Uncle Buck <UncleBuck@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in
news:cdbg32hg66b4u8cbft6a31cpto21nkomrv@4ax.com:

On Sat, 08 Apr 2006 11:34:24 -0500, Grogs <grogs@nomail.com> wrote:

Uncle Buck <UncleBuck@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in
news:44le32hsl2248i8umjsckfa9316c6r2mt1@4ax.com:

Most DVDs produced with an English-speaking audience in mind have
closed-captioning for the hearing impaired. They also often have
alternate language tracks. I've found it quite a useful boost to my
French studies to play the French audio track while reading the
English captioning. It's helped me understand the grammar better,
and the nuances of speech which indicate separate words (and which
are not always so obvious when you're new to the language). I'm
planning to work on learning Spanish, German, Italian and Russian
this way, also (that is what I've decided to do as a "hobby" -
"collect" languages <G>). I'm well on my way with understanding
French, and can grasp some Spanish. The trouble still comes for me
when it comes to speaking or writing it myself. But then that was
also a problem when I was learning sign language, and I overcame it.
So I'm sure I'll overcome it here, too.

But I just thought I'd throw that little idea out there for the
benefit of any DVD-loving language students in the forum. C'est
tout.
Merci! :-) --
L8r,
Uncle Buck
************************************************
The true mark of a civilized society is when its
citizens know how to hate each other peacefully.
************************************************

It's not a bad idea. The only caveat I'd add is that sometimes (often
maybe) the subtitles don't match the dialogue. It's not a problem if
you're pretty proficient at the language, but otherwise, you may end
up with the wrong definition for words because of the difference.

True - the non-English words are -often- quite different than the
written English due to grammatical differences, and it's interesting
when you begin to figure out when they went and said something in
French (or another language) in a completely different way than how it
was said in English (i.e. the sentiment is about the same, but the
meaning of the words used are completely different). The best I've
seen so far for this is "Serenity". They and the makers of "The
Skeleton Key" both seem to have gone out of their way to make the
movie as enjoyable an experience for the French listeners as for the
English ones. The acoustic effects on the French track in "Serenity"
were -perfect-. :-)

Funny you should mention Serenity. I just picked up the DVD last week.
Since I've got a train that runs not too far from me every 30 minutes or
so, I usually watch the TV with subtitles rather than having to
constantly adjust the volume. The english subtitles on the movie are
actually quite a bit different than the (english) dialogue in places.
I've noticed that in most movies/shows they match exactly, but in a small
percentage, they convey the basic idea in the fewest possible words.
I've also seen some TV shows where apparently lines of dialogue were
removed, but they were still in the captions.

There was a scene in "Skeleton Key" where the man was actually
speaking French and she was supposed to be unable to understand him.
For the French track, they had him speaking Creole during that moment
instead. Nifty picking up on all this. :-)

I'd be curious about what they did with the Russian version of '2010.'
About 1/3 of the dialogue is in Russian between the crew members and it
sort of defines when the crew is talking amongst themselves and when
they're talking to the Americans. That would be hard to preserve in
Russian, as well as the dialogue between John Lithgow and 'Max' where
they're calling themselves stupid and chicken.