Subtitles

[Photojeep]

Inspired by the recent "Czech TV Series..No, Seriously" thread, I noticed many comments were about subtitles which reminded me of something:

My wife and I love to watch the Netflix series "Shetland" but can hardly understand the Shetland/Scottish actor's accents (no offense to the Scottish among us) so out of frustration, we ended up turning on the subtitles. Wow! What a difference! (My favorite is the one that says, "birds chirping")

Normally I can "hear" through most people's accents but this show was surprisingly difficult. Maybe they had the ambient sounds turned up too high but once we turned on the subtitles we were good. (I even went back to earlier episodes and "read" the dialog to find out what had been said in episodes we'd already watched.)


So has anyone else done this?

Best,
PJ

[Borderdon]

Yes, started out as an aid to hearing loss, but I too need some help with
very pronounced accents. Also enjoyed "Shetland"
Love some of the European/UK mystery series.
( You might like "The Tunnel" to name one !)

[HHP]

Speaking of accents. Watch the series "Good Behavior" that stars Michelle Dockery. I understood she was English but last week, I caught some of the after show feature. Surprised to hear she has a VERY pronounced English working class accent. In her character, no hint of accent and an entirely different timbre to her voice. How she subdues such a strong accent and expresses her character so well is astonishing to me.

[Photojeep]

Originally Posted by HHP

Speaking of accents. Watch the series "Good Behavior" that stars Michelle Dockery. I understood she was English but last week, I caught some of the after show feature. Surprised to hear she has a VERY pronounced English working class accent. In her character, no hint of accent and an entirely different timbre to her voice. How she subdues such a strong accent and expresses her character so well is astonishing to me.

My wife watches that show and I was also impressed by Ms. Dockery's "American accent". I knew she was British because she was in the PBS series Downton Abbey and played the very posh Lady Mary, upper class British accent and all. There is a youtube video floating around where she and the actor who played the chauffeur are on a night time talk show affecting American accents and she did a very good "Valley Girl"

Best,
PJ

[RustyAxe]

I've done that ... trying get the dialog of two Welshmen talking is more than my brain can handle. I like seeing foreign movies and TV on Netflix, and my wife and I both agree that after a bit we're unaware of reading ... as if we understand what they're saying ...

[Swamp Yankee]

I enjoyed Shetland quite a bit but I didn't struggle much with the accents. One of my favorite lines in that show - they're checking out a very sparsely furnished home and Tosh says, "Even a Spartan would think,'a wee doily here and there'. .." Dunno why, but it cracked me up enough to remember it.

Some languages are easier for my ears when I'm reading subtitles, Swedish and Norwegian, for example... but I don't like hearing French spoken while reading English text. Something about the inflection, perhaps, makes it a bit more confusing.