Series on TV or the Internet

This forum is to learn about foreign cultures and habits, because language skills are not everything you need as a world citizen...

Moderator:Forum Administrators

User avatar
Johanna
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:6679
Joined:2006-09-17, 18:05
Real Name:Johanna
Gender:female
Location:Lidköping, Westrogothia
Country:SESweden (Sverige)
Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Johanna » 2020-08-02, 22:24

Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:
liljorna wrote:
Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:
OldBoring wrote:Reading subtitles can be distracting...
I always put on subtitles, even when I'm watching Dutch television. It's just way more relaxed if you can read it all together in stead of listening to what they're saying.

same here! i always thought i was the only one... it really annoys the people around me. i like it because with subtitles i don't have to turn up the volume even when i do noisy activities like eating. :D and sometimes the subtitles contain funny mistakes.

Luckily my wife likes it too :wink: And yes, without subtitles you need to turn up the volume and I don't like doing that because then I'm afraid I won't hear it if one of the children wakes up.

I tend to turn on subtitles when watching the actual TV, the option is there and they work well, which sadly isn't always a given. I live in an apartment well within the town limits after all, so the occasional loud-ish noise isn't all that rare.

When watching things on my computer, I only do it if I seriously can't hear what is being said, due to poor mixing, a character mumbling half the time, or unfamiliar accents or similar. Or eating ;) But then there's always the option of stopping and going back, plus I usually use headphones, so there's less interference before the sound reaches my ears :)

Of course, I don't have kids, so the only thing I actually have to take into consideration is whether I can hear what's being said, and of course my neighbors—hence using headphones when possible.

liljorna wrote:
Hoogstwaarschijnlijk wrote:But in the Netherlands nothing is dubbed, subtitles for English programmes are normal here.

you're lucky. in germany everything is dubbed :(, so i rarely watch foreign movies or shows on tv.

Sweden is like the Netherlands in this regard, only things for young children who can't read fast enough to follow subtitles yet are dubbed. We also get most movies and TV series from the English-speaking world, so growing up I watched more things with subtitles than without, at least once I was old enough to graduate from "for kids" to "family friendly".

Productions in other languages weren't that rare either; as a teenager I watched a couple of Italian and French ones, as well as German, but none in Spanish or Portuguese for some reason... And of course, quite a few from Denmark, that country has a huge output for its size and without the quality being worse for it.

I hate dubbing with all my heart when it comes to live-action, it's just... NO! Even as a rather small kid I could tell that it wasn't the person on screen speaking, but I didn't know anything else so I just accepted that that was how things were. Once I got old enough to watch stuff in the original language with subtitles, however, I immediately detested the dubbed things, even when I liked the story.

Animation is more forgiving, but it seems like the quality in translations has gone down considerably. In the 1990's, it was still a rather specialized field, and the people working in it knew when keeping things close to the original would work, as opposed to looking at the intent behind a line—or even an entire scene—in order to provide something that was both idiomatic and synced to the characters' lip movements. These days, when you have a lot more people fluent and semi-fluent in English, few want to pay for actual high-quality, non-rushed work when it comes to translating from that language, so even when when money isn't a problem, finding people with a level of expertise and experience even close to back in the day is impossible :cry:

Long story short, you can hear the underlying English.
Swedish (sv) native; English (en) good; Norwegian (no) read fluently, understand well, speak badly; Danish (dk) read fluently, understand badly, can't speak; Faroese (fo) read some, understand a bit, speak a few sentences; German (de) French (fr) Spanish (es) forgetting; heritage language.

User avatar
Aurinĭa
Forum Administrator
Posts:3909
Joined:2008-05-14, 21:18
Country:BEBelgium (België / Belgique)

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Aurinĭa » 2020-08-03, 16:42

Johanna wrote:Animation is more forgiving, but it seems like the quality in translations has gone down considerably. In the 1990's, it was still a rather specialized field, and the people working in it knew when keeping things close to the original would work, as opposed to looking at the intent behind a line—or even an entire scene—in order to provide something that was both idiomatic and synced to the characters' lip movements. These days, when you have a lot more people fluent and semi-fluent in English, few want to pay for actual high-quality, non-rushed work when it comes to translating from that language, so even when when money isn't a problem, finding people with a level of expertise and experience even close to back in the day is impossible :cry:

Long story short, you can hear the underlying English.

Sadly, that's increasingly the case for subtitling as well. Netflix is notorious for that, but they aren't the only ones.

The phrase "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys" is often uttered by actual trained and qualified translators.

User avatar
Johanna
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:6679
Joined:2006-09-17, 18:05
Real Name:Johanna
Gender:female
Location:Lidköping, Westrogothia
Country:SESweden (Sverige)

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Johanna » 2020-08-05, 7:04

Aurinĭa wrote:
Johanna wrote:Animation is more forgiving, but it seems like the quality in translations has gone down considerably. In the 1990's, it was still a rather specialized field, and the people working in it knew when keeping things close to the original would work, as opposed to looking at the intent behind a line—or even an entire scene—in order to provide something that was both idiomatic and synced to the characters' lip movements. These days, when you have a lot more people fluent and semi-fluent in English, few want to pay for actual high-quality, non-rushed work when it comes to translating from that language, so even when when money isn't a problem, finding people with a level of expertise and experience even close to back in the day is impossible :cry:

Long story short, you can hear the underlying English.

Sadly, that's increasingly the case for subtitling as well. Netflix is notorious for that, but they aren't the only ones.

The phrase "If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys" is often uttered by actual trained and qualified translators.

Subtitles have always had that problem here, more or less, as even back in the day it was often a job for the inexperienced before they moved onto more "serious" things, but unidiomatic language becomes so much more obvious when spoken out loud...

That said, it's a lot worse these days; not only do they not pay enough to get actual professionals, deadlines are so ridiculous that it wouldn't help much even if they were. And yeah, it seems to be a much bigger problem with the streaming and TV mediums than for example theatrical releases of big blockbuster movies or DVD/Blu-ray releases of movies and TV series.
Swedish (sv) native; English (en) good; Norwegian (no) read fluently, understand well, speak badly; Danish (dk) read fluently, understand badly, can't speak; Faroese (fo) read some, understand a bit, speak a few sentences; German (de) French (fr) Spanish (es) forgetting; heritage language.

User avatar
Gormur
Posts:8190
Joined:2005-05-17, 1:11
Real Name:Gormur
Gender:male
Country:CUCuba (Cuba)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Gormur » 2020-08-05, 11:27

That's not good. I think Norway does pretty well aside from things that aren't accurate or are stylistic. Maybe someone reviews it. But sometimes it's dense or stilted which doesn't bother me besides being awkward to read quickly

I've never had to think about any of it but often you see words that have a different meaning from the original. I think someone was trying to keep within the mood of the narrative. In reality, it could be a computer translator :hmm:
Eigi gegnir þat at segja at bók nøkkur er hreinferðug eðr ønnur spelluð því at vandliga ok dáliga eru bœkr ritnar ok annat kunnum vér eigi um þœr at dœma

User avatar
Aurinĭa
Forum Administrator
Posts:3909
Joined:2008-05-14, 21:18
Country:BEBelgium (België / Belgique)

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Aurinĭa » 2020-08-05, 17:08

Johanna wrote:Subtitles have always had that problem here, more or less, as even back in the day it was often a job for the inexperienced before they moved onto more "serious" things, but unidiomatic language becomes so much more obvious when spoken out loud...

Here, subtitling is/was more something a translator could choose to specialise in, just like specialising in medical or juridical translations. You wouldn't invest in proper subtitling software unless you're serious about it. Though nowadays there are cheaper or free options with less functionality, but good enough for occasional use.

I agree completely with your second paragraph.

User avatar
Johanna
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:6679
Joined:2006-09-17, 18:05
Real Name:Johanna
Gender:female
Location:Lidköping, Westrogothia
Country:SESweden (Sverige)

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Johanna » 2020-08-07, 2:13

Aurinĭa wrote:
Johanna wrote:Subtitles have always had that problem here, more or less, as even back in the day it was often a job for the inexperienced before they moved onto more "serious" things, but unidiomatic language becomes so much more obvious when spoken out loud...

Here, subtitling is/was more something a translator could choose to specialise in, just like specialising in medical or juridical translations. You wouldn't invest in proper subtitling software unless you're serious about it. Though nowadays there are cheaper or free options with less functionality, but good enough for occasional use.

To be fair, I think it was mostly like that at the commercial networks, but I can hardly remember a time before there were any. And they were still miles and miles better than almost anything today, just not as good as the dubbed lines in animated movies used to be.

Of course, software is part of the problem, but I doubt that what existed in 1990 was truly better than the free or budget options today. I suspect that this is where those deadlines come into play; since modern premium software that speeds up the process considerably in comparison, even those who don't have access to it are expected to work as quickly as if they did. Back then, that the process would take a while was just how things were.
Swedish (sv) native; English (en) good; Norwegian (no) read fluently, understand well, speak badly; Danish (dk) read fluently, understand badly, can't speak; Faroese (fo) read some, understand a bit, speak a few sentences; German (de) French (fr) Spanish (es) forgetting; heritage language.

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Car » 2020-08-08, 14:30

People here are complaining that the dubs aren't as good as they used to be, but one reason is obvious: The lack of time. Traditionally, the delay between the original broadcast and the German one used to be huge, but with the advent of piracy over the internet, there's the huge pressure to get everything ASAP, so they really have to produce it in a ridiculously short time frame. I read an article about it once and it's just a huge amount of pressure. Also, the channels are afraid of leaks, so the translators and speakers barely get to see the proper material any more.
Please correct my mistakes!

awrui
Posts:160
Joined:2019-05-09, 9:55

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby awrui » 2020-10-15, 22:55

I just finished "Dark" on netflix... It makes me cringe, and it makes me really aggressive. The whole series is like: "Hi, I'm some mysterious dude, I'm here to tell you something, but I won't tell and some day you'll understand, I see you are confused but I still don't tell you." An then something about a God and the other person finds out they are related. And the next person is like, "blah blah time future profecy mysterious BS and no, I'm not going to explain". Also, the voice of the old guy drives me crazy, they all have such cringy names, and it seems there is only three seconds of soundtrack that are just endlessly repeated.
OMG PEOPLE JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER AND DRINK SOME TEA :headbang: so frustrating.

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Osias » 2020-10-16, 0:35

I've found really hard to watch more than 3 episodes of that.

But Cobra Kai is actually pretty good.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Car » 2020-11-05, 15:31

I watched the first two episodes of Final Space, but I don't get why some people like it so much. What's worst is that you can't recognise David Tennant's voice at all. Did anyone else watch it?
Please correct my mistakes!

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Osias » 2020-11-06, 1:54

I saw the first season. I don't know exactly why. I think I was depressed and needed to watch anything about space, even if so bad as it was.

The second season, though, I couldn't tolerate.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Car » 2020-11-07, 17:23

Glad it's not just me.
Please correct my mistakes!

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Osias » 2020-11-07, 22:40

Queen's Gambit is pretty good.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

User avatar
Antea
Posts:3954
Joined:2015-08-23, 10:53
Real Name:c
Gender:female

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Antea » 2020-11-08, 21:09

I started to watch "Barbarian" in German, but I don't think I will continue.

Varislintu
Posts:15429
Joined:2004-02-09, 13:32
Country:VUVanuatu (Vanuatu)

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Varislintu » 2021-01-09, 12:20

awrui wrote:I just finished "Dark" on netflix... It makes me cringe, and it makes me really aggressive. The whole series is like: "Hi, I'm some mysterious dude, I'm here to tell you something, but I won't tell and some day you'll understand, I see you are confused but I still don't tell you." An then something about a God and the other person finds out they are related. And the next person is like, "blah blah time future profecy mysterious BS and no, I'm not going to explain". Also, the voice of the old guy drives me crazy, they all have such cringy names, and it seems there is only three seconds of soundtrack that are just endlessly repeated.
OMG PEOPLE JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER AND DRINK SOME TEA :headbang: so frustrating.


:lol: You're so right! I mean, I watched the whole series, and I liked it well enough. But what I didn't like was exactly this -- they dragged out the plot especially in season two by using this style of nobody telling each other important things. And relying on personal drama as a plot filler.

But after so many series where it's clear the plot doesn't actually have a clear ending or even a pre-planned direction, I did like the fact that this series wrapped up and tied the threads together in the end.

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Osias » 2021-01-09, 12:32

Once in a couple of years I try again to finish watching all Star Trek original episodes because of identifying myself as trekkie and so thinking I should. Every time I stop after some episodes. Even if they're good, they're old.

This time I watched more than the other times. Finished the first season. Then I'm almost a week stuck in the stupid halloween episode.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.

User avatar
md0
Posts:8188
Joined:2010-08-08, 19:56
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby md0 » 2021-01-14, 22:32

I accidentally came across (fr)(fr-be)(de) Parlament on ARD. It's a political comedy set in post-Brexit referendum European Parliament, and it's forcing me to use all the French and German I know, but the pay-off is worth it. It's the EU's answer to the legendary Yes Minister, I guess. It's probably not going to be as good (or I just can't appreciate it to the full extend with my current knowledge of the languages), but it's definitely funny :)
"If you like your clause structure, you can keep your clause structure"
Stable: Cypriot Greek (el-cy)Standard Modern Greek (el)English (en) Current: Standard German (de)
Legacy: France French (fr)Japanese (ja)Standard Turkish (tr)Elementary Finnish (fi)Netherlands Dutch (nl)

User avatar
Car
Forum Administrator
Posts:10953
Joined:2002-06-21, 19:24
Real Name:Silvia
Gender:female
Country:DEGermany (Deutschland)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Car » 2021-01-15, 9:44

I watched it quite recently and quite liked it, but it's definitely not as good as Yes, (Prime) Minister, but it's unbelievable how well much of that aged. Some parts of Yes, Minister really felt dated, but overall it's so relevant. I caught a rerun of the series on the BBC at the time of the Brexit referendum and one of the first episodes was about their relation to Europe and it couldn't have been more current.
Please correct my mistakes!

Varislintu
Posts:15429
Joined:2004-02-09, 13:32
Country:VUVanuatu (Vanuatu)

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Varislintu » 2021-01-19, 9:38

Osias wrote:Once in a couple of years I try again to finish watching all Star Trek original episodes because of identifying myself as trekkie and so thinking I should. Every time I stop after some episodes. Even if they're good, they're old.


I know what you mean. Boyfriend and I recently watched the three seasons of the new Star Trek Discovery, and while it's new and watchable in many ways, our eyes got a lot of exercise from rolling due to the constant, unabashed, glaring plot holes and illogicalities and shortcuts in it. Martin-Green is an excellent lead actress, her face is super expressive, but they also overuse that effect. Considering the character Michael spent her formative years on Vulcan, I don't know why her character has to almost single-handedly carry all the emotional interpretation of the events and relationships. Martin-Green does it absolutely beautifully, but in such repetition it just becomes a... meme.

User avatar
Osias
Posts:9754
Joined:2007-09-09, 17:38
Real Name:Osias Junior
Gender:male
Location:Vitória
Country:BRBrazil (Brasil)
Contact:

Re: Series on TV or the Internet

Postby Osias » 2021-01-19, 15:10

Also, Discovery it's too powerful. The original Enterprise was supposed to be a normal ship from the fleet, but Discovery accumulated new powers each season. It's the only one with the spore drive, the only with the exclusive sphere data, etc.
2017 est l'année du (fr) et de l'(de) pour moi. Parle avec moi en eux, s'il te plait.


Return to “Culture”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 10 guests