Eng subtitles not same like eng speech

[newborn77]

Hello everybody, can you help me with maybe naive question?
I learn english language and for that reason i am watching only english movies with english subtitles (subtitles i read, because sometimes actors spoken very fast for me). But i have little problem, because many eng subtitles is not same (identical), like spoken words. I mean... actor says ,,i have it,, and subtitles shows ,, i got it,,.
How i find absolute same spoken and writen language in movie? That difference is a translators mistake, or is it normal? Some subtitles describes every words and also every sound! For example, actor crying or knocking on the door and subtitles describes it. What type of subtitles is it?

Thank you

[SolidRiver]

Most of those are either machine translated subtitles or people who don't speak engish very well but still try to translate english in a way how they speak.

[SmallBrother]

How i find absolute same spoken and writen language in movie?

English subtitles of movies spoken in English SHOULD be exactly the same (except when speech is too fast or too long to fit it into the lines).
If not, the only thing you can do is try another one...

Some subtitles describes every words and also every sound! For example, actor crying or knocking on the door and subtitles describes it. What type of subtitles is it?

These subtitles are meant for hearing impaired people and should be marked as such with this icon:

[hector]

I try to do close transcriptions of the English audio so you can try mine.

I found the same issue as you. In some way this is good because it facilitates reading. Frequently speech is redundant so you can just express the same idea with fewer words. Besides, there are a lot of words which don't carry any important information so you can just drop them (e.g. "you see", "I mean", and so on).

Making subtitles means a tradeoff between these two approaches. Either you do them close to the actual speech or do them legible. My subtitles are very close to the audio but that makes them hard to read. Anyway I think they are better for learning purposes.

[arcchancellor]

I try to do close transcriptions of the English audio so you can try mine.

My subtitles are very close to the audio but that makes them hard to read. Anyway I think they are better for learning purposes.

I agree with that.
I proceed the same way with my own german subs for years and the feedback was almost always positive.

[kerremelk]

Hi.
Here's something totally wacky from real life.
It involves an animation movie on DVD that has Dutch and English subs, and it also lets you choose the spoken language (English original, Dutch dubbing).
When I played that movie with Dutch sound, the Dutch sub said something totally different throughout the movie, and that made the dutch sub unusable for learning purposes, or for the hard of hearing. (truly deaf people wouldn't have issue with it, I guess.)

I suppose it was for reasons of lipsynching that the Dutch words were not really a translation of what was said in English, and the translation in the sub was more true to the English heard. So, I wondered wether there are many dutch spoken movies with subs for hearing impaired people.

As a reply to the OP.
I've come across some English subs on retail DVD that didn't quite match what was being said, so I looked for fansubs instead.
The great majority of those were pretty much the same, but sometimes you find a truly well done sub done by a genuine fan who really cared about the film, and reinstated the true meaning. (which was lost in the 'official' sub.)
And yes, I fixed a few for meaning lost, important omissions, for entire sections of the movie not translated/not transcribed (as in full length uncut versions vs cannibalised for TV or censored cinema cuts...).
When I do that I try to stick to what is said.
But, perhaps more important, I try to still get the athmosphere across when I do have to cut blabber for clarity.
The latter gets truly important when you translate to Dutch, because there's a blabbermouth tongue if ever there was one.
I mean, "you dig?" could get translated to 'versta je het' or 'verstaan?' or 'U graaft?' or even 'hou je ervan?"

As to trueness.
You have to be a good lipreader to spot the difference in, par example:
He'd come <vs> He'll come
He'd do <vs> He'll do <vs> He do (which is used in East Anglian dialects.)
When the speaker does not have its face on screen, it gets neigh impossible to hear these small but important differences.
The 'official' sub may have it correct, though.
All in all, the closer you can stick to what you really hear (should I say, distinctly or clearly hear?), the better.
Sometimes that snippet of background speech is in fact also truly important.
You can decide on that only when you go through the scene more than once and pay close attention to the story buildup.

Are we scratching the surface yet?
Kind regards, JT

[hector]

When I played that movie with Dutch sound, the Dutch sub said something totally different throughout the movie, and that made the dutch sub unusable for learning purposes, or for the hard of hearing. (truly deaf people wouldn't have issue with it, I guess.)

I suppose it was for reasons of lipsynching that the Dutch words were not really a translation of what was said in English, and the translation in the sub was more true to the English heard. So, I wondered wether there are many dutch spoken movies with subs for hearing impaired people.

This is something that I find very annoying. And, yes, I guess that's the reason. Perhaps you could find an "optimum" translation but it is too long or too verbose to use it for dubbing. And probably lip-speech synchronisation is an important issue for dubbing.

Anyway it is the usual case. I don't think I've ever found a DVD where subtitle is the same as dub in any language other than original.

[hector]

I am requesting from the administrators to add a new flag indicating this condition. A flag called "close-to-speech" or "literal". I think it could be useful for people that use subtitles to learn the language.

And it could be used not only for the original audio but for any dubbing. I often find Spanish subtitles that don't match the Spanish dub.

[SmallBrother]

I am requesting from the administrators to add a new flag indicating this condition. A flag called "close-to-speech" or "literal". I think it could be useful for people that use subtitles to learn the language.

And it could be used not only for the original audio but for any dubbing. I often find Spanish subtitles that don't match the Spanish dub.

The decision to add a new flag for this (and to actually add it) would have to be done by the super-admin Oss.

Personally I wonder if this is a good idea. Subtitles in the same language as the spoken text should be literal. Adding a flag and making such distinction would maybe stimulate the 'unwanted' close-to-speech subtitles. I understand that IF close-to-speech are present, it would be nice to know. But many users don't bother with marking such flags, or not knowing what it means, and upload software is really slow with adding such features. I think in reality it would just be an unreliable feature, adding only confusion, mistakes and extra admin work.
Maybe better would be if uploaders would write this in additional info, or downloaders write this as comment.

[hector]

Subtitles in the same language as the spoken text should be literal.

Why should they? I like them to be literal too but I think it is a question of preference. As I explain here making them literal could mean a too high CPS. Perhaps someone prefers a low CPS and just get the meaning with less words. In fact I've found some of these. They are not translations but they are not the same as speech. I could search for examples. I don't remember right now. I don't know whether they should exist or not but they do.

But many users don't bother with marking such flags, or not knowing what it means,

The same could be applied to existing flags like "HD" or even "HI". Once I found a subtitle with annotations for hearing impaired but it wasn't marked as such.

Maybe better would be if uploaders would write this in additional info, or downloaders write this as comment.

Yeah. Sometimes I use the "comment" as a catch-all drawer. But this has the disadvantage that this information isn't easy to retrieve, i.e. it cannot be parsed by a program..You could search all the files that have the word "literal" in the comment but it's not a good idea.

[SmallBrother]

Subtitles in the same language as the spoken text should be literal.

Why should they? I like them to be literal too but I think it is a question of preference. As I explain here making them literal could mean a too high CPS.

I totally agree. But if the purpose is to learn the language, then a high CPS is the price to pay.

But many users don't bother with marking such flags, or not knowing what it means,

The same could be applied to existing flags like "HD" or even "HI". Once I found a subtitle with annotations for hearing impaired but it wasn't marked as such.

I agree again. Also HD or especially HI is used marginally. But this proves my statement - mind you that those flags are currently pretty well implemented in software (and their uploads).

Maybe better would be if uploaders would write this in additional info, or downloaders write this as comment.

Yeah. Sometimes I use the "comment" as a catch-all drawer. But this has the disadvantage that this information isn't easy to retrieve, i.e. it cannot be parsed by a program..You could search all the files that have the word "literal" in the comment but it's not a good idea.

And once again I agree. But I am a manual guy, not an automated one And think of this one: subs are almost all literal, except if CPS would be too high. Would you want another flag for that? And to explain users? Do you understand WHY I'm a manual guy?

[arcchancellor]

But I am a manual guy, not an automated one

That reminds me of this: http://blog.opensubtitles.org/guides/ho ... title-edit

[hector]

I totally agree. But if the purpose is to learn the language, then a high CPS is the price to pay.

And I don't mind paying it. But if the purpose is only to watch the film and get the plot you shouldn't have to pay for it. I think a non-literal subtitle could be not only allowed but also desirable. So if some hearing impaired person is using the subtitle not for learning but just watching the film he is paying for something he doesn't want.

And think of this one: subs are almost all literal, except if CPS would be too high

Which is almost always. I don't think film makers and directors have CPS in mind when they write the script or shoot a scene ;-D

Two examples of "free" or "non-literal" subtitles:
http://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtitl ... an-gray-en
http://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtitl ... volcano-en
but I'm sure I could find many more.

Would you want another flag for that?

Yes. Definitely.

There's someone out there apart from newborn77 and me who would like to have this? Let the people speak out.

[SmallBrother]

But if the purpose is only to watch the film and get the plot you shouldn't have to pay for it. I think a non-literal subtitle could be not only allowed but also desirable. So if some hearing impaired person is using the subtitle not for learning but just watching the film he is paying for something he doesn't want.

You definitely have a point. I was just defending what is considered a criterium for quality. See viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14224 ("A "Trusted" member uploads verbatim subtitles if they are in the original spoken language"). This was decided after an internal discussion between admins.
But yes, you are right: not only often it is just not possible for technical reasons, but also a hearing impaired person cares about watching and following the movie, not about the exact text.
Realistically I still have my doubts, but that's another problem. Philosophically I am behind you I will raise attention for this in the admin section.

Would you want another flag for that?

Yes. Definitely.

Maybe you misunderstood me here.
I mean: what about a subtitle that is let's say 60% literal and 40% "close-to-speech" (for whatever technical reason). Should this one get the 'literal' flag, the 'close-to-speech' flag, or should there be a third flag: a 'mix' flag?

There's someone out there apart from newborn77 and me who would like to have this? Let the people speak out.

Yes, please.
Maybe including admins who have/had the opinion that subs should only be literal.

[hector]

I mean: what about a subtitle that is let's say 60% literal and 40% "close-to-speech" (for whatever technical reason). Should this one get the 'literal' flag, the 'close-to-speech' flag, or should there be a third flag: a 'mix' flag?

You got me there. Evidently there are many parts of a film that don't need to be non-literal because the CPS is low. I don't know. But I work in IT and I'm used to handle with 1s and 0s, on/off, true/false. Well, I think you know what a flag is. But the same could be applied to "HI". Should a sub be marked as "HI" if it has just one annotation in the whole film? I don't know. As always there are clear cases. For those which are not you could set a more or less arbitrary number. Since my idea is being able to get those really literal subs, I would set it very low. Let's say 0.1% of all utterances. Well, you can store a number instead of a flag if you like but I don't think it's worth the effort. Or you can leave it to the uploader's discretion, as it is done now with all the other flags.