Subs vs dubs

Prophessor

All over europe most channels tend to provide content in their mother tongue. Countries like Spain, Italy, Germany, etc, all show movies, tv shows, documentaries dubbed into their language.
Funny stuff is to see that the polish do voice overs in everything that's not in polish. I once saw one of those naughty movies with a male voice over... that really ******* me up. :lol:
In Portugal we tend to keep the original sound and put subtitles, this is so for movies, tv shows, pretty much everything, but some kid programmes.

A few years back RTP (our national broascaster) tried to change this by dubbing, among others, "Friends" into portuguese. It was a complete failure! People hated it so much that the show was soo taken off and put down, rip.

Here in Madeira all this satellite business is fairly new. It all started some 12-15 years and even then not many people had a sat dish, it was very unusual to see one. Since we're so close to Morocco and the Canary Islands we could watch a lot of spanish tv, at least 6 channels. Most people where I live had a big poll with a big amplified UHF antenna on it, in some cases people were able to get fairly good reception all year round. Since we only had one channel (RTPM) no cable tv and sat tv around, having one of these pieces of kit gave you instant bragging rights. Six times more movies, tv shows, football, it was almost a luxury.

I always felt that having content delivered to you in the native language should be the norm, but when I got my sat dish I realized that this was not the case for most of the channels I received. Italian and german tv had some of the best programming but it was all spoilled by the dubs, I always wondered why that is.

Don't people feel that they are loosing something? Imagine Terminator saying: Volvere! instead of I'll be back! Jokes are ruined, the innuendo gets lost, the plot and characters just don't feel right once one watches the original. Even xxx loses its wompf (lol), take for example the Taquilla X channels, its all fake but gets ridiculously fake when the voice overs are always the same voices, the same everything. Now take that and put it into the blockbuster movies and tv shows, one always hears the same 15 odd "actors" over and over again!

I'm for subtitling and or original soundtrack, it can be annoying at times even distracting when you're not used to it, but you get the full product in all its glory. No fake, lame sound fx, no horrid acting, no lame punch lines...

I gess that for the english, french, italian, spanish, etc, based audience, it can be daunting to watch a movie with subs, since most of you aren't used to deal with anything that's not native tongue, but don't you feel you are loosing something?

What do you recon?

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When people ask me what I think, I tell them: "I think all of the meat around the pig's ass is pork."

rolfw

I totally agree, I hate dubbing and prefer subtitles. The only possible exception would be documentaries and news type programmes.

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sophia

I also agree with you, Prophessor.
And I believe that portuguese are quite good at the English language for example, much due to films being transmitted in the original language (in this case English).

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wod

i prefer subtitles as it works better as i once saw little britain on canal + and how would that work in spanish lol

premiere, digital + do english audio on there channels so theres a market for it

Prophessor

Sure, there is a market for it. But most broadcasters, RTL, SAT1, RAI, TVE, the list is endless... don't have the option to switch between original and subbed, not even on digital satellite yet alone terrestrial. Even if you have a NICAM capable tv set, nowadays most people have one, it's useless.

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When people ask me what I think, I tell them: "I think all of the meat around the pig's ass is pork."

Topper

Agree totally Prophessor
Where've you been hiding recently or should I not ask

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Formerly toppervte33h
whose six pack has turned into a keg

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Prophessor

Been doing some sat detoxing
I had my mind a bit busy with the trivial everyday nonsense.

To be fair there was at least one channel that had the Nicam feature in use, and that was TVE1. I couldn't use it at the time since analog terrestrial reception was, still is, very bad over here. Portuguese channels never got to use it, even teletext was only adopted recently, some 6 or so years ago.
The thing is that nicam and teletext combined could give everyone a new/better experience, the resources are there... I really feel sorry for those folks that have to endure this guy talking over the original soundtrack. Yuck!

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When people ask me what I think, I tell them: "I think all of the meat around the pig's ass is pork."

dig deep

Lucky for me we do use sub´s here in Scandinavia (exept for kids below 5)

I don´t think I could stand watching a movie that´s been dubbed - mouth is moving one way and hearing show something else

Our domestic providers have at least 4 languages to choose from - this also means that U can watch a late movie without disturbing any sleeping persons

So I like it

the_happy_traveller

I too am a big fan of subtitles.
The main reason being as like most Brits, I am hopeless with foreign languages.
Our European cousins really put us to shame in that department.
As said before, there is a lot of damned good telly on the European sats and every prog I find is another excuse not to give Mr Murdoch any money

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Prophessor

I didn't know things were that good over there. Still, I'm not that surprised, since a few years back I used to watch tv norge (an4log fta) and their programming used to have subs, I loved that channel. Another great channel that used to have some of the best tv shows, RTL5 (dutch channel) also used to have them, now these 2 channels are no longer receivable here and in the case of RTL5 they changed from being a family based channel to a news one. This was still in the good old days of an4log.

I was a bit surprised to see that the MBC (KSA) and a few other arab channels had subs, it's a very positive thing. It goes to show that the arab folks are more open minded than most of our westerner countries on a few things. And let's face it it's cheaper.

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When people ask me what I think, I tell them: "I think all of the meat around the pig's ass is pork."

BarMoo

I must say I am quite anal about dubbing/synchron (as they say here).

Every film/program should be aired in its native language. The Dutch and Greeks subtitle too.

Some markets have grown up with voice versions of their favourite stars - only to be bitterly disappointed when they hear the real thing.

I heard from my psuedo BF the other week that the German voice of Madge (Simpsons) was better than the original ?? [read: better than the scripted original]. V. Odd.

The only exception to any and all rules regarding dubbing is - "Derek".

Somehow that always worked for me. In fact, I am quite sure that the dubbing artist sounded much better than the real thing.

Moo.

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Have Fun, Moo.

JTA

it's also a question of money : subtitling is cheaper than dubbing. If you have a big market, like the French, Germans or Italians, then you can afford to pay for the audio-dubbing. Here in Flanders/Holland, the Dutch market is too small so we resort to subtitling which - incidently - we like best. It also keeps the mind active : don't forget that while reading the subtitles (in dutch) we're also listening to the original audio conversation (in English or so). As most of us speak English too, our brain is processing both the information streams, making inappropriate subtitle translations pop-out. Quite funny at times. Even funnier is the fact that the Dutch subtitle Flemish programmes, and we subtitle Dutch programmes, even if both are in the same language, but spoken in a somewhat different accent.

Prophessor

We also have, well... had the same "problem" with a brazilian children's program. Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Brazil, São Tomé e Principe are all portuguese speakers. It's a bit funny 'cause this program was for kids that barely knew how to read. Still, it makes some sense because even though we all speak portuguese, every one of these countries has it's own accent, way of speaking, spelling of quite a few words and some words have different meanings.
Portugal was/is bombarded with brazilian novelas since the 70's so understanding it is no problem, the same can't be said about the folks from Brazil. If a portuguese dude goes to Brazil and speaks the same as in Portugal he will have to repeat himself quite a few times so the message gets through,the same doesn't happen as much in the other portuguese speaking countries. Sure it's a generalization but real, I'm sure this happens in english speaking countries too.

I wonder what people think of the characters when after watching the real thing at the cinema (if that ever happens at all on those countries) and then a few months later they watch it again on the tele. My reaction would be: what the hell was that!

I've heard the german Marge and i must say that she sounds almost perfect, a bit too much even but the other characters aren't as good... but close. In some cases the germans really do a great job at dubbing, well they sound close enough.
I've watched french, spanish and italian dubbed movies and the spanish are awful it's always the same people doing all the movies, the french sound really bad and snobish and over act, it's disgusting, the italians are a bit more tolerable to me but all in all they all seem to over act and different movies sound too much alike.

In the end dubs can't really beat this original and highly enigmatic quote from Butthead when he said:
"Klingons near Uranus! hehe he hehe"


This just isn't as funny is other language than the original.

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When people ask me what I think, I tell them: "I think all of the meat around the pig's ass is pork."

wod

well i guess some programs are ruined by dubbing as just flicking through digital + channels and on canal + little britain is in english with subtitles

reading the subtitles is so funny what it translates to in spanish

BarMoo

I learnt yesterday that 'Life On Mars' (that BBC 70's cop show) is airing on Kabel1 in Germany and dubbed. How that's going to translate - I have no idea. Next week, I'll record an ep and come back ....

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Have Fun, Moo.