Foreign film and television: dubbing or subtitles?

Pretty self-explanatory, innnit?

In most Scandinavian and West-Germanic countries (except for Germany itself), most television and cinema are subtitled.
In Latin countries like France, Spain etc... they like to dub movies and programmes. The same for the US and England, although the majority of their films and television are obviously not in a foreign language.

It is also generally perceived that the former are much better at speaking foreign languages (notably English) than the latter.

What is your preference?

Personally, I prefer subtitles to dubbing. It's a great learning experience, I've learned a lot of my English just by watching TV. Dubbing is just odd. It's often out-of-sync with the actor's dialog and it leaves out the finer aspects of it, like accents or wordplay.

Personally i prefer subtitles. Its a bit of a pain with subtites because you spend as much time reading the subtitles as you do actually watching the movie proper. But i think it makes for a more superior viewing experience than dubbing, which i have a hard time taking seriously myself.

Edit: Hmm you bring up an interesting point with regards to learning languages with subtitles. To be honest i've never thought of that but it certainly seems like a pretty good way to go about understanding other languages. I might even try it myself if i bother to learn something other than english.

Obviously, it works better with a language you already have a basic grasp of. But forcing yourself not to look at the subtitles, only when something's said that you don't understand works great.

I must say however, that when I was in secondary school, an experiment was performed on my class. They showed us a Disney movie in Polish (a language that was really completely foreign to us) without subtitles to see how much we'd pick up.
It speaks for itself that the result was quite disappointing.

Another cool thing to remark on is the fact that Dutch programs and films are quite often subtitled for Dutchspeakers. Dialects are cool.

In my book, dubbing is a crime against any film. Dubbing takes away half of a film's artistic value. Sound is in many ways as important as image.

Originally Posted by Siblesz

In my book, dubbing is a crime against any film. Dubbing takes away half of a film's artistic value. Sound is in many ways as important as image.

GRRRRRR dubbing in a film is one of my biggest hates. It's so condescending to the audience and assumes they can't do two things at once like LOOKING and HEARING. Chinese and japanese films irritate me in this respect and I think its insulting to the actors to have their trained voices smothered over like that.

Originally Posted by Siblesz

In my book, dubbing is a crime against any film. Dubbing takes away half of a film's artistic value. Sound is in many ways as important as image.

Exactly....

Certainly subtitles are preferred by me.Reason:explained in the poll

Traduttore, Traditore!


the mere idea of seeing Toshiro Mifune speaking anything else than Japanese makes me shudder. Or the fact that there exist a version fo MP Holy Grail translated and dubbed in French.
Even most anime I've seen have a disastrous dubbing, with very few exceptions (monster, some Ghibli movies ...)

Subtitles most certainly.

There is nothing worse than someone mouthing certain sounds and (usually poor) voiceovers which don't match the timing etc.

Some of those 60s and 70s Italian westerns are hilarious!

I can't possibly take them seriously.

They remind me of the black dude (Eddie Murphy?) in one of the Police Academy films when he was training in martial arts doing that dubbed voice act.

Dubbing is a crime against humanity. My dad has told me of movies dubbed in Russia during good ol' USSR. One male voice doing all the dialogue.

Seriously though, dubbing is the most retarded thing after pokemon.

Originally Posted by wilpuri

Dubbing is a crime against humanity. My dad has told me of movies dubbed in Russia during good ol' USSR. One male voice doing all the dialogue.
.

they do that in a lot of country, namely those were a good dubbing studio would be too expensive)
I've had the chance of being able to watch Kung Fu hustle in Cantonese subtitled in Mandarin (or the opposite way around) and English, and overdubbed in Vietnamese. That was ... beyond bizzare.


I agree there are exceptions with SpartacusFin there are exceptions were dubbing is necessary .

I must admit to having enjoyed "Asterix and Cleopatra" (the one in French with Gérard Dépardieu and Monica Belluci) dubbed in Dutch enormously.
The voiceactors and translators really had done an extraordinary job on it. That is the only exception I'm willing to make. Except for cartoons and animated movies. "Finding Nemo" in (Flemish) Dutch was brilliant as well.

Subtitles without doubt.

Originally Posted by boofhead

They remind me of the black dude (Eddie Murphy?) in one of the Police Academy films when he was training in martial arts doing that dubbed voice act.

When I grew older I realized that it wasn't him making the voices in the film. lol its so bad timed.

I'm pretty used to reading subtitles, dubbing a whole movie is just wrong..
One example of necessary dubbing would be some spagetti-westerns. Main characters speak english but most of the other cast italian or spanish. So, it was pretty nicely done in dollar-trilogy.
But I couldn't imagine any movie dubbed to finnish (besides cartoons).

Originally Posted by Spartacus(FIN)

One example of necessary dubbing would be some spagetti-westerns. Main characters speak english but most of the other cast italian or spanish. So, it was pretty nicely done in dollar-trilogy.

Yep its like 2 guys in the 2 first films, then 3 in the last.
But have never been annoyed with those films.
Just slightly.

Originally Posted by CapitainCernick

In most Scandinavian and West-Germanic countries (except for Germany itself),

lol ever seen the simpsons in german?

lol only one vote for dubbing so far

subtitles every single time dubbing annoys me i have never once seen a film where they had any sense whatsoever when organising the voiceovers, i saw one french film called brotherhood of the wolf... awesome film but i digress and theres a young lady in it thats sposed to be somewhere between 16-20 and the voice sounded like it belonged to a woman in her 50s....

my on grief about subtitles is on older dvds where they are actualy on the film as opposed to added on top of it and sometimes when the background is white words disapeer, but that apart its miles better

SUBTITLES, with some exceptions.

Here in Poland dubbing is used only in movies for kids, sometimes in other, but it is exceptionally good in such cases ( e.g. dubbing for Shrek 1 & 2 was a masterpiece).

I really cannot understand the idea to use dubbing in all moviesas it is done in Germany, Italy, France etc - those people will never hear the real voice of the actor, I feel sorry for them.

I'm more of a subtitles guy.

I voted dubbing myself.

I don't have too much experience with foreign film, EXCEPT with Anime that comes on adult swim and such, and that I have seen on DVD.

And IMO (as long as they get good actors) there is no comparison, I will take the ability to watch what is going on, understand the inflections of the words, rather than have to read everything and possibly miss something happening on the screen.

For example, I have seen most of the Cowboy Bebop series with subtitles and dubbed, and I would chose dubbed in a second.