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Subtitles

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I must admit, I am on the subtitles side. Nevertheless I'll start by listing a few points in favor of dubbing movies (where by dubbing I mean interposing some other voices, in a different language in a movie, instead of the original version):

Dubbing is very useful for little children in particular or people that aren't very fast readers in general (dyslexics to name but a few), who couldn't understand the movie otherwise or would have to rely on someone else to read the lines.

Also there may be times when characters are speaking extra fast when written subtitles wouldn't be able to keep pace (especially given that the longer the lines are the longer they have to stay on screen as people need time to read them) and sometimes they are a bit "adjusted" (some less important words are cut). I have only seen this very rarely happening but it is nevertheless a possibility.

Now on to speak about the beauty I find in the subtitles. Or better yet, as subtitles don't have major advantages, let's talk about the major disadvantages I find in dubbing.

The one that bothers me to most is that by dubbing the original voices are lost, taking with them half or more of the actors' original acting. Not to mention musicals or cartoons, especially those voiced by great stars, whose all contribution would be thrown in the bin. Just think about seeing Shrek in say Portuguese. I don't doubt that Portugal may have some great voices but I don't think there are any comparing to Mike Myers, Cameron Diaz and especially Eddie Murphy. A lot of the charm is in those voices and it would be all lost by canceling out the original voices.

Another variation of this last one is that if by any chance there are some untranslatable plays-on-words, they would be lost (whereas with subtitles at least some people, the ones that by chance know the original language would get them). Same goes for unintentional translation errors. People would go on wondering what was that completely meaningless phrase was doing there instead of at least some of them knowing that it was a simple mistake and the characters were saying a completely different thing.

We also shouldn't ignore the fact that a subtitled movie can be a very useful learning tool for people wanting to learn one or another of the two languages. I myself have learned a lot of English from what I heard in movies (I am not from an English speaking country and where I'm from the subtitles are mainly used) and I know a lot of people who did too, including young children or my old father. Not to mention there are a lot of middle age housewives that have learned Spanish simply from watching soap-operas :) While I do agree the TV cannot teach one a language all by itself it can indeed be a great help.

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