Job Discussion Forums

[gaijinalways]

Yes, Japan is an interesting example, pretty much all the rental DVDs now have subtitle and dub options.

The comments about the subtitling being closer to the meaning of the original doesn't always ring true. Some subtitling is very concise and misses some of the original meaning. I have also seen other cases where the subtitling actually explained some of the context of a joke if some historical reference was helpful to explain who the people being talked about were. In those cases sometimes my students (or my wife) knew more about the expression in the movie dialog than I did!

[the_thinker]

I've heard the literacy argument for Italy ��there really was very high illiteracy until comparatively recently. Now the system has become so established that it would be very hard to change ��there is a whole dubbing industry, and the dubbing artists become as famous as the actors.

It's funny to hear film trailers on the radio, when you hear a name, for example "Brad Pitt", followed by an Italian voice. But Italians actually recognise the voice as being Brad Pitt.

Isn't there a third system, though? Where a single person just speaks over the whole film, translating every line? I've heard that it's like that in Poland. It sounds the worst possible method to me.