Subtitling much better in recent years

By Ben | Thursday, June 5, 2008 | 4 Comments

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In films, there’s one thing that really bugs me.

It’s when you know what’s being said, but the subtitles say something totally different. I had noticed this when I was younger for films that even did actually subtitle. Most of the time, it was either a fully subtitled film, where the person doing the subbing was mediocre at best in English and the subs were all over the board, or you would get the occasional film that had some actual asians speaking their native tongue and subbed.

But as of late? The subbing has been much better, and I’d be curious as to if there are language experts being brought in now to actually help out with these or if it’s just the progression of films. Even in Rush Hours 2 and Lethal Weapon 4 there are a couple lines in there that don’t jive with the translations. Perhaps it’s a story flow issue, but I’m not so sure.

In any case, it’s definitely interesting to see more and more native tongues being used in many Hollywood films and subtitling making it a more realistic environment instead of watching dubs, which …. is just hair-pulling annoying.

Photo Credit: (Daniel Hughes)

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Anita

My husband (Colombian) says the same thing about Spanish movies; it is really distracting to him when we watch one with English subtitles, and then he tells me what they are actually saying, which is distracting to ME. I think it is a story flow thing, and also the translator thinking an English speaking audience would get it better if it was altered? Dunno.

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