Subtitling and dubbing are the two most common methods used to help viewers understand the video’s message if they have hearing issues or are unfamiliar with the original language. While both are used for the same purpose, incorporating them in a video and their way of translating is totally different. This is why, if you want to choose one of them, it’s critical to understand their pros and cons before choosing. Read on to learn more!
What is the Difference between Subtitles and Dubbing?
The procedure of dubbing and subtitling is challenging and complex as you have to adapt multimedia content for different target audiences. Not to mention, the process includes more than just translating the content.
Subtitles
If you want subtitles, the transcript, dialogue, or screenplay is translated into another language. Also, the words will be superimposed over the film or video. You can see subtitles at the bottom of the video playing on your screen.
Dubbing
In film and video production, dubbing is done as a post-production process. For dubbing, companies hire voice actors to replace the original actors’ voices using dialogues in another language. The new audio gets mixed with the original sound to maintain the originality of the film or video.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Subtitling
Subtitling is considered best for a film because viewers prefer listening to its original sound. It also offers an extremely accurate translation of the video. Subtitling renders the show accessible to viewers who are hard of hearing and deaf. This technique works great for people with accent recognition problems who can’t understand the spoken dialogue.
People usually choose films or videos with subtitles to improve their language skills. By listening to and watching videos in the English language, foreigners get the chance to improve their ears for the language, pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary. Therefore, this type of content is more demanding among the audience and provides a more affordable way of learning a new language.
While subtitles are ideal for most people, there is a catch. Subtitles can distract you and may prevent you from focusing on things in the video when you try to read the dialogue.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Dubbing
Dubbing a show means the viewer doesn’t have to read the text at the bottom while enjoying the video. Hearing every dialogue in the native language allow people to focus on every action of the program and immerse themselves in the content.
Video dubbing is an extremely expensive and challenging process. Dubbing requires more than just rendering the dialogues into another language. In most cases, editors try to synchronize what the dubbed actor is saying to match the lip movements of the original actor. Therefore, they have to change the word order or translation in the target language to help the listener understand the message.
Bottom Line
Still confused about which one is the best option for you? In that case, you can reach out to Green Translations. We are a team of industry experts with professional interpreters and translators. Our team can help you understand what technique will work best for you. So, contact us today!