The English language series (either American or British) are surely not, and they are probably the majority, right?. I think they mostly dub Brazilian?
I wouldn’t know, really, I’m not so sure, as I don’t own a TV and never watch this stuff (even the ones I do like, I prefer to download them and watch on my PC without ads), but I’ve seen some scenes while waiting ad doctor’s offices.
Yep, it more or less is. Although, sometimes the actors dub their own voice. I don’t know how sensitive their egos are, but if it’s a norm, then maybe you wouldn’t think much of it? And some actors or actresses get a lot of criticism for actually using their real voices, because well, the audiences think their voices are shit. I’m don’t know too much about their schedules, but you sometimes read about such things in their interviews or hear about them in talk shows, about how crazy their schedules can be. And depending on how they like to arrange it, some of them just work non-stop, without taking breaks between their different film projects. Or that they have multiple projects ongoing simultaneously.
Haha. That’d be weird, given how different their lips are saying [Deh] (the sound for yes in Korean?) and 不 [Bu]
I don’t know about meta-meanings/layers, but I know that it’s created a new craze. Recently there was this dubbing group called 胥渡吧 [Xu Du Ba] who’s been rather famous online for splicing scenes from various classic dramas/movies and dubbing them into hilarious dialogues about modern day issues.
@simi11@irmar as well.
I don’t know. Is it easier to translate among languages of the same families, since they have similar grammar and vocab, so things don’t get lost in translation so easily? At least from what I’ve seen of Cantonese and Korean shows dubbed in Chinese, I feel like the meaning is more or less retained. So maybe that’s the same among Romance/Germanic languages?
I have done some translation for dubbing in the distant past. You had to look at the video and choose words which would match the lip movements. So sometimes you changed the sentence somehow to fit that purpose. Especially if the lip movement was very visible because of close ups.
I suppose that languages which are close will be easier. But English with Romance languages (or Greek, which I did back then) is terrible, nothing matches really.
The Disney cartoon films get dubbed by really wonderful professionals, very creative, and the singers are top singers etc. They did an admirable job. Still I wanted to watch the subtitled version, which was later in the evening, for adults. Nowadays there is no subtitled version, all the screenings are with the dubbed one, because adults who don’t go with their children but want to watch it on their own download the film and watch it on PC…
However, to return to the original purpose of this thread, having subtitled films and TV series instead of dubbed ones is critical for language learning, especially the pronounciation. I don’t know if it’s directly correlated, but I think it is, that countries with dubbed media are not as good in foreign languages as those who see media in the original language with subtitles. Subtitles are great even if they are same language subtitles (available on DVDs), because when you do know the spoken language but you have trouble understanding it 100% because they talk too quickly or have accents or there are background noises, or simply because the viewer is not that advanced, then the subtitles help both to understand and to learn more.
I agree 100%. When you hear and read something at the same time, you are more likely to retain it, especially if your language level is good enough for same language subtitles.
I’m not sure if it is because they use the wrong method or because they just don’t promote language learning.
It probably it’s a bunch of reasons. Arrogance too, in the case of France and England (everybody should speak our language, we do we have to learn theirs?)
Not sure if I’d consider it lying since they’re not exactly hiding it. You can find out on the Baidu site exactly who their voice actors are.
That seems to work
@irmar Yeah, I’m totally in awe of Disney of how they manage to translate not just the movies and the songs. But yes, subtitles are the best help in learning foreign languages, although I sometimes find that I’m too subtitle reliant :
Haha, and for the lip movements, I actually read that during a fan meeting, one of the Chinese voice actors was complaining that because some actors just quote random poems or mouth off jibberish or even the multiplication table! It’s damn hard to match the lip movements.
Hey @dudie, interesting approach. I do the same for Chinese show. How do you check later if you were correct? Do you write the phrase/words down in Korean or do you just have the translation in mind (nothing written or noted) while watching dramas and you replay it to see if that’s what you thought?
Hey I’m just joining in. I’m interested in learning Chinese (mostly simplified) through dramas on Viki and like everyone else can use all the help I can get. I look forward to hearing of any new ideas and ways to keep learning. Thanks.
By experience, I can tell you that watching just for fun can improve your listening skills very much.
So, even if you just watch your favourite shows, you will be learning something new.
I wish haha. Sadly I only get about 60-70% of dialogue in dramas. I took two years at a community college and transferred into a year 2 class level at university. I’ll be entering my year 3 level this fall, and I’ve been studying a lot over the summer. But I am missing lots of descriptive words but have most of the grammar down.
Actually, if you already have most of the grammar down, and want to increase your vocab, one thing you can try is reading Chinese novels. There’s plenty online that you can read for free. Or even download apps on your mobile which allow you to download Chinese books into your mobile. Although beware that some of them might use a lot of slangs, or have a number of typos… You have to know how to pick I guess, since it can be like fanfic, and there’s a lot of authors whose literary talents are more limited. A good place to start would be reading those which have been adapted to shows. Like Love Me If You Dare, Shan Shan Comes to Eat, Ode to Joy… And the other titles written by these authors.
No I don’t write anything down… I just remember the scene and because Viki subbers are amazing before I forget it’s subbed. Sometimes I’m off, sometimes I’m right and sometimes I just got the big lines correct but not de details.