Subbed vs Dubbed : A viewer’s dilemma?
My musing on the choices of subbed (short for subtitled) vs dubbed (short for voice-dubbed) when watching foreign language works.
The first time I saw a movie in a language I did not speak or write was probably in high school. I am not sure whether it was a Japanese Anime (named Naruto) or some Telugu movie, but it is very likely one of the two.
Since then, I have watched works in different languages in which I do not possess any proficiency in. Here is my attempt to list the works and languages in order they occur to me (Consider it a bourgeois brag, I won’t take offence).
Legend: Couple means 2–4, Few means 5–10, Many means 10+.
- Telugu: Many movies
- Malayalam : Few movies
- Tamil: Few movies
- Japanese : Many anime
- Korean: Few shows and the movie Parasite.
- Turkish : The Protector
- French : Call My Agent
- Danish: Borgen
- Spanish : Few shows
When viewing foreign language works, we have generally two choices. Subbed or Dubbed.
From the perspective of production, I believe subbing is easier. It requires one or more translators to watch the movie and create subtitles. Translation is never an easy job, any bilingual or multilingual person can attest to that. Dubbing on the other hand, requires one to create fresh dialogues in another language (let’s say equivalent work to subtitling for simplicity) and on top of it hire voice actors for voice acting and then produce the newer version. We can easily how it is a costlier venture than subbing.
This means that there are more subbed works than dubbed works. Once in a while one will still come across works with both and have to make a choice.
Let me confess, I do have distaste against dubbed works. It may because of the badly dubbed works I saw when growing up (this dubbed Harry potter will give you a taste) or the how disconcerting the apparent lack of sync of lip movement in the shows dubbed to Kannada from other languages in the last few years.
Despite the distaste, dubbed works do serve many a audiences. So here is my attempt to some of the reasons I think dubbed should continue to exist.
- Literacy or lack thereof:
Every reader of these lines by the very act can be considered literate. But that is unfortunately not true for a lot of people around the world[2]. But almost all of those not impaired will learn to understand a spoken language at a very young age (This discusses how it may differ from people to people). This is of course from my normative experience and perspectives but I would be happy to be learning from others with different perspectives or/and experience.
2. Cognitive Load of Reading Subs:
Anyone who has watched a subbed work knows that it is harder cognitively (load can reduce overtime) you are doing more work and hence at times can be tiring.
3. Attention:
Many of us watch shows while working, it is probably a bad habit but we still do it. In many dubbed works, you can look away while consuming just the audio of the work, without loosing much in the form of plot. This will apply to a lot of scenes in lot of shows. This means that you can watch a work casually and hence can be considered more accessible.
These will influence our choice in various degrees, differently at times. I completely prefer subbed and it is not a dilemma for me. Subbed gives me the opportunity to immerse in another language’s speech. It maintains the lip synchronization and avoids associated discomfort(read cringe) I feel. I watch attentively almost every time. This makes subbed a no-brainer for me. But I also know quite a few people who prefer dubbed for due to one if not more reasons of the above.
If the choice is actually a dilemma for someone, hopefully the my attempt at a simplistic decision tree below with help with that.
As always, please provide feedback or suggest corrections with private or public comments or wherever we are connected.
For the first time I am adding a poll on the topic (it is pretty poll-able right?). Please participate 😉. The poll results will be visible for everyone who votes. You can enjoy the results after, however trivial they may be.
Some references:
1. India a land of many tongues, The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/thread/arts-culture-society/india-a-land-of-many-tongues/article19445187.ece
2. Literacy, Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/literacy
