Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

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TheDenizen
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by TheDenizen »

livelove wrote:Seeing how much is lost in translation (with big bloopers only being the tip of the iceberg), I am torn about whether to watch movies whose original language I don't understand.

How do you deal with this question ?

I would welcome any advice. Thank you.

Yes, when watching a film (either subbed or dubbed) in a language you don't understand, you can sometimes (but not always) lose something in the translation which can ever so slightly take away from some of the overall enjoyment. However, in my experience this is fairly minor and relatively rare. IMO you are doing yourself a much bigger disservice by not watching ANY movies not in English.

The overall scope of my appreciation for the language of cinema would be much, much smaller if I'd never watched tons of films from Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Spain, India, Germany, France, South Korea, etc etc.

Luna6ix
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by Luna6ix »

I'm almost baffled by the question. I've met some people in person who don't want to watch subbed movies before, but they could hardly be called movie buffs.

Here's my stance. Watching any movie translated in any way could make you miss something, but hell, a movie doesn't need to be in another language for you to miss something. You stand to lose far more by not watching something at all.

livelove
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by livelove »

TheDenizen wrote:Yes, when watching a film (either subbed or dubbed) in a language you don't understand, you can sometimes (but not always) lose something in the translation which can ever so slightly take away from some of the overall enjoyment. However, in my experience this is fairly minor and relatively rare.
I'm not sure. By definition, you cannot know what you don't know. I recently watched a Korean comedy with English subs which were so bad that ~90% did not make any sense. If it's that extreme, it's almost a good thing, because you know that you are dealing with a bad translation. If you miss 20% in the translation, you might not notice but still miss important things.

TheDenizen wrote:IMO you are doing yourself a much bigger disservice by not watching ANY movies not in English.
I didn't say that I only watch movies in English. I speak other languages too.
But I agree with your assessment.

There are only 3 options as far as I can see:
1. don't watch movies whose language you don't understand
2. learn the language
3. settle for subs

1) is counterproductive as you rightly said
2) is rather improbable given the difficulty to achieve the proficiency required for understanding 99% of conversations
so 3) is what remains

livelove
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by livelove »

Luna6ix wrote:I'm almost baffled by the question. […] Here's my stance. Watching any movie translated in any way could make you miss something, but hell, a movie doesn't need to be in another language for you to miss something. You stand to lose far more by not watching something at all.
The difference is that if you understand the language you still may miss something.
But if you don't understand the language, you are guaranteed to miss a lot.

But you are right.
Reading a translation is not perfect.
But not seeing the movie - if that's the only other alternative - is certainly worse.

Hell, that makes me want learning all the languages in the world ... :?

livelove
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by livelove »

CosmicMonkey wrote:Have I missed some nuance as a result of translation? Almost certainly, but I can't think of an instance where it's been significant enough to affect my enjoyment of a movie.
You cannot know this.

Besides, I am not only talking about nuances, but also
  • • outright mistranslations
  • • the effect of comprehensible spoken words vs. incomprehensible spoken words
  • • subs are shortened to facilitate reading. Often that makes them more superficial.

levine
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by levine »

But if you believe a foreign movie is genuinely really good, won't you rather take a shot and watch it? I think sitting out on such a huge portion of the world's great movies is a way bigger downside than occasionally missing something major in translation. Not to mention, watching something from a very different culture where you don't actually "get" everything can in itself be super fascinating.

Also, if you've primarily watched dubs before, give subs an honest attempt to get used to them. Because I do agree that missing out on the actors' vocal performance is pretty huge.

PrestoBix
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by PrestoBix »

Not only is not watching foreign language films incredibly bone-headed, but the idea that you have to "save" films for when you've learned the language is even worse. For virtually every film ever made, you get just as much from a re-watch as you do your first viewing. Hell, you'll probably forget 98% of the movie in just 4 or 5 years, anyway.

livelove
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by livelove »

Neowulf wrote:But if you believe a foreign movie is genuinely really good, won't you rather take a shot and watch it? I think sitting out on such a huge portion of the world's great movies is a way bigger downside than occasionally missing something major in translation. Not to mention, watching something from a very different culture where you don't actually "get" everything can in itself be super fascinating.
thank you. these are all excellent points, I wholeheartedly agree with you

Neowulf wrote:Also, if you've primarily watched dubs before, give subs an honest attempt to get used to them. Because I do agree that missing out on the actors' vocal performance is pretty huge.
Whenever I had the choice between sub and dub, I chose sub. Although if I happened to bump into a movie on free TV which I very much wanted to see, I sometimes settled for the dub, if the original audio was not available. However, as a consequence of this discussion and this related discussion, I have promised myself to stay away from dubbings for good.

livelove
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Re: Do you watch movies if you don't understand the original language ?

Post by livelove »

PrestoBix wrote:Not only is not watching foreign language films incredibly bone-headed, but the idea that you have to "save" films for when you've learned the language is even worse.
why is saving films for later "worse" than never watching them?

PrestoBix wrote:For virtually every film ever made, you get just as much from a re-watch as you do your first viewing. Hell, you'll probably forget 98% of the movie in just 4 or 5 years, anyway.
I agree that there are films, which work that way. But there are others which I wouldn't necessarily like to watch a second time, even if I like them the first time. It really depends on which kind of film it was and does not necessarily have to do with how high I rated it. I call this the rewatchability factor (RF), which for me is independent from the rating itself. I generally prefer to watch a new film rather than rewatching one I already know — save for my absolute favourite films.

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