match the audio, and my brain gets hung up on that. The better my aural comprehension gets, and the better my Spanish gets in general, I'm finding that less and less of a problem, though.


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