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What I find really interesting is that non-English speaking countries dub basically everything yet English speaking countries subtitle most of the time. Sometimes even things in English get subtitled (e.g. The Full Monty for the US market).

As a native English speaker dubbing drives me nuts. I want to see Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon subtitled not dubbed.

Why the preference? I know the French are super paranoid about the cultural hegemony of English. Is this the case elsewhere?



Interesting. I had the opposite perception. Most Europeans I know (Scandinavians, Germans, Dutch, British) prefer subtitles on movies (even when they are foreign non-English movies), whereas the impression I have gotten of Americans through e.g. news broadcasts and talkshows, have been that everything is dubbed into English (for example interviews from the EU parliament or other foreign countries). I am sure it depends on the context, but now I wonder if there are any statistics on when things are dubbed vs subtitled.


I am not sure if Europeans in general prefer subtitles. Most of my friend in Germany do. However, they are younger and well educated. Most people from my parent's generation probably would prefer dubs. It turns out that almost everything in Germany gets dubbed. You really gotta go out of your way if you want to see subs.


I wouldn't say news broadcasts and talk shows are a fair comparison here, as those are often watched passively (while cooking, cleaning, getting ready, chatting with friends) as opposed to film or dramatic television which are usually watched actively.


Dubbing also destroys immersion, which is bad for a story, but irrelevant for an interview. Rare is the dub where all the voice actors get all the emotion in the voice correct.




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