4 ms·

Tangential: I’ve found subtitles to be a very useful tool for learning a language. In order of challenge, I’ll at least watch everything in English with Spanish

by adwi 4y ago

Tangential: I’ve found subtitles to be a very useful tool for learning a language. In order of challenge, I’ll at least watch everything in English with Spanish subtitles, then Spanish SAP with English subtitles, then Spanish SAP with Spanish subtitles, then just in Spanish.

russellbeattie 4y ago
I discovered something amusing about this. When I was living in Spain 20 years ago, my Spanish (ex-) wife and I bought a DVD collection of Friends. At first we'd watch it in English with Spanish captions so my ex could get the subtleties, then as her English improved, we'd watch it with English captions which helped with words she was unfamiliar with. Then we started doing the reverse, Spanish overdub with English captions so I could practice. But when it came time for me to try Spanish overdub with Spanish captions, it turned out that the scripts had obviously been translated by two different companies, and what was said could be wildly different from what was written. Hysterically bad differences - to the point of completely changing the sentiment of something that was said. Mostly it was with insults or expressions, which could have various ways of translating, but sometimes they changed entire plot points, especially when a character's relationship with another was ambiguous. An aunt could be just a friend, or a sister-in-law could be a co-worker. It was so confusing, after a little while I just turned off the captions completely. Since I had seen all the shows at least once, it wasn't a problem. A fun thing to do on Disney Plus is change between the various Spanish regions to see how they overdub characters. I did this for Guardians of the Galaxy and it's fantastic how Rocket would go from being a Mexicano gangster to a Spanish thug.
- jdofaz 4y ago
  I see that a lot on Netflix, I like to watch with the captions on but not for the foreign stuff with English dubbing. Squid Games is one that comes to mind where I'd have to turn the captions off because the mismatch between the english audio and captions was too distracting for me.
hnick 4y ago
Or Baltimore slang, like when I tried to watch The Wire back in the day. It was actually the show that I first turned on subs for and I usually keep them on now out of habit. I found the thick local accents hard to understand which is rare for me, and I didn't know if words were just slang or I'd misheard. Throw in a bunch of unique names to the mix too (I can rarely remember someone's name anyway after an introduction until I read it) as well as a few mumbley characters. Great show but I needed help.
aix1 4y ago
Language Reactor is an absolutely incredible tool along these lines: https://www.languagereactor.com/ https://www.languagereactor.com/ I've been using it with Netflix and YouTube to study a couple of languages, with really good results. The gist is that it adds dual-language subtitles, translation/dictionary tools, precise subtitle-based playback controls etc to the player UI. It can also colour-code every word based on its frequency in the language and on whether I already know it or am actively trying to learn it. This makes it very easy to identify common words I don't yet know and make them the focus of my vocab learning. The main shortcomings (for me) are: 1. Word translations are sometimes weird (but then I can get to a real dictionary with two clicks). 2. It does not understand grammar (e.g. separable prefixes in German). 3. Different forms of the same word are sometimes treated as unrelated words for the purposes of colour-coding (e.g. the infinitive and Präteritum for some verbs). 4. Word frequency highlighting (e.g. highlight the 1500 most common words) is configured globally rather than per-language. 5. TurtleTube sounds cool but I find the contents a bit meh and the levelling inconsistent. I have found a couple of great YouTube channels through it though. 6. Local file playback requires an SRT file and can only play the default audio track. The former is no biggie but the latter completely breaks the feature for me (since the default audio track is usually English and not the language I'm learning). 7. Plex integration would make it even more useful. But overall, what an amazing tool.

by adwi 4y ago

russellbeattie 4y ago

I discovered something amusing about this. When I was living in Spain 20 years ago, my Spanish (ex-) wife and I bought a DVD collection of Friends. At first we'd watch it in English with Spanish captions so my ex could get the subtleties, then as her English improved, we'd watch it with English captions which helped with words she was unfamiliar with. Then we started doing the reverse, Spanish overdub with English captions so I could practice. But when it came time for me to try Spanish overdub with Spanish captions, it turned out that the scripts had obviously been translated by two different companies, and what was said could be wildly different from what was written. Hysterically bad differences - to the point of completely changing the sentiment of something that was said. Mostly it was with insults or expressions, which could have various ways of translating, but sometimes they changed entire plot points, especially when a character's relationship with another was ambiguous. An aunt could be just a friend, or a sister-in-law could be a co-worker. It was so confusing, after a little while I just turned off the captions completely. Since I had seen all the shows at least once, it wasn't a problem. A fun thing to do on Disney Plus is change between the various Spanish regions to see how they overdub characters. I did this for Guardians of the Galaxy and it's fantastic how Rocket would go from being a Mexicano gangster to a Spanish thug.

jdofaz 4y ago
I see that a lot on Netflix, I like to watch with the captions on but not for the foreign stuff with English dubbing. Squid Games is one that comes to mind where I'd have to turn the captions off because the mismatch between the english audio and captions was too distracting for me.

hnick 4y ago

Or Baltimore slang, like when I tried to watch The Wire back in the day. It was actually the show that I first turned on subs for and I usually keep them on now out of habit. I found the thick local accents hard to understand which is rare for me, and I didn't know if words were just slang or I'd misheard. Throw in a bunch of unique names to the mix too (I can rarely remember someone's name anyway after an introduction until I read it) as well as a few mumbley characters. Great show but I needed help.

aix1 4y ago

Language Reactor is an absolutely incredible tool along these lines: https://www.languagereactor.com/ https://www.languagereactor.com/ I've been using it with Netflix and YouTube to study a couple of languages, with really good results. The gist is that it adds dual-language subtitles, translation/dictionary tools, precise subtitle-based playback controls etc to the player UI. It can also colour-code every word based on its frequency in the language and on whether I already know it or am actively trying to learn it. This makes it very easy to identify common words I don't yet know and make them the focus of my vocab learning. The main shortcomings (for me) are: 1. Word translations are sometimes weird (but then I can get to a real dictionary with two clicks). 2. It does not understand grammar (e.g. separable prefixes in German). 3. Different forms of the same word are sometimes treated as unrelated words for the purposes of colour-coding (e.g. the infinitive and Präteritum for some verbs). 4. Word frequency highlighting (e.g. highlight the 1500 most common words) is configured globally rather than per-language. 5. TurtleTube sounds cool but I find the contents a bit meh and the levelling inconsistent. I have found a couple of great YouTube channels through it though. 6. Local file playback requires an SRT file and can only play the default audio track. The former is no biggie but the latter completely breaks the feature for me (since the default audio track is usually English and not the language I'm learning). 7. Plex integration would make it even more useful. But overall, what an amazing tool.