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> I really get irritated with this pattern: a lot of times, people will add subtitles due to a 100% understandable foreign accent. It feels like it's being disr

> I really get irritated with this pattern: a lot of times, people will add subtitles due to a 100% understandable foreign accent. It feels like it's being disrespectful to the speakers. Hearing impaired people, non-English speakers, content indexing, machine learning, etc. There are many good reasons, don't make victims where there are none.

asveikau 8y ago
By the same token, don't assume I am victimizing! At least read the 2nd paragraph where I am saying a similar thing to your rebuttal. HN is one of those places where I have seen the concept of "violent agreement" at work. "Wait wait! You still need to consider ... this thing you thought you already said."
- scbrg 8y ago
  Pro tip: If you don't want to come off as negative, don't start your post with the words "I get really irritated" ;) I'm still confused about what you really meant, since your first and second paragraphs really were at odds with each other. As a non native, but still fluent English speaker I always use subtitles when I can. It just helps to fill in the odd word I miss due to local noise or unexpected pronunciation (English has a lot of dialects!). FWIW, I tend to do this for content in my native language as well. Turns out ~ten million people is enough to produce a lot of incomprehensible dialects as well...
  - asveikau 8y ago
    Maybe next time I will say I get "positively irritated". The thing is, two statements can be seemingly at odds in sentiment and also simultaneously true. The "aggressive subtitles for foreign accent" phenomenon is real. I wanted to acknowledge I had seen the same in other places. It is irritating when it happens. It is disrespectful where it occurs. But the second paragraph establishes that it is not always the reason. I did not think it was here.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
      I have been in the same room with other people, listening to a person speak in English with a heavy accent from wherever, and I will be the only person who understood what was said. “What did they about X, I couldn’t understand the accent?” I have also seen native English speakers, turn on subs on English movies, with the volume at a perfectly normal level to understand things. The only thing going on is that people really like their subtitles.
      - asveikau 8y ago
        Sometimes there will be a movie or TV program where nobody is subbed, except the one person with a completely understandable foreign accent. That is a phenomenon I have seen. Usually in media for an American audience, from what I've seen. (A lot of Americans have trouble even with native speakers from the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, etc. We as a nation seem to have very little patience or habituation for accents.) It's the broadcast equivalent of your first scenario.
trickstra 8y ago
that would be valid if subtitles were everywhere or nowhere

asveikau 8y ago

By the same token, don't assume I am victimizing! At least read the 2nd paragraph where I am saying a similar thing to your rebuttal. HN is one of those places where I have seen the concept of "violent agreement" at work. "Wait wait! You still need to consider ... this thing you thought you already said."

scbrg 8y ago
Pro tip: If you don't want to come off as negative, don't start your post with the words "I get really irritated" ;) I'm still confused about what you really meant, since your first and second paragraphs really were at odds with each other. As a non native, but still fluent English speaker I always use subtitles when I can. It just helps to fill in the odd word I miss due to local noise or unexpected pronunciation (English has a lot of dialects!). FWIW, I tend to do this for content in my native language as well. Turns out ~ten million people is enough to produce a lot of incomprehensible dialects as well...
- asveikau 8y ago
  Maybe next time I will say I get "positively irritated". The thing is, two statements can be seemingly at odds in sentiment and also simultaneously true. The "aggressive subtitles for foreign accent" phenomenon is real. I wanted to acknowledge I had seen the same in other places. It is irritating when it happens. It is disrespectful where it occurs. But the second paragraph establishes that it is not always the reason. I did not think it was here.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 8y ago
    I have been in the same room with other people, listening to a person speak in English with a heavy accent from wherever, and I will be the only person who understood what was said. “What did they about X, I couldn’t understand the accent?” I have also seen native English speakers, turn on subs on English movies, with the volume at a perfectly normal level to understand things. The only thing going on is that people really like their subtitles.
    - asveikau 8y ago
      Sometimes there will be a movie or TV program where nobody is subbed, except the one person with a completely understandable foreign accent. That is a phenomenon I have seen. Usually in media for an American audience, from what I've seen. (A lot of Americans have trouble even with native speakers from the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, etc. We as a nation seem to have very little patience or habituation for accents.) It's the broadcast equivalent of your first scenario.

trickstra 8y ago

that would be valid if subtitles were everywhere or nowhere