On the IMBD forums I’ve seen a lot of people in favour or American re-makes because they think they’re easier to follow than subtitled movies in the original for them foreign language. There’s also many countries (Most of central and southern Europe) that dub just about everything in another language than their native one. For me as a Swede I have a hard time understanding what they find so difficult about subtitles. Sure in some less developed countries where a large percentage of the population can’t read it’s one thing but when Americans prefer re-makes and French and Germans dubbed movies it’s just silly. Personally my reading skills were good enough to follow subtitles when I was seven and it’s been working well for me ever since.
I think it’s especially silly when people (Americans, it’s always Americans) complain about how it’s hard to follow a movie in a language they don’t understand with subtitles they do understand. Personally I think it’s harder to follow a movie in a language you do understand with subtitles in another language you also understand.
The things is no matter how good the subtitles are not everything can be accurately translated. Take humorous puns like this for example: “What did the grape say when it got stepped on? Nothing – but it let out a little whine”. Translated to Swedish the words “whine” and “wine” have no similarity to each other which means that directly translated the joke no longer makes sense. The usual solution to this is replacing the joke with a similar one. It works but when you understand the spoken English and get the joke it’s a bit annoying reading a completely different joke in the Swedish subtitles. That is what you could call hard to follow. Hearing one thing in one language and reading another in another language. Yet here in Sweden where almost everyone understand English we don’t complain because we’re used to this.
What do I want to say with this? That people who think subtitles makes movies hard to follow should think about how we do it in Sweden and how we manage well despite the fact that most of us understand both the spoken language and the subtitled one. Dubbing makes movies look weird and re-makes… well isn’t that just extremely unnecessary? Just read the damn subtitles.
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One of my favorite movies is “Inglorious Bastreds”, and American movies made in five different languages with subtitles through out. I think a lot of Americans can and will read subtitles, but we are usually unaware that some of the movies we’re watching are remakes. There are, on the other hand, a few of us who won’t watch a movie because of it. This is ridiculous.
When it comes to remakes, I prefer a lot of remakes to originals. Not because I have a problem with foreign languages, but because movies from different countries look and feel different from American movies. So naturally, I’m drawn to the movies more familiar feeling to me. This usually only pertains to horror movies for me. Horror movies are very particular, and I’m extremely picky about them. I almost always prefer American horror movies. Other foreign movies I have no problem with in their original form.
Overall, I loved all kinds of movies. There are a lot of great ones from different countries. Some remakes are horrible (like the idea they are redoing “Let The Right One In”). I just personally like Horror movie remakes.
BTW, I’m glad you’ll check out Supernatural. It’s a fantastic show, you won’t regret it!
I must admit, for a long time I avoided subtitles. Although I never watched films with them, I did prefer to watch the dubbed version of Bleach over the subtitled version. That wasn’t laziness though, but mainly due to not being able to keep up with the subtitles and lack of confidence in being able to, so I stayed in my comfort zone. Being English meant that while growing up I rarely had the need to read subtitles, I wish that we had been shown them though as it is a good skill to develop (rather than waiting until you’re 16!) and broadens what you can watch. Now, however, I love subtitled films! As well as anime, I often go out of my way to find foreign films which are subtitled. I especially love German films.
This is s0nerdy btw
This is my new blog
I completely agree on this one. It’s the same way for me as well. I live in Norway, and it’s never been a problem for me to follow subtitles on movies with other languages. I don’t care. As long as a movie is good it doesn’t matter if it’s in Russian or French.
Håller med till 100%. Vi har ju läst textremsor sen vi var barn och jag har aldrig upplevt det som minsta jobbigt. Nästan bara en fördel ibland då man kan t ex se tv på natten med ljudet av så man inte stör nån
Och sydeuropéernas dubbande ska vi inte ens tala om! Jag såg en snutt av typ Desperate Housewvives dubbat till spanska och höll på få frispel. Det blir bara så fel!
ahahaha… I agree.. i think subtitles are very helpful.. especially to those who don’t understand the language of the movie but are willing to watch the movie and understand what the people are saying through reading the subtitles.. hehehehe..
im not a fan of football to ?:) x
As an American, I can say that a large part of my fellow country-people are extremely LAZY. I for one love foreign films, but when I first started dating my boyfriend nine years ago, he refused to watch those types of movies because he didn’t want to “read.” Eventually, I just kept renting a lot of Asian horror until he finally acquiesced and watched the movie like a big boy.
My huge issue with Hollywood is the fact that not only do they insist on remaking foreign films, but they remake their OWN goddamn films!! Movies that aren’t even that old are being remade and it’s so disheartening. Sometimes I am so embarrassed to be American.
OMG I love subtitles. I watching just about everything with subtitles or closed captioning (even if it is already in English.) I especially like subtitles on movies that originally are in another language. The dubs usually sound horrible so I avoid those if I can.
its problaly true many are lazy to read the subtitles but i must say concerning this that in many new populair tv shows, maybe not new like LOST and now true blood, also heroes and many others have people speaking in different language. so i think its getting better. ive also heard many americans upset about re-making great films. like låt den rätta komma in, that is a great success all over the world.
and also those horrible stig larsson films are really populair, and got good reviews even though its a foreign film.
but then again its not only americans who dont like subtitles, germans, french spansih etc dub their films and tv. i think its just us highly evolved nordic people who reads subtitles since birth:))