3 ms·

Wait, then how do they handle... talking? It seems hard to believe that the spoken language is generally confusing without captions...

Cyberdog 4y ago
They handle it just fine, of course. I disagree with the statement that Japanese has a relatively high incidence of homophones. It is true that Japanese TV shows, particularly variety shoes and lighter fare like that, have a lot of on-screen captions and I don’t know the reason for that, but I doubt it’s homophones, and at any rates more “serious” shows like dramas as well as all movies are caption-free (but will likely have a subtle track you can enable).
ThinkingGuy 4y ago
I lived in Japan in the 90s and watched a LOT of TV there. From my experience most subtitling on TV fell into 2 categories: On anime and children's shows, the theme songs were frequently subtitled. I assumed this was so viewers could appreciate the lyrics Comedy, skit and variety shows, where the dialog and commentary is mostly banter amongst a cast of "wacky" hosts. Here, subtitles (almost always in a garish, colorful font) served to punctuate jokes or funny lines, in the same way that a laugh track on an American sitcom is used to let the audience know when to laugh (even though the Japanese shows usually had a laughing studio audience as well). Some shows did (do?) go overboard with the "comedic" subtitles, to a point where they were subtitling almost every other line a host said.
vharuck 4y ago
Going by my poor Japanese listening skills and some interviews from documentaries I've seen, Japanese speakers mostly stick to common words and idioms in conversations. They also "over-explain" by repeating, rephrasing, or even reacting to their own points. So, it's just like conversations in any language: basic, rambling, and emotive.
- fomine3 4y ago
  Talk on documentary is tend to be like that. It's not general.

Cyberdog 4y ago

They handle it just fine, of course. I disagree with the statement that Japanese has a relatively high incidence of homophones. It is true that Japanese TV shows, particularly variety shoes and lighter fare like that, have a lot of on-screen captions and I don’t know the reason for that, but I doubt it’s homophones, and at any rates more “serious” shows like dramas as well as all movies are caption-free (but will likely have a subtle track you can enable).

ThinkingGuy 4y ago

I lived in Japan in the 90s and watched a LOT of TV there. From my experience most subtitling on TV fell into 2 categories: On anime and children's shows, the theme songs were frequently subtitled. I assumed this was so viewers could appreciate the lyrics Comedy, skit and variety shows, where the dialog and commentary is mostly banter amongst a cast of "wacky" hosts. Here, subtitles (almost always in a garish, colorful font) served to punctuate jokes or funny lines, in the same way that a laugh track on an American sitcom is used to let the audience know when to laugh (even though the Japanese shows usually had a laughing studio audience as well). Some shows did (do?) go overboard with the "comedic" subtitles, to a point where they were subtitling almost every other line a host said.

vharuck 4y ago

Going by my poor Japanese listening skills and some interviews from documentaries I've seen, Japanese speakers mostly stick to common words and idioms in conversations. They also "over-explain" by repeating, rephrasing, or even reacting to their own points. So, it's just like conversations in any language: basic, rambling, and emotive.

fomine3 4y ago
Talk on documentary is tend to be like that. It's not general.