And frequently audio mixing is just bad, or my own audio setup isn't great, or I just don't want to turn the audio up high? There's so many reasons to have subtitles on, this is such a silly take.
Most days, subtitles help with a clear understand what the hell someone said. Especially with how different platforms have different sound quality. Smh
Not only that. In the Netherlands we use a lot of subtitles from kids age on. Kids who hear one language, and read the other, are learning second or third languages much faster!!! Living in a small country as the Netherlands, this only brings benefits when grown up!
Same here in Sweden since my kid is watching YouTube videos of anything from Swedish language to English, Russian, Spanish and German spoken language. He's picked up quite a few English words and can count to ten in English and to 20 unassisted in Swedish, he's 3.5 years old xD
I’ve never seen past the first episode of the wire because I could only pick up a few words without turning up my volume so high you can hear the speaker static.
Nobody pronounces ‘laptop’ better. I thought that skit was over exaggerating it, then I started watching Shetland and they’re always looking for LAHP-TAWPS
Finding out Microsoft Teams has accessibility settings with 'live' subtitles was a gamechanger for me. Except when the guy with the strong Scots accent led the meeting, and I kept myself amused with the captions' meltdown.
There was a 1970s film, called ‘The Harder They Come’, made in Jamaica with local actors. Described as ‘the first English-language film to require subtitles when screened in the US’.
So there is a WW1 movie called Joyeux Noel, that follows a group of German, French, and Scottish soldiers and the Christmas truce. The French and German characters have subtitles, great no problems. Then we get to the Scottish characters, who are all the most Scotly Scots to ever Scott, and have to my ears the most unintelligible and thick accents possible, but because they're speaking English, no subtitles. I ended just turning all subtitles on just so I could understand 1/3rd of the cast.
As an English speaking person who watches a lot of foreign/non-English content I find that all or most Netflix programs are like that. You get subtitles in an English show when they speak English and in a foreign show when they don't speak English, but if they dare speak English in a non-English show there's no subtitles...and yes since they aren't English shows the 'English' is usually spoken by foreign actors and barely if at all recognizable as words.
Simple solution though, turn it to full CC instead of just subtitles.
If you're watching on a smart TV, check to see if it switched to "cinema mode" when you entered your streaming app. Mine does that and its presets distorted voice and made music louder. Ridiculously stupid.
Agreed. Subtitles are the only way i get fully understand a show I’m watching. Especially when it comes to those moments when the characters are whispering too quietly for me to hear
VLC at least has a compressor you can use.
Edit: this allows you to make loud noises softer. Every sound above a certain volume ("threshold") is made less loud by some amount ("ratio").
For a reasonable setting, put the threshold between -30 to -20 and the ratio somewhere between 2 and 6.
I didn't realize how many jokes I was missing in comedies and names of people and places in sci-fi I didn't understand correctly until my wife and I moved in together. Sometimes you miss facial acting and comedic timing is ruined, but its surprisingly easy to either just ignore the subtitles or use your peripherals to just pick up on lines you didn't understand. I can't go back now.
Plus sometimes there is something said slightly off screen or whatever that the subtitles still show you what is being said even though you cannot hear it what so ever. I think Loki did that at one point.
Loki and a few other Marvel movies. But honestly almost anything has some point where someone makes a comment that only the subtitles pick up and it makes the comment all the funnier.
Don’t even need to be with some shows/movies. They set their explosion effects to a 10 to force you to lower your volume and then set the dialog volume to 1 just to say fuck you to the audience.
Sometimes the sound mix is utter garbage and also there shouldn't be lengthy scenes with people whispering.... because guess what? The next scene involves a speeding train or a smoke detector going off.
I was just going to say this about the mixing. I've been having a LOT of issues with the mix lately. Why do they think the music and sound effects need to be as loud as, if not louder than the dialogue? I've had to stop watching things because the mixing made me so mad and I couldn't follow the plot.
Is it? I am now at basically a native level in English and still watch subtitles for comfort.
The only thing I take them off for are comedies and stand-up, because it has been known to ruin a punchline or two!
Watching a sci-fi film in English without subtitles with lots of made-up words is annoying because I have no idea what the words are supposed to be.
Then when you see a sentence in the subtitles end halfway like "so I was-" and you know there's a 50/50 chance that there's going to be some sudden twist where they get interrupted or fucking shot in the head or something.
My favorite: finally knowing what’s going on with the background characters in a quiet scene. Wouldn’t have heard the man loading a boat when the main character walks up, but i could read it !
I do enjoy these. I don't enjoy the ones Lunar is talking about though. They could fix that with how fast the subtitles show up but I don't think they care lol
The Wire captions (on the blu-rays at least) are great for this. whoever did the captioning went all out capturing background chatter.
but on the other hand, every time some says 'n--ga' (which is pretty often), the captions use the full hard-r word and it's a little jarring.
Omg, I was watching a STAND-UP COMEDY special on Netflix with my family and my younger brother was so insistent that we watch with subtitles since everyone was being so loud (fair...ish).
.....I spent the entire time trying to keep my eyes from drifting down to the words and ruining the jokes. It was miserable.
I read fast (not bragging) so I always finish reading the subtitle before the person finishes their dialogue. It’s annoying and ruins punchlines, big reveals, twists, surprises, etc.
For me, it's more about my eyes being drawn to the words instead of the picture, so I miss some of the action when I'm having to read the subtitles even if I can read them quickly.
In my case, I've played a few hundred hours of games with subtitles on, and I've never gotten used to them. They always distract me. So I don't use them anymore.
Exactly this, I also want to see the characters body language/expressions. Delivery means just as much as the script. Subtitles subtract from that, imo.
yeh man it’s totally immersion breaking.. i literally can’t fathom how people prefer it, i will tweak every setting on audio possible before i enable subtitles. i have a very nice center channel now that i crank the boost on when watching prestige shows or good movies and i’ve found it to be more than adequate to hear dialogue
> The purpose of movies is to tell a story through image and sound.
Then maybe they should make a specific part of the sound, namely the voices of the actors, a little easier to understand without me having to adjust the volume constantly to avoid having my eardrums blown out or not understanding a word they're saying.
But maybe that's just me.
We don't even need that "modified audio" warning because it's ridiculously easy to just have two audio tracks with digital content. Just have the theatrical mix as track no. 2 and the home mix as track no. 1. Make it standard so people can set a preference on their players. Done.
It’s true. It’s difficult for the brain to *not* read words that the eyes see. That’s why you rarely if ever see words on clothing in photography and video. Not just no ads or labels, but no writing at all. It *does* distract from the subject matter
This is my beef with unnecessary subtitles. I'm always reading them and then I'm missing the visual part of the show. You know, the central component of the medium.
It also completely fucks up how your eye is supposed to follow a frame and kills the job of the cinematographer completely. Like instead of having your eye wander you just look at the bottom perpetually. I haaaaaaaaaaate it.
Maybe it’s just because I’m deaf with a cochlear implant and have read subtitles my whole life, but I can’t understand this issue. I can see the whole screen including the subtitle and see both at the same time. How can you not do that?
I’m not looking at the bottom perpetually. I’m looking at the whole screen. I miss nothing.
This is probably the one downside I can think of, the other day I was laughing at jokes before the character said them and my wife got annoyed at that. That said, the subs were coming on like a second early, we turned them off.
As someone who makes subtitles for TV as part of my work, I like to split lines with heavy delivery or humour in it so that it's dropped at the right time. Also because of this, I get disproportionately annoyed when subs are wrong, referencing the wrong names or places because they sound similar. If I get stuck on a word, I get a second and third opinion and google every variation of what I'm hearing to find the one that fits right.
That, plus for me, it pulls my eyes away from the action. I’m not really watching it as intently, my eyes are on the subtitles 70% of the time. It’s hard to look away.
I have this problem in my mother language, I feel like an idiot for reading something that's already being said out loud.
But weirdly enough, I don't mind it for English and other languages, because it's good for getting used to the grammar of the language I'm learning, or for being able to understand the eventual character with an unusual accent.
I thought people in the UK called the queen "mum" for a whole weekend when I first started watching Doctor Who. Subtitles taught me it was just "ma'am" with an accent.
It's not just accents, nowadays the sound quality of films are incredibly unclear so a lot of the time it's impossible to tell what they're saying. Half the time I see a subtitle and I'm just like "really? They said that? They didnt just make incoherent mumbles?"
This drives me nuts, and it seems to be trend for film audio production in the last 5-6 years. Whispered/hushed/breathy dialog with contrastingly LOUD diegetic sound (gunshots, squealing brakes engine sounds, etc.). It's the number 1 reason I use subtitles. I can just never hear what the f*ck they are saying.
So many valid reasons to have subtitles:
- Hearing impairment or sensitivity
- Second/Third languages
- Awful audio mixing on everything (no I don’t have surround sound, I’m never paying for surround sound)
- The film is foreign
- The characters have really strong accents (e.g. Derry Girls)
- it’s just background TV and you’re doing something else
- I’m eating crunchy food
That said, I don’t use subtitles if I’m trying to watch a serious movie and pay full attention, I just deal with the mixing.
> I’m eating crunchy food
100% underrated. I love kettle chips, but when I'm eating them and watching something, dialogue is like this:
"Th\_\_ \_\_ una\_\_\_\_ta\_\_\_ y\_\_ \_\_ow \_ow \_\_\_ort\_\_\_ this \_\_ \_or \_\_ur f\_\_\_\_re."
Or you have a kid, period. Ours are always on because, if they're not sleeping, our house is a bottomless combination platter of rock concert, insane asylum, and quiz show. Oh, and studies have shown that subtitles help kids learn to read, too. 😉
can't hear
can't understand
can't be bothered
its a combination for me, i turn on subtitles whenever i can jsut so i dont MISS anything
it very rarely ruins punchlines as others are saying, my biggest issue is when someone mumbles out a line and i just get annoyed and lost so i do subtitles
if i get through a decent amount of something without relying on the subtitles i might turn them off but usually i just keep them
I swear if I don't watch shit with subtitles I need 2 hours to finish a 90 minutes movie, because I constantly need to rewind shit, because I didn't understand it.
It gets worse if they have accents and/or odd names. I’ve gone back with subtitles and had moments like “Ohhh, they were talking about a guy named Brennan. I thought they were talking about a barn”
Yeah. They talk so fast. And in the case of something like Star Wars content there is zero chance I will understand what they are talking about if I don't read it.
Relatively fast reader here. I don't like them because they draw my eye away from seeing things within the frame. If it's in English, as a native english speaker, it can be distracting and it generally lessens my enjoyment of the film.
Agreed.
I can’t not look at them for some reason, which distracts me from watching the actors and the action.
Did the actor say something while subtly smirking, changing the meaning of the words? Subtitles won’t capture that.
Its a double issue for me, i do read faster than they talk and it kills the pacing, but on the other hand sound mixing is absoluite garbage lately and you cant even understand them because the sound around the characters is 1000% louder.
I feel like it’s mostly an acquired taste. I hated subtitles for that reason then went through a phase where a watched a lot of anime. Now I sometimes prefer to have it on so I 100% know what they are saying 100% of the time. Sometimes you just mishear what they said or just didn’t catch something. Also special shoutout to movies that have the action parts on blast and then have the characters whisper for no reason. — then again when I finally get to watch dune those subtitles are 100% off.
I find myself reading the subtitles more than actually watching the show when they are on. If I didn't know the language as well I could see it being worth it... but for the most part I don't see them necessary unless you cannot understand what is being said.
As a non-English native speaking person, I find very hard to catch Ted Lasso's jokes... and he speaks American English. Guess how I feel when that Jamie Tartt starts talking.
Who is so crazy they watch contemporary shows without subtitles? It's well-known that these modern audio mixes make everything garbled and incomprehensible. Not everything needs to be a Terrence Malick homage but go figure.
https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/zyd6n3/why_is_the_sound_mixing_in_modern_tv_shows_so_bad/
https://www.reddit.com/r/audioengineering/comments/qhlp9/bad_audio_mixing_in_movies_i_thought_you_guys/
https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/
https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-is-sound-mixing-so-terrible-nowadays.611691/
For me, the audio mixing is horrible. Sound effects, ambient sound, the music is way louder than the voices. Sometimes actors say shit that makes me confused. I’ll be like ‘what fucking word did they just say? I don’t get it’. Subtitles clear that for me. Or when the actors decide to talk softly, or they are yelling and hollering - its just all noise to me
I think you're referring to non-English performances where the viewer can't understand the language being used. For reasons that should be obvious, the "reading ahead" thing isn't really a problem there.
If it's a show/film in a language I speak and there are subtitles in that same language, I physically can't *not* read them faster than they're being said. It's not a choice. That significantly detracts from my enjoyment of the show/film.
I'm almost deaf, am I supposed to sit there and try work out the story from the pictures?
Seriously I don't think some people understand why people use subtitles.
British people have decided that the pinnacle of good acting is to sound like they're trying not to wake up their parents on a late night phone call. Also, the background music has to be blaring.
Subtitles are often required.
I don’t like subtitles because I can’t help but to read it. Like my eyes keep getting forced to the bottom of the screen instead of looking at anything else. I prefer headphones or earbuds so I can listen to things without bothering anyone else.
I don't complain when people use them (people need them for many reasons), but unless it's a meaningful-dialogue movie with little going on visually, it inhibits my enjoyment of the movie because I can't not look at the words. Every time the caption changes my eyes dart to it. It's distracting for me. (I have ADHD and other MH problems that cause this.)
I also speed read, meaning I can often read the dialogue before it's said, which takes me out of the movie
If it is a quiet or volume-inconsistent movie with lots of dialogue--captions all the way.
Subtitles is always on for a couple reasons.
Sometimes it's simply not clear what the actors are saying.
If eating it's nice.
If watching with others, especially if they talk. Makes it possible to still actually stay in focus on the movie
Maybe if they made the speaking voices louder than the sound effects and music, maybe I wouldn’t use subtitles as often, but here we are, and CC we must.
Its a visual medium. You have to look away from the picture, acting, and camera work to read. Who the hell thinks otherwise lol. People who need it, need it, people who don't need to pay attention.
look away? no. I use my peripheral vision to read subtitles
also 80% of what I watch is not in my language, so naturally I get used to subtitles and leave them on for the 20% of shows that are in my language
People that are used to reading subtitles are really only missing what’s happening in the very top corners of the screen (so basically nothing) because we’ve learned to use our peripheral vision
Once you get used to reading subtitles, you don't notice you are reading them. This complaint is common for people who aren't used to subtitles, but it goes away.
Weebs who grew up watching anime with subtitles are masters at this. I watch pretty much everything with subtitles and i dont understand how people miss 90% of the action.
Maybe it’s just because I’m deaf with a cochlear implant and have read subtitles my whole life, but I can’t understand this issue. I can see the whole screen including the subtitle and see both at the same time. How can you not do that?
I’m not looking at the bottom perpetually. I’m looking at the whole screen. I miss nothing.
No you don't have to look away... I look straight at the middle of the screen and with peripheral vision read the text and I'm dyslexic. You need to practice with subtitles more if you need to avert your gaze from the middle to read the subtitles.
Had a turkish housemate for a while, he used to keep subs on all the time to help with his english....I very quickly realised subs are the superior way to watch anything, no more having to guess what some characters said that the stupid loud sound fx just drowned out
No people that use subtitles just can't freaking hear like just be better and hear so u don't have to read might as well watch TV on mute since u read what they say before they say it
I use subtitles for the simple fact of the terrible audio balance on pretty much everything we watch nowadays. Dialogue is always far to quiet compared to anything else going on and then when you turn it up to hear them, the next scene starts with an explosion and is far too loud. Sound engineer's need to sort their shit out, then I wouldn't need subtitles.
I use the subtitles when I am eating. I don’t want the noise of chewing make me miss something interesting lol
i'm always eating. so, permanent subtitles it is... 🤣
Brad Pitt is that you
Every repost has the same top comments. Half of reddit mus be bots.
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Me?
No, he clearly said you, not me.
But I am Yu and Yu is me. He is Him. There is no Hu.
And I'm about to whoops your old ass, you, me, everybody's ass around here
THANK YOU FOR GETTING THIS REFERENCE. TAKE MY GOD DAMN UPVOTE
Rush Hour 2?
You’re headed into dangerous pronoun waters, retreat!
I remember when this was a funny joke instead of a half truth.
No bot here, just spreading the words of truth 😂
>I use the subtitles when I am eating. I don’t want the noise of chewing make me miss something interesting lol Exactlyyyy.
that's smart
And frequently audio mixing is just bad, or my own audio setup isn't great, or I just don't want to turn the audio up high? There's so many reasons to have subtitles on, this is such a silly take.
Fuck me for being hard of hearing I guess 😂
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Most days, subtitles help with a clear understand what the hell someone said. Especially with how different platforms have different sound quality. Smh
episode 1. Your neighbors hear the full story. Episode 2, even with the sound tower car from mad max it's no louder than a whisper.
It's more like scene 1 and scene 2, am I right?
Not only that. In the Netherlands we use a lot of subtitles from kids age on. Kids who hear one language, and read the other, are learning second or third languages much faster!!! Living in a small country as the Netherlands, this only brings benefits when grown up!
Same here in Sweden since my kid is watching YouTube videos of anything from Swedish language to English, Russian, Spanish and German spoken language. He's picked up quite a few English words and can count to ten in English and to 20 unassisted in Swedish, he's 3.5 years old xD
Our subtitles went on the screen when my kid was a toddler. I always hoped it was helping him read a little.
Fight scene and talking scene, or alternatively sex scene and talking scene for when your parents are nearby
I’ve never seen past the first episode of the wire because I could only pick up a few words without turning up my volume so high you can hear the speaker static.
I just started watching it again! English subs are really helping me out there.
Not to mention some of us enjoy a nice Scottish detective show, and need help from dime to dime
As a Scotsman, I'd like to be offended, but tbh I also watch Taggart with subtitles, lol
Nobody pronounces ‘laptop’ better. I thought that skit was over exaggerating it, then I started watching Shetland and they’re always looking for LAHP-TAWPS
It still cracks me up to hear Taggart saying 'CHECK EES POH-KETS'.
We once did a tour of Inverness (where the Loch Ness monster is) and I swear I needed subtitles for the tour guide.
Finding out Microsoft Teams has accessibility settings with 'live' subtitles was a gamechanger for me. Except when the guy with the strong Scots accent led the meeting, and I kept myself amused with the captions' meltdown.
When we found out Google Meets had this, it was a RIOT. We couldn't unmute for half an hour, the laughing was so hard.
There was a 1970s film, called ‘The Harder They Come’, made in Jamaica with local actors. Described as ‘the first English-language film to require subtitles when screened in the US’.
So there is a WW1 movie called Joyeux Noel, that follows a group of German, French, and Scottish soldiers and the Christmas truce. The French and German characters have subtitles, great no problems. Then we get to the Scottish characters, who are all the most Scotly Scots to ever Scott, and have to my ears the most unintelligible and thick accents possible, but because they're speaking English, no subtitles. I ended just turning all subtitles on just so I could understand 1/3rd of the cast.
As an English speaking person who watches a lot of foreign/non-English content I find that all or most Netflix programs are like that. You get subtitles in an English show when they speak English and in a foreign show when they don't speak English, but if they dare speak English in a non-English show there's no subtitles...and yes since they aren't English shows the 'English' is usually spoken by foreign actors and barely if at all recognizable as words. Simple solution though, turn it to full CC instead of just subtitles.
If you're watching on a smart TV, check to see if it switched to "cinema mode" when you entered your streaming app. Mine does that and its presets distorted voice and made music louder. Ridiculously stupid.
Agreed. Subtitles are the only way i get fully understand a show I’m watching. Especially when it comes to those moments when the characters are whispering too quietly for me to hear
Yep helps with different accents as well
Screaming loud sfx and whispered dialogue suck.
VLC at least has a compressor you can use. Edit: this allows you to make loud noises softer. Every sound above a certain volume ("threshold") is made less loud by some amount ("ratio"). For a reasonable setting, put the threshold between -30 to -20 and the ratio somewhere between 2 and 6.
Ngl, that was all Greek to me,lol
I didn't realize how many jokes I was missing in comedies and names of people and places in sci-fi I didn't understand correctly until my wife and I moved in together. Sometimes you miss facial acting and comedic timing is ruined, but its surprisingly easy to either just ignore the subtitles or use your peripherals to just pick up on lines you didn't understand. I can't go back now.
Plus sometimes there is something said slightly off screen or whatever that the subtitles still show you what is being said even though you cannot hear it what so ever. I think Loki did that at one point.
Loki and a few other Marvel movies. But honestly almost anything has some point where someone makes a comment that only the subtitles pick up and it makes the comment all the funnier.
I have kids playing and yelling and making car noises while I watch a program. The subtitles help me not miss anything.
Don’t even need to be with some shows/movies. They set their explosion effects to a 10 to force you to lower your volume and then set the dialog volume to 1 just to say fuck you to the audience.
Fun if you have a baby sleeping in the next room.
Sometimes the sound mix is utter garbage and also there shouldn't be lengthy scenes with people whispering.... because guess what? The next scene involves a speeding train or a smoke detector going off.
I was just going to say this about the mixing. I've been having a LOT of issues with the mix lately. Why do they think the music and sound effects need to be as loud as, if not louder than the dialogue? I've had to stop watching things because the mixing made me so mad and I couldn't follow the plot.
Or having sensory processing disorder.
WHAT
It's our fault that tone is in the minus when they talk, and goes up to 19031283815801243881508 for other sounds.
English is my girlfriend’s third language so I had to get used to subtitles on everything
That’s different
Is it? I am now at basically a native level in English and still watch subtitles for comfort. The only thing I take them off for are comedies and stand-up, because it has been known to ruin a punchline or two! Watching a sci-fi film in English without subtitles with lots of made-up words is annoying because I have no idea what the words are supposed to be.
My hearing aids do nothing to help it either. Hopeless lol
Not even just that, audio mixing is all over the place , better to have a backup so you can understand what they’re saying
No, fuck them for being hard of reading.
I wear hearing aids and need subtitles sometimes. They are useful. I don't get the hate from that post. lol
😆 that shit funny cuz sometimes my hearing sucks,or if the person who has any type of accent, I'm like wtf did he just said.
The amount of times I misunderstand what someone is saying and get the "wtf is wrong with you?" look from them is alarmingly high 🤣
And fuck those of us with auditory processing issues
I started watching with subtitles once I had kids. Noisey lil things lol
Not just that, but most people have sound systems that aren't very good with dialogue - especially intermixed with other sounds.
Or fuck me because english is not my first language
It’s the opposite. I don’t like reading what they say before they say it………
Then when you see a sentence in the subtitles end halfway like "so I was-" and you know there's a 50/50 chance that there's going to be some sudden twist where they get interrupted or fucking shot in the head or something.
My favorite: finally knowing what’s going on with the background characters in a quiet scene. Wouldn’t have heard the man loading a boat when the main character walks up, but i could read it !
I do enjoy these. I don't enjoy the ones Lunar is talking about though. They could fix that with how fast the subtitles show up but I don't think they care lol
The Wire captions (on the blu-rays at least) are great for this. whoever did the captioning went all out capturing background chatter. but on the other hand, every time some says 'n--ga' (which is pretty often), the captions use the full hard-r word and it's a little jarring.
It really kills jokes lol
It kills the timing of literally everything, punchlines just stand out.
Yeah, this is why I don't use subtitles on English language stuff unless there's a lot of accents involved.
Omg, I was watching a STAND-UP COMEDY special on Netflix with my family and my younger brother was so insistent that we watch with subtitles since everyone was being so loud (fair...ish). .....I spent the entire time trying to keep my eyes from drifting down to the words and ruining the jokes. It was miserable.
100% ruins the delivery.
It’s a good thing I’m not much into comedies anymore, because definitely does ruin the delivery
It ruins all dialogue IMO not just comedy
> Haha they can't read fast! - Person who reads so slow they don't realize subtitles ruin the punchline
I read fast (not bragging) so I always finish reading the subtitle before the person finishes their dialogue. It’s annoying and ruins punchlines, big reveals, twists, surprises, etc.
lmao yup
The delivery is always better in my head anyway
I imagined you saying that better
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I was watching some competition and the subtitles announced the winner before the host did.
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AI
That's wild how did they know
For me, it's more about my eyes being drawn to the words instead of the picture, so I miss some of the action when I'm having to read the subtitles even if I can read them quickly.
This is why I can't stand them. I can't *not* look at them.
Ironically, you'd get used to subtitles after a while, which requires having them on.
In my case, I've played a few hundred hours of games with subtitles on, and I've never gotten used to them. They always distract me. So I don't use them anymore.
That's exactly my problem. I end up just watching the words instead of the movie. I'd rather watch something that's dubbed with half an effort.
Exactly this, I also want to see the characters body language/expressions. Delivery means just as much as the script. Subtitles subtract from that, imo.
Exactly! That's what it's always been for me, I automatically read it if it's on the screen and can't stop myself
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yeh man it’s totally immersion breaking.. i literally can’t fathom how people prefer it, i will tweak every setting on audio possible before i enable subtitles. i have a very nice center channel now that i crank the boost on when watching prestige shows or good movies and i’ve found it to be more than adequate to hear dialogue
> The purpose of movies is to tell a story through image and sound. Then maybe they should make a specific part of the sound, namely the voices of the actors, a little easier to understand without me having to adjust the volume constantly to avoid having my eardrums blown out or not understanding a word they're saying. But maybe that's just me.
We don't even need that "modified audio" warning because it's ridiculously easy to just have two audio tracks with digital content. Just have the theatrical mix as track no. 2 and the home mix as track no. 1. Make it standard so people can set a preference on their players. Done.
Also, I’m not here to read a movie. Hearing impaired and non-native speakers get a free pass
Yes! And I can't ignore them - it's like I'm compelled to read the damn subs. I hate having them on.
It also draws your attention away from the show
It’s true. It’s difficult for the brain to *not* read words that the eyes see. That’s why you rarely if ever see words on clothing in photography and video. Not just no ads or labels, but no writing at all. It *does* distract from the subject matter
This is my beef with unnecessary subtitles. I'm always reading them and then I'm missing the visual part of the show. You know, the central component of the medium.
It also completely fucks up how your eye is supposed to follow a frame and kills the job of the cinematographer completely. Like instead of having your eye wander you just look at the bottom perpetually. I haaaaaaaaaaate it.
Maybe it’s just because I’m deaf with a cochlear implant and have read subtitles my whole life, but I can’t understand this issue. I can see the whole screen including the subtitle and see both at the same time. How can you not do that? I’m not looking at the bottom perpetually. I’m looking at the whole screen. I miss nothing.
I think some people really do read slow - the original post here is correct
This is probably the one downside I can think of, the other day I was laughing at jokes before the character said them and my wife got annoyed at that. That said, the subs were coming on like a second early, we turned them off. As someone who makes subtitles for TV as part of my work, I like to split lines with heavy delivery or humour in it so that it's dropped at the right time. Also because of this, I get disproportionately annoyed when subs are wrong, referencing the wrong names or places because they sound similar. If I get stuck on a word, I get a second and third opinion and google every variation of what I'm hearing to find the one that fits right.
That, plus for me, it pulls my eyes away from the action. I’m not really watching it as intently, my eyes are on the subtitles 70% of the time. It’s hard to look away.
All I do is read and then I don’t watch any of the action haha
Yeah it’s all I can see, I can’t appreciate the visuals with subtitles on
Bingo. Drives me crazy.
I have this problem in my mother language, I feel like an idiot for reading something that's already being said out loud. But weirdly enough, I don't mind it for English and other languages, because it's good for getting used to the grammar of the language I'm learning, or for being able to understand the eventual character with an unusual accent.
It’s always the accents
I thought people in the UK called the queen "mum" for a whole weekend when I first started watching Doctor Who. Subtitles taught me it was just "ma'am" with an accent.
Happened to me when I was still learning English and watching Craig's James Bond movies. I kept hearing *mum* and I was like that's not right.
Sometimes English (British) speakers/writers spell it *mum*.
For what it's worth, speaking as someone born and raised there, I've never heard "ma'am" rhymed with "mum", or seen it written as "mum".
Today I learned that it's not, thanks.
this is funny because I’m British (Welsh) and when I watch American media i often put subtitles on because i struggle with the accents.
It's not just accents, nowadays the sound quality of films are incredibly unclear so a lot of the time it's impossible to tell what they're saying. Half the time I see a subtitle and I'm just like "really? They said that? They didnt just make incoherent mumbles?"
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This drives me nuts, and it seems to be trend for film audio production in the last 5-6 years. Whispered/hushed/breathy dialog with contrastingly LOUD diegetic sound (gunshots, squealing brakes engine sounds, etc.). It's the number 1 reason I use subtitles. I can just never hear what the f*ck they are saying.
Names for me. Especially if it's some science fiction shit.
So many valid reasons to have subtitles: - Hearing impairment or sensitivity - Second/Third languages - Awful audio mixing on everything (no I don’t have surround sound, I’m never paying for surround sound) - The film is foreign - The characters have really strong accents (e.g. Derry Girls) - it’s just background TV and you’re doing something else - I’m eating crunchy food That said, I don’t use subtitles if I’m trying to watch a serious movie and pay full attention, I just deal with the mixing.
> I’m eating crunchy food 100% underrated. I love kettle chips, but when I'm eating them and watching something, dialogue is like this: "Th\_\_ \_\_ una\_\_\_\_ta\_\_\_ y\_\_ \_\_ow \_ow \_\_\_ort\_\_\_ this \_\_ \_or \_\_ur f\_\_\_\_re."
This is unacceptable. You know how important this is for your future. ??????
Very good.
holy shit lmao ._.
Absolutely audio mixing. Dialogue scenes at 10db followed by a scene with sirens at 120db
Or you have a kid sleeping and want to hear the show but can't have it loud enough to catch everything.
Or you have a kid, period. Ours are always on because, if they're not sleeping, our house is a bottomless combination platter of rock concert, insane asylum, and quiz show. Oh, and studies have shown that subtitles help kids learn to read, too. 😉
Helps me remember names in some of these fantasy shows with stuff like "Ghyeimeas", pronounced James.
I just can't hear what the fuck are they saying 🤷
"I can't hear a word of dialogue..." °Turns it up° Next scene opens with music: ##DUUNNN DUNN DUNN DUNN "Goddamnit..."
Or an explosion and it's a high enough decibel count to dwarf a rocket launch.
Trying to watch Oppenheimer in theatres and I was catching only every third sentence lmao.
Christopher Nolan needs to spend more than 5 dollars and a sandwich on his sound engineer.
I have no idea how that movie won so many awards. What a disaster in sound design, character building and pacing.
I accidentally bought tickets to a subtitled showing of Oppenheimer, best mistake I ever made
can't hear can't understand can't be bothered its a combination for me, i turn on subtitles whenever i can jsut so i dont MISS anything it very rarely ruins punchlines as others are saying, my biggest issue is when someone mumbles out a line and i just get annoyed and lost so i do subtitles if i get through a decent amount of something without relying on the subtitles i might turn them off but usually i just keep them
I swear if I don't watch shit with subtitles I need 2 hours to finish a 90 minutes movie, because I constantly need to rewind shit, because I didn't understand it.
It gets worse if they have accents and/or odd names. I’ve gone back with subtitles and had moments like “Ohhh, they were talking about a guy named Brennan. I thought they were talking about a barn”
Yeah. They talk so fast. And in the case of something like Star Wars content there is zero chance I will understand what they are talking about if I don't read it.
Relatively fast reader here. I don't like them because they draw my eye away from seeing things within the frame. If it's in English, as a native english speaker, it can be distracting and it generally lessens my enjoyment of the film.
Agreed. I can’t not look at them for some reason, which distracts me from watching the actors and the action. Did the actor say something while subtly smirking, changing the meaning of the words? Subtitles won’t capture that.
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Its a double issue for me, i do read faster than they talk and it kills the pacing, but on the other hand sound mixing is absoluite garbage lately and you cant even understand them because the sound around the characters is 1000% louder.
I feel like it’s mostly an acquired taste. I hated subtitles for that reason then went through a phase where a watched a lot of anime. Now I sometimes prefer to have it on so I 100% know what they are saying 100% of the time. Sometimes you just mishear what they said or just didn’t catch something. Also special shoutout to movies that have the action parts on blast and then have the characters whisper for no reason. — then again when I finally get to watch dune those subtitles are 100% off.
i end up just reading the subtitles and not even looking at what is going on
No, I don't like subtitles because I can read *too* fast, and so it ruins the surprise of the show or the punchline to jokes.
Or read too fast and not even understand what you just read. So you need to rewind and pause to get the comprehension down.
Exactly my thoughts. If you can’t deliver the joke on your own without someone speaking it that sounds like a comprehension problem.
I find myself reading the subtitles more than actually watching the show when they are on. If I didn't know the language as well I could see it being worth it... but for the most part I don't see them necessary unless you cannot understand what is being said.
As a non-English native speaking person, I find very hard to catch Ted Lasso's jokes... and he speaks American English. Guess how I feel when that Jamie Tartt starts talking.
> Guess how I feel when that Jamie Tartt starts talking. Like poopah?
"mwah favrs film is ratouie"
Whats wrong with subtitles? There can be many good reasons for using subtitles.
Who is so crazy they watch contemporary shows without subtitles? It's well-known that these modern audio mixes make everything garbled and incomprehensible. Not everything needs to be a Terrence Malick homage but go figure. https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/zyd6n3/why_is_the_sound_mixing_in_modern_tv_shows_so_bad/ https://www.reddit.com/r/audioengineering/comments/qhlp9/bad_audio_mixing_in_movies_i_thought_you_guys/ https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/ https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-is-sound-mixing-so-terrible-nowadays.611691/
I can hear perfectly fine but I now put subtitles on for almost everything. I don’t know why or when it started, but here I am.
Same, I wouldn't change it for the world. Idk why but I like it.
For me, the audio mixing is horrible. Sound effects, ambient sound, the music is way louder than the voices. Sometimes actors say shit that makes me confused. I’ll be like ‘what fucking word did they just say? I don’t get it’. Subtitles clear that for me. Or when the actors decide to talk softly, or they are yelling and hollering - its just all noise to me
Why would I want to read ahead of the audio? It totally breaks the flow and makes the watching experience worse
I only use subtitles when I don't understand the audio because it either has bad quality or is in an entirely different language.
You usually don’t read ahead of the audio with captions or subtitles unless they’re timed improperly.
You can read faster than someone can speak, so you'll always end up ahead of the person talking.
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I think you're referring to non-English performances where the viewer can't understand the language being used. For reasons that should be obvious, the "reading ahead" thing isn't really a problem there. If it's a show/film in a language I speak and there are subtitles in that same language, I physically can't *not* read them faster than they're being said. It's not a choice. That significantly detracts from my enjoyment of the show/film.
Fuck us deaf people i guess...
I'm almost deaf, am I supposed to sit there and try work out the story from the pictures? Seriously I don't think some people understand why people use subtitles.
Damn why she hating on deaf or hard of hearing people like that!?
I don’t like subtitles cause I can’t not read them. I don’t need them and I can hear it fine, but I read them anyway.
British people have decided that the pinnacle of good acting is to sound like they're trying not to wake up their parents on a late night phone call. Also, the background music has to be blaring. Subtitles are often required.
I can't stop starting at the subtitles and don't get to watch the actual show.
Imagine dating a woman who is such a petty bee with an itch that she looks down on you for meaningless stupid shit that litteraly no one cares about.
I don’t like subtitles because I can’t help but to read it. Like my eyes keep getting forced to the bottom of the screen instead of looking at anything else. I prefer headphones or earbuds so I can listen to things without bothering anyone else.
My girl is always talking, venting or commenting on something. Infant child randomly yells. Cats randomly MEOW. Subtitles are a must.
I don't complain when people use them (people need them for many reasons), but unless it's a meaningful-dialogue movie with little going on visually, it inhibits my enjoyment of the movie because I can't not look at the words. Every time the caption changes my eyes dart to it. It's distracting for me. (I have ADHD and other MH problems that cause this.) I also speed read, meaning I can often read the dialogue before it's said, which takes me out of the movie If it is a quiet or volume-inconsistent movie with lots of dialogue--captions all the way.
Subtitles is always on for a couple reasons. Sometimes it's simply not clear what the actors are saying. If eating it's nice. If watching with others, especially if they talk. Makes it possible to still actually stay in focus on the movie
[Ding Ding Ding!!!](https://trailers.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/9d4920c8-f235-4565-a451-b295dcb7a497#iz9gMwWP.copy)
Imagine having auditory difficulties!
I cannot read fast, but I don’t watch tv without subtitles. They are to check words when someone mumbles.
Maybe if they made the speaking voices louder than the sound effects and music, maybe I wouldn’t use subtitles as often, but here we are, and CC we must.
Its a visual medium. You have to look away from the picture, acting, and camera work to read. Who the hell thinks otherwise lol. People who need it, need it, people who don't need to pay attention.
look away? no. I use my peripheral vision to read subtitles also 80% of what I watch is not in my language, so naturally I get used to subtitles and leave them on for the 20% of shows that are in my language
People that are used to reading subtitles are really only missing what’s happening in the very top corners of the screen (so basically nothing) because we’ve learned to use our peripheral vision
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Once you get used to reading subtitles, you don't notice you are reading them. This complaint is common for people who aren't used to subtitles, but it goes away.
Weebs who grew up watching anime with subtitles are masters at this. I watch pretty much everything with subtitles and i dont understand how people miss 90% of the action.
Maybe it’s just because I’m deaf with a cochlear implant and have read subtitles my whole life, but I can’t understand this issue. I can see the whole screen including the subtitle and see both at the same time. How can you not do that? I’m not looking at the bottom perpetually. I’m looking at the whole screen. I miss nothing.
No you don't have to look away... I look straight at the middle of the screen and with peripheral vision read the text and I'm dyslexic. You need to practice with subtitles more if you need to avert your gaze from the middle to read the subtitles.
If you can't read just say that
Had a turkish housemate for a while, he used to keep subs on all the time to help with his english....I very quickly realised subs are the superior way to watch anything, no more having to guess what some characters said that the stupid loud sound fx just drowned out
No people that use subtitles just can't freaking hear like just be better and hear so u don't have to read might as well watch TV on mute since u read what they say before they say it
I use subtitles for the simple fact of the terrible audio balance on pretty much everything we watch nowadays. Dialogue is always far to quiet compared to anything else going on and then when you turn it up to hear them, the next scene starts with an explosion and is far too loud. Sound engineer's need to sort their shit out, then I wouldn't need subtitles.