4 ms·

I’m the opposite, I can’t stand watching TV or movies without subtitles because I want to know exactly what is being said at all times, and don’t want to miss p

I’m the opposite, I can’t stand watching TV or movies without subtitles because I want to know exactly what is being said at all times, and don’t want to miss part of the story because I couldn’t hear a couple of words. But, I’m also originally from Europe, so am quite used to it.

mercora 5y ago
its often not at all exactly as said... also you might miss a lot of the performance if you are not able to see how things are expressed...
shrikant 5y ago
I agree, I love subtitles, and prefer watching everything with (English) subtitles, even films/TV shows in English. Mainly because of the same reason as you, and just to add, I also watch a lot of stuff that has strong regional UK accents. Sometimes, it's not just the accent, but the regional usage of very specific slang that is simply just incomprehensible because I'm not familiar with the word's usage in that manner and can't infer from context, even if the words themselves are in my vocabulary. (A recent example that comes to mind is Derry Girls...) But I also wonder if there's something related to how people read that factors into this aversion to subtitles? For me, subtitles are almost invisible and I spend zero-to-negligible effort "actively reading" them -- they just sort of get absorbed by my brain while I'm watching what's on screen. So it doesn't really negatively affect my enjoyment or engagement with the show/film at all. I think maybe the folks that struggle with or dislike subtitles view the act of "reading" subtitles as a mental context switch that interferes with the parallel act of watching and listening.
nextlevelwizard 5y ago
Watching English show with English subtitles is different, because I can just ignore the text (this is actually how I learned to watch movies since all movies in movie theaters here are subtitled so I just listened for the English words and watched the movie). Sometimes I do watch some TV shows with subtitles on (English dub & sub) if they have very inconsistent audio equalization i.e. during some scenes music is super loud and then they dip into really quiet dialog so I don't miss the beginning part.

mercora 5y ago

its often not at all exactly as said... also you might miss a lot of the performance if you are not able to see how things are expressed...

shrikant 5y ago

I agree, I love subtitles, and prefer watching everything with (English) subtitles, even films/TV shows in English. Mainly because of the same reason as you, and just to add, I also watch a lot of stuff that has strong regional UK accents. Sometimes, it's not just the accent, but the regional usage of very specific slang that is simply just incomprehensible because I'm not familiar with the word's usage in that manner and can't infer from context, even if the words themselves are in my vocabulary. (A recent example that comes to mind is Derry Girls...) But I also wonder if there's something related to how people read that factors into this aversion to subtitles? For me, subtitles are almost invisible and I spend zero-to-negligible effort "actively reading" them -- they just sort of get absorbed by my brain while I'm watching what's on screen. So it doesn't really negatively affect my enjoyment or engagement with the show/film at all. I think maybe the folks that struggle with or dislike subtitles view the act of "reading" subtitles as a mental context switch that interferes with the parallel act of watching and listening.

nextlevelwizard 5y ago

Watching English show with English subtitles is different, because I can just ignore the text (this is actually how I learned to watch movies since all movies in movie theaters here are subtitled so I just listened for the English words and watched the movie). Sometimes I do watch some TV shows with subtitles on (English dub & sub) if they have very inconsistent audio equalization i.e. during some scenes music is super loud and then they dip into really quiet dialog so I don't miss the beginning part.