DVD Release in Germany

denis · Post by **denis** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 5:23 pm

Allard wrote:I think it's a good thing people are proud of their own language and don't sell out to English, but subtitles are a superior translating system compared to dubbing. Because the acting performance is not harmed, you can still check if the translation was correct and you can actually learn a bit of another language.

Watching a British series with English subtitles is very good to improve English.
Once again, I do not think subtitles are the problem for broadcasting Cathy Gale seasons.

Norbert · Post by **Norbert** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 5:30 pm

Allard wrote:but subtitles are a superior translating system compared to dubbing.

No, they are not. You have to read the dialogues you are hearing in order to understand them.

Allard wrote:Because the acting performance is not harmed, you can still check if the translation was correct and you can actually learn a bit of another language.

Not necessarily. Think of a movie shot in a language you never learned, e. g. Japanese. You do not know how accurate the translation really is. And if the actors talk very fast the subtitles must be very condensed.

Furthermore, there are also international co-productions which have no real original language. The German actors talk in German, the French in French and the Italians in Italian. Later, the French and Italian sentences are dubbed into German for the German version, the German and Italian sentences are dubbed into French for the French version, and the German and French sentences are dubbed into Italian for the Italian version. The Dutch version is subtitled - but what soundtrack is used?

Post by **Allard** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 5:44 pm

Well I never experienced reading subtitles and watching the film as real intellectually challenging, but having subtitles in English to accompany an English soundtrack is the most pleasant. Same goes for German by the way.

Philippa · Post by **Philippa** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 5:57 pm

Norbert wrote:
Allard wrote:but subtitles are a superior translating system compared to dubbing.
No, they are not. You have to read the dialogues you are hearing in order to understand them.

You can't just say "they are not". You might experience it that way, but others might have a different opinion.
I respect that fact that people prefer watching dubbed tv series and films, to each their own, and it's also what you're used to.
I live partially in the Netherlands where nothing is dubbed apart from children's tv, and partially in France where everything is dubbed so I get to see both sides of the story.
Neighbours and other people I know here in France, don't mind the dubbing at all because they're used to it, they don't know any better, and the people I know in the Netherlands prefer subtitles because they're used to that.
Preferring one to the other doesn't make the other one necessarily worse.
I'm just saying that by subtitling, you tend to pick up a lot from different languages, and it enables you to learn other languages easier.
I myself for instance, I learned English just by watching tv! I could read full English books by the time I was 10 and I had never had one English lesson in school. Maybe I'm a bad example because not everyone picks up languages as easy as I do, but I do know that most of the people I know can understand and speak English to some extend, which is something I can't say about my French friends.

Post by **Allard** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 6:07 pm

The great thing now is that with DVD you can usually choose, wheter you want dubbing or the original. If they have the decency to provide both.

Dandy Forsdyke · Post by **Dandy Forsdyke** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 6:14 pm

Philippa wrote:I myself for instance, I learned English just by watching tv! I could read full English books by the time I was 10 and I had never had one English lesson in school.

Wow, I'm impressed. I can't even get my head around how you could do that.

Norbert · Post by **Norbert** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 6:15 pm

Allard wrote:The great thing now is that with DVD you can usually choose, wheter you want dubbing or the original. If they have the decency to provide both.

100 % agree.

I am very fond of having the choice between several languages. It is sometimes very interesting to compare how some scenes are transferred into other languages.

Avengerholic · Post by **Avengerholic** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 6:22 pm

denis wrote:In fact, it's quite boring most of the time and I fell once asleep in front of my TV set !!

While indeed technically inferior, there is nothing boring about the Gale era. IMO that says more about the viewer than the story.

Norbert · Post by **Norbert** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 6:28 pm

There are some Gale episodes, I really like, for example MR. TEDDY BEAR. But one has to be aware of the fact that the style of the series was quite different.

(I have bought seasons 2 and 3 from France, and I would also buy German DVDs of these early seasons - even without German audio. But I am afraid I am - almost - the only one.)

Philippa · Post by **Philippa** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:00 pm

Dandy Forsdyke wrote:
Philippa wrote:I myself for instance, I learned English just by watching tv! I could read full English books by the time I was 10 and I had never had one English lesson in school.
Wow, I'm impressed. I can't even get my head around how you could do that.

Neither can I

To be honest, I don't even know how that happened. I can't remember a time when I wasn't able to understand English. It just sort of feels like a 2nd language to me, I never had any problems understanding or speaking it.

I wish all languages would come to me this easy, especially right now, since I'm studying Arabic. It's so incredibly hard and at the moment I feel like I'll never master it