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Video Captions/Subtitles: What do they do right and wrong? What are the best examples you've seen? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 week ago by comfy@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Films and TV shows and more often have subtitles, which are helpful for enjoying muted video, translation, people with hearing impairment, people struggling to understand accents, checking fast unclear dialogue and other reasons. They are important, and sometimes it's clear when they do something right or wrong.

Maybe we can't expect them all to be works of art, but there are certainly some easy wins even in the industrial media environment. What do you think?

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[–] meejle@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The thing that annoys me in subs of foreign-language things, is where a very simple or recognisable sentence gets turned into something else. Not in a "localisation" way, where extra context is needed. Just in a weird way.

Audio: Arigatou, @meejle@lemmy.world-san.
Subtitle: Thanks, @meejle@lemmy.world, I really appreciate it.

Audio: Ja.
Subtitle: OK, I'll see you there!

This seems a lot more common in "official" subs of anime, nordic noir, etc. Fan-subs seem a lot more accurate.

[–] comfy@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago

I'm not sure why subs would be so weird and verbose. Maybe the translator is afraid the implication (rather than literal meaning) will be lost somehow, but really, 'ja' isn't some loaded enigma.

On a side note, fan works (anything from subs to software to upscales and remasters) tend to be better, done out of passion rather than just an industrial chore.