I was raised in the #1 most Anglophile home in the American Southwest, [and baptised on St George's Day], and so PBS was not optional, etc. I can follow a wide

I was raised in the #1 most Anglophile home in the American Southwest, [and baptised on St George's Day], and so PBS was not optional, etc. I can follow a wide variety of accents in this regard, slang, jargon and localized vocabulary, but subtitles still help a lot. Of course in foreign languages/dialects, our written proficiency/vocabulary may have a certain Venn overlap with the verbal skills. When the dialogue is thick and lip-reading may fail, seeing the words is great. Often there may be unfamiliar words dropped in, or a sentence we couldn't decipher aurally, and there's the subtitle to spell it out for us. I often subtitle American English shows as well. I suppose I'm simply addicted to reading words.