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AI could end foreign-language subtitles

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Re: AI could end foreign-language subtitles

#101

Post by throwaway675309 »

jonpurdy wrote: post #56
nkozyra wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find it hilarious that anyone imagines that subtitles are some kind of problem we are trying to get out of. I think there's a lot of gatekeeping about this. People - perhaps rightfully so - believe subtitled versions to be more ... "pure" than dubbed versions. I don't watch any language dubbed movies, but I wouldn't chide anyone who did. Not everyone wants to spend the whole two hours glancing up and down across…

> I think there's a lot of gatekeeping about this. People - perhaps rightfully so - believe subtitled versions to be more ... "pure" than dubbed versions. Well, they are more pure than dubbed versions. There is so much nuance and tone in the original language that is either left out or changed in the dub. Not to mention word order (subject-verb-object in English/Chinese, subject-object-verb in Japanese/Korean) that f…

Yes... but all that nuance and tone is largely lost on 90% of the foreign market who can't understand the native language in the first place.

And for the record, Chinese also makes heavy use of SOV, eg 他們昨天到韓國去了。

Re: AI could end foreign-language subtitles

#102

Post by userbinator »

Jach wrote: post #21
xiii1408 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the problem of content which doesn't have subtitles to begin with---YouTube's automatic subtitle generation is great, but could be improved and expanded to languages other than English.

It is expanded, at least to Japanese. What's also fun is you can then have it auto translate the auto generated subs. The results are... not typically great, but the potential!

A long time ago, I tried the "autosub" feature with anime and it replaced understanding with unintentional (dry) humour. The output had phrases that resembled a news transcript, which is probably what they were training the system on.

Re: AI could end foreign-language subtitles

#103

Post by shkkmo »

tompetry wrote: post #80
aeturnum wrote: post #3

This would be a lovely option to have and I find it hilarious that anyone imagines that subtitles are some kind of problem we are trying to get out of. Adding text to movies has a huge array of advantages: it preserves the original performances, it makes the dialog accessible to people with hearing or auditory processing disabilities, they can be multiplexed in a way that audio cannot, etc. Obviously it would be wond…

I am very surprised more people watched the dubbed version of Squid Game over the subtitles. I saw a friend watching the dubbed version and to me it didn't "preserve the original performances" as you say. Surprised subtitles are a barrier, I enjoy them personally, but I guess they have the data to know. I have tested out services that translate your "own voice" to another language and it was pretty cool, although I c…

I started watching Squid Game with my brothers' girlfriend and gently suggested that we should use subtitles and the original audio. It took a couple of episodes, but some of those dubbing performances are pretty rough and when she did decide to switch she immediately agreed how much better it was.

The only downside is you have to actually _watch_ the show rather that staring at your phone most of the time...

Re: AI could end foreign-language subtitles

#104

Post by antoniuschan99 »

shkkmo wrote: post #103
tompetry wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very surprised more people watched the dubbed version of Squid Game over the subtitles. I saw a friend watching the dubbed version and to me it didn't "preserve the original performances" as you say. Surprised subtitles are a barrier, I enjoy them personally, but I guess they have the data to know. I have tested out services that translate your "own voice" to another language and it was pretty cool, although I c…

I started watching Squid Game with my brothers' girlfriend and gently suggested that we should use subtitles and the original audio. It took a couple of episodes, but some of those dubbing performances are pretty rough and when she did decide to switch she immediately agreed how much better it was. The only downside is you have to actually _watch_ the show rather that staring at your phone most of the time...

Yea Netflix dubbing is really bad for some reason. Same thing with Money Heist!

Re: AI could end foreign-language subtitles

#105

Post by throwaway675309 »

dheera wrote: post #79
aeturnum wrote: post #3

This would be a lovely option to have and I find it hilarious that anyone imagines that subtitles are some kind of problem we are trying to get out of. Adding text to movies has a huge array of advantages: it preserves the original performances, it makes the dialog accessible to people with hearing or auditory processing disabilities, they can be multiplexed in a way that audio cannot, etc. Obviously it would be wond…

Totally agree, I often much prefer subtitles to dubbing as I can hear the original voice artist's tone of expression as it was intended to be. Also, languages are bridges, not barriers, by exposing yourself more to another language you will learn it if you don't reject it.

That's a cute sentiment but there is no evidence that merely being exposed to a foreign language necessarily allows you to learn that language. I think you're confusing the movie 13th Warrior for reality.

I have friends who religiously watch subtitled anime only and they are no closer to learning Japanese in any real sense of the word than a person who would watch the dubs, except for picking up a stray random word here or there, but knowing that kawaii means "cute" doesn't give you even a superficial understanding of Japanese. For that, you need to at least pick up hiragana and katakana.

Learning a language requires deliberate work. There is no shortcut.

Re: AI could end foreign-language subtitles

#106

Post by shkkmo »

zeroimpl wrote: post #90
aeturnum wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also love to a more responsive subtitle format! I've seen some really wonderful custom jobs where people use different subtitle colors for different speakers, place subtitles near the speaker in the frame, etc. I think there is a ton of room for improving the expressiveness of the medium.

A pet peeve of mine has been subtitles which flip the order of words, particularly when the sentence is broken into two lines. Like the spoken text in foreign language is “A murderer is... Joe” but it gets translated to “Joe is a... murderer”. The other day I happened to see live content with closed captions, and I thought I would love the option to see subtitles like this, where words are translated precisely when s…

But translation doesn't really work like that. There are significant tradeoffs between verbosity, cadence, meaning and subtext when translating. The different contraints are why the forieng dubbibg and foreign subtitles are usually quite different.

You generally only see word for word matches with subtitles when the subtitles are in the same language as the original lines spoken by the actors.

Re: AI could end foreign-language subtitles

#108

Post by rtpg »

tompetry wrote: post #80
aeturnum wrote: post #3

This would be a lovely option to have and I find it hilarious that anyone imagines that subtitles are some kind of problem we are trying to get out of. Adding text to movies has a huge array of advantages: it preserves the original performances, it makes the dialog accessible to people with hearing or auditory processing disabilities, they can be multiplexed in a way that audio cannot, etc. Obviously it would be wond…

I am very surprised more people watched the dubbed version of Squid Game over the subtitles. I saw a friend watching the dubbed version and to me it didn't "preserve the original performances" as you say. Surprised subtitles are a barrier, I enjoy them personally, but I guess they have the data to know. I have tested out services that translate your "own voice" to another language and it was pretty cool, although I c…

I watched Squid Game with subtitles and I... kinda agree but I'm pretty certain a lot of scenes have ADR, so even the "original performances" aren't the original performances, but people re-reading lines in a recording studio.

I mean there's some undeniable fact that the original text is the original thing, and low-quality translations often just remove entire parts of sentences or details just because it's "annoying", and you are missing out on lots of fun little details. Not super relevant in paint-by-numbers TV shows but for shows with a lot of flourish in the dialog...

Re: AI could end foreign-language subtitles

#110

Post by aaron695 »

aeturnum wrote: post #3

This would be a lovely option to have and I find it hilarious that anyone imagines that subtitles are some kind of problem we are trying to get out of. Adding text to movies has a huge array of advantages: it preserves the original performances, it makes the dialog accessible to people with hearing or auditory processing disabilities, they can be multiplexed in a way that audio cannot, etc. Obviously it would be wond…

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