# Foreign language movie: dubs or subs? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 25, 2019, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625 "2019-07-25T18:09:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/21 "2019-07-26T00:03:33Z")
Subtitles, of course. I won’t watch anything dubbed. Dubbing is the audio equivalent of watching a movie through a snapchat animal filter. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/22 "2019-07-26T00:10:11Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I think it’s the art house snobs, and herd mentality. The Crowd doth proclaim that subtitles are the one true path, and all others shall be exiled. So sayeth the Crowd. > > Who is to say if the subtitles are any more accurate than dubbing? Subs have to condense dialog to fit, and of course their accuracy depends on the skill of the translator. It’s just luck if the subtleties come through in either form. > > Fortunately, we have choices. In general, I prefer dubbing, because then I can actually watch the movie. You all talk about things in the actor’s voices that convey information? How about being too busy reading subtitles that you miss some action in the corner of the screen? or miss the character contradicting what they are saying with their eyes or gestures? I’ve been watching subtitled movies from about 30 years, most of them in English which I also speak, and I have never found an example of dialog being condensed to fit. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/23 "2019-07-26T00:49:46Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > I’ve been watching subtitled movies from about 30 years, most of them in English which I also speak, and I have never found an example of dialog being condensed to fit. Really? It’s quite common to abbreviate the dialog to fit the reading speed of watchers. I honestly can’t think of a single movie I’ve watched where I knew both the spoken and translated language where this did not happen. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/24 "2019-07-26T00:57:57Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > You’re watching a movie that was filmed in a language not your own. You have a choice… You didn’t have a category for “If I start watching, say, Princess Mononoke, and decide it’s worth seeing, I’ll pause the movie, move to Tokyo, enroll in a class at the University of Tsukuba-Tokyo called ‘Japanese for American Ex-Pats’, attend every class for two semesters and do all the homework which includes meeting with my kenkyū gurūpu (geographically-determined study group), attend graduation and receive my Tsukuba Certificate in Modern Japanese, fly home and unpause the movie.” ---
**Author:** ![D\_Odds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/d_odds/32/2882_2.png) [@D\_Odds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/D_Odds)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/25 "2019-07-26T02:00:13Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > I think it’s the art house snobs, and herd mentality. The Crowd doth proclaim that subtitles are the one true path, and all others shall be exiled. So sayeth the Crowd. I wouldn’t go anywhere near that far, but I do feel that this subject tends to attract those who take their TV/movie watching far more seriously than I do. Understandable, as I’ll get the same way on other subjects. I simply choose to not make that same time and attention commitment to watch a subtitled-only foreign language show because it is not that important to me. But I am sure that there are things that are important to me that I do make the time commitment for that others choose not to. But some do handle the subject quite snobbishly. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/26 "2019-07-26T02:10:26Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > Agree. I’m trying to think of an exception. There must be one, but I can’t think of it. I mean, sure, animated kids films, dubs are better because, well, it’s for kids and they may not be able to read subtitles. _Any_ animated film is already dubbed, in a sense: the drawings you see on the screen are not who’s actually speaking. So I don’t see anything wrong with a (good!) dub of an animated film. ---
**Author:** ![pmwgreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@pmwgreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pmwgreen)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/27 "2019-07-26T03:55:09Z")
Subtitles, but be careful. I watch with subtitles, often British TV. The subtitles are often inaccurate, or condensed. The use of “[inaudible]” is common. (It wasn’t inaudible, she said “Aberystwyth” you deaf nitwit.) Anime is bearable, but after a while you can hear the speaker using one word and it is being translated as another. This is particularly bad with names which can be honorifics, ranks, nicknames, first or last names but which can be translated as “you” or “he”. The worst is the dreaded “dub-titles”, where you get the English transcription of the dub. OTOH, a literal translation of what was said is often headache inducing what with a lack of third person tense or some similar issue. So, you get a mixed bag. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/28 "2019-07-26T03:58:14Z")
Subtitles for live action. Dubbing for animation. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/29 "2019-07-26T04:07:40Z")
i picked depends on the movie/show if its supposed ot be funny esp for anime i mean dominion tank police isnt as funny with subs… But it all depends on the cast tho ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 7:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/30 "2019-07-26T07:28:46Z")
Original language, with subtitles. Always. I don’t think I’m a snob for respecting directors and actors. How are people who don’t know or care what foreign-language actors sound like not being English-language snobs? People in other countries where dubbing is the norm live their whole lives having never heard the voices of, to choose some classic actors, Katherine Hepburn, Kathleen Turner, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Jean Arthur and so many others, because their voices have been erased. I personally want to hear the real voices of, just to name a few, people like Toshirô Mifune, Catherine Deneuve, Klaus Kinski, Marion Cotillard, Audrey Tautou, Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar, Tabu, and, well, everyone in a movie where they’re not speaking English. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/31 "2019-07-26T07:44:39Z")
I voted “Subs Not Dubs”, but then realised I make an exception specifically for _later_ Miyazaki films (_Princess Mononoke_ onwards) so I guess I’m “depends on the movie” _but_ that’s the _only_ set of movies I make an exception for. It might be because in 70s/80s South Africa, dubbing into Afrikaans and sometimes African languages was routine - I grew up on _Alpha:1999_ (Space:1999), _Blitspatrollie_ (The Sweeney), _Redding Internationaal_(Thunderbirds), \*Misdaad in Miami \*(Miami Vice), _Steve Austin: Die Man van Staal_ (6 Million Dollar Man) and _Rabobi_!( Xhosa animated Spiderman. His themesong went something like [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG2XWVsy9RM)). I fucking hated it all. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/32 "2019-07-26T10:40:58Z")
Unless it’s an old Japanese monster movie, I prefer subtitles. Bad dubbing is part of the kaiju charm. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/33 "2019-07-26T10:55:19Z")
Live action: Original language with subs. Animation: Dubs. ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/34 "2019-07-26T11:14:42Z")
A few days ago, I sent back a Netflix disk after watching only a few minutes, because everyone was talking Cockney and there were no subtitles. Back in the early nineties, I saw and loved a film called Riff-Raff, that was technically in English but subtitled. For the British audience as well as American, because not only were the regional accents thick as bricks, there was such a mix of them! Cockney \*\*and \*\* Glaswegian \*\*and \*\* Suffolk **and** Welsh…In the theater and on VHS, it had bright yellow subtitles that the director (Ken Loach) had overseen. But when it came out on DVD…no subtitles. Not even generic ones. Oi! ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/35 "2019-07-26T11:54:44Z")
> [@pmwgreen](#): > > Subtitles, but be careful. I watch with subtitles, often British TV. The subtitles are often inaccurate, or condensed. The use of “[inaudible]” is common. (It wasn’t inaudible, she said “Aberystwyth” you deaf nitwit.) Technically speaking, those aren’t subtitles, that’s closed captioning. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/36 "2019-07-26T12:17:44Z")
I usually get them off torrents. That means original-language audio that I don’t really understand, subbed with titles in some third language that I definitely don’t understand. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/37 "2019-07-26T15:03:39Z")
If I’m actually going to sit there and pay it my full attention, original language. However, in general I am doing something else when watching something so would like the ease of audio language. Subtitles are a must either way though. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/38 "2019-07-26T15:17:28Z")
> [@Miss\_Mapp](#): > > Unless it’s an old Japanese monster movie, I prefer subtitles. Bad dubbing is part of the kaiju charm. Indeed! [Woody Allen understood this](https://youtu.be/lLU_-YMPX7I?t=1173). ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/39 "2019-07-26T15:25:10Z")
Live action, I’ll watch with subtitles. For anime, I’ll watch it dubbed. (Most anime is “dubbed” even in Japanese, as the animation is completed before dialog is recorded.) ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625/40 "2019-07-26T15:31:37Z")
Dubbed. If I keep having to read at the bottom, I miss a lot of the non-dialog nuance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/foreign-language-movie-dubs-or-subs/837625.md?page=3)