TV Tuesday: Caption Use

[yourlibrarian]

This article is one of many I've seen in the last few years talking about how Americans increasingly view TV with captions. Does anyone know of similar changes outside the U.S.?

In the meantime, a poll!

Poll #29865 Caption Use

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45

View Respondents

Do you use captions when watching TV?

View Answers

Yes, all the time
28 (62.2%)

In some circumstances
16 (35.6%)

Never
1 (2.2%)

If you do use captions regularly, how long have you been doing so?

View Answers

The last 1-3 years
10 (23.8%)

4-10 years ago
13 (31.0%)

Over 10 years
11 (26.2%)

I've used them ever since they were available
8 (19.0%)

If you use captions at least some of the time, what are the reasons for it?

View Answers

Sound level keeps going up and down
21 (48.8%)

Too much mumbling and quiet dialogue
33 (76.7%)

I have hearing difficulties
7 (16.3%)

Convenient to have sound off
2 (4.7%)

I'd have to turn up the volume too loud
13 (30.2%)

Helps to learn a language
9 (20.9%)

I don't speak the show's language
22 (51.2%)

Something else I'll mention in comments
9 (20.9%)

Comments

[misbegotten]

Sometimes I can't understand the dialogue in my native language because the accents are so thick!

[yourlibrarian]

Yes! Accents can definitely be an issue. I still remember a Britcom (though which one it was, I can't recall) which had a running gag about how the Scottish office worker was often incomprehensible. (Plus possibly the single funniest bit in all of Ralph Wrecks the Internet -- which I very much enjoyed -- involved the same).

[jo]

This skit is one of my all-time faves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqAu-DDlINs

[yourlibrarian]

Ha to the Dick Van Dyke reference!

[honigfrosch]

+1
One of the biggest struggles was Doctor Who when I started watching it (i.e. Doctors Nine & Ten). I'm an ESL speaker but the difference in difficulty for me between BE and AE (I watched Supernatural also) was staggering.

[feurioo]

I love captions. Fansubbers are some of my favorite people in the world.

Started regularly watching with captions after I got into K-dramas. Now, it feels so normal that it's an immediate turn-off for me when subtitles aren't available on a streaming service (looking at you, Elementary and Madam Secretary on Prime Video).

Another reason for using captions: Watching things while working out.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, that's a good one. I usually exercise right after getting up and keep the sound off so as not to disturb anyone.

And I just take it for granted these days that captions exist -- very frustrating when they don't. I can't imagine why either of those two shows don't have them, they're both quite recent and were on broadcast TV originally.

[feurioo]

I cannot imagine watching things with the sound off. Hearing voices is really important to my own watching experience, even if I do not understand what's being said.

I think that's a Prime Video problem. From all the streaming services that I've subscribed to, I think Netflix is the only one that consistently offers alternative languages for audio and subtitles. (It may help that you can set up your language preferences in your profile settings.)

[shipperslist]

Over here, only childrens' programs are dubbed. Everything else is subtitled.

[yourlibrarian]

I could see that reasoning, yes.

[lilysea]

I <3 captions/subtitles

and I find them really really helpful

I don't have any hearing loss (my hearing range was 100% last time it was tested)

but (as per repeated tests) I have significant auditory processing issues

so my brain can't understand language well when there is eg coffee machines, background noise, music

my brain doesn't do a good job of filtering out the words from the not-words

[yourlibrarian]

I seem to remember reading some time ago about how that affects quite a lot of people, the difficulty of keeping focused on just one set of sounds.

[shadowkat]

Not helped by the fact that we have series like Greys Anatomy which has a voice over narration, dialogue and a pop song all playing at the same time. I honestly think television show-runners don't want us to hear their dialogue for some reason.

[lirazel]

I use them whenever they're available! Sometimes they aren't, which is always disappointing. I think I started doing it when I started watching non-English shows a lot about 10 years ago, and then when streaming like Netflix made them available for English shows too, I immediately latched onto them.

I process text better than audio and with the inconsistent sound levels on all media these days they're SO helpful. I don't want to miss anything!

[yourlibrarian]

The issue of processing text also makes me think about how many people probably would benefit from captions but can't use them because of difficulty reading. I read much faster than my partner who has a mild form of dyslexia and usually has workarounds when reading text. Fortunately for him captions are brief enough and are often on single or double lines, reducing the way he transposes content.

[lirazel]

A good point!

[jo]

I mostly used to turn on captioning in the summer, when we have the air conditioner going in the main room, because otherwise, I'd have to turn up the volume so much that it would annoy my husband in the other room. Now I always have captioning on for my streaming services, but oddly, not for regular broadcast TV stuff. Not sure why, but maybe because there really aren't that many (or any) shows on regular cable in the summer -- I mostly just watch live sports?

I used to watch a lot of Danish dramas, so obviously, those were subtitled. The thing is, I would find that I'd get so used to the sound of the language that I'd kind of tune out and forget that I needed to read the subtitles to follow what was happening. Obviously, when I turn on captions on Netflix, Apple+, etc., it's just as a back-up to listening to the actual dialogue. I do torrent a lot and find that I get a bit annoyed now if the torrent I selected of an English-language show doesn't include subtitles. I don't need them to understand the dialogue -- I just kind of like having them now. My hearing has definitely deteriorated in recent years, and combined with other background noise (my husband playing computer games in the other room, the air con unit, etc.), it's just nice to have the captioning.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, one thing that's nice to me is not having to adjust the volume all the time. One can go from a quiet conversation to an action scene with guns blaring or the dramatic music rising, so it's nice to just be able to have a lower volume with captions.

[wendelah1]

I will sometimes put the English subtitles on DVDs even if the movie is in English. I'm American and UK accents can be hard to understand.

We always had the captions on when my husband was alive because he was HOH. Now, not so much, although I have noticed that certain programs being rebroadcast on cable have the "background" music turned up way too loud which makes it hard for me to follow the dialogue (NCIS, I am looking at you).

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, multiple sounds can obscure dialogue. I sometimes wonder how much looping is done now vs 30 years ago.

[rocky41_7]

They're super distracting to me because I read much faster than I hear, so I end up paying more attention to the caption than the actual show, which I don't like, so I never use them unless it's a show where I don't speak the language.

[yourlibrarian]

We've turned captions off for certain shows, either anything captioned live (as they were often slow and full of errors) or certain comedies. Timing matters a lot there and having the dialogue and captions happen at different times often spoiled a scene.

[rocky41_7]

Yeah, that bugs me too! With comedies and dramas especially having the words pop up before the actor gets to that line can spoil the delivery.

[caramarie]

I'm the same – I find captions for shows in English way too distracting, even though I watch plenty of subtitled shows.

[slippery_fish]

I use them sometimes when the accent is too strong and I can't understand it or when actors are supposed to be speaking my native language and mess it up too badly (looking at you Alias. Otherwise, no.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, accents should have been one of the tickies or shared with mumbled dialogue.

[fadedwings]

I've had hearing loss since I was a kid and at this point, it's severe in both ears so captions are a must for me. I won't even bother watching something if it doesn't have captions (there was a show I was interested in watching on Peacock but it didn't have captions so I noped out after a few minutes). I mostly watch shows on my iPad with earbuds and have the volume very high and still need captions to clarify what's being said.

[yourlibrarian]

It's surprising to me that anything current exists without captions given so many reasons to have them.

[fadedwings]

I don't think it's an issue with the show in this case. The show's Rutherford Falls I think it's a Peacock TV problem. I just looked again and the second episode seems to have captions but the pilot doesn't. So I'd have to either skip the pilot or just push through and hope I get the gist before moving on to episodes that are actually captioned - but I don't care enough and my subscription runs out at the end of September anyway and I'm not planning to renew it.

Sometimes I've had problems when watching a new show on Hulu (next-day airing kind of thing) where the captions won't show up until a few hours after the episode becomes available to watch. Very annoying.

[china_shop]

I hate missing dialogue, so sometimes I'll rewind English-language shows to catch a line, and turn the subs on and rewind again, if that doesn't work. And there are some English-language shows where we just keep them on for long stretches. Plus I watch a lot of Kdramas, and my Korean isn't very good.

With the English-language shows, it's always a trade-off, though, because I'd much rather be watching the show than reading it. :-/

[yourlibrarian]

That's how we started using captions, I think. We'd find ourselves trying to understand or catch a line and rewinding is a pain.

[svgurl]

I started getting used to captions when I watched Bollywood movies, because I didn't speak/understand Hindi, and then I just got used to it. I feel like I miss things otherwise because the sound isn't always consistent and of course there are the various accents. I don't like to have the TV too loud either so this helps.

[yourlibrarian]

::nods:: Yep, lots of advantages to it.

[adafrog]

I think I started when Netflix (and then Amazon) kept offering me awesome horror/scifi in foreign languages.

I just left it on, and I really enjoy it (except for one time the movie itself did captions when people were speaking spanish, and it overlapped). Helps when the background noise is too loud, or someone starts whispering.

I don't watch on 'live' streaming/TV because getting captions on is a pain.

Now if they could do something about movies being to freaking dark.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes! Sometimes I've had an issue with overlapping captions as well. In fairness a lot of shows do this well and stop the captioning when there's varied language dialogue.

However one thing that always annoys me is when non-English isn't captioned and there's just "Foreign language" or "French dialogue" etc. It makes me suspect that it's because there wasn't actually any dialogue in the script and they just had actors improvise.

So true about darkness. Someone else brought that up in comments somewhere recently.

[alchemicink]

In addition to other reasons to use subtitles, I find that when I'm watching a new show, it's easier to remember character & place names if I see it written in the subtitles too!

[feurioo]

That's such a good point. I tend to be really bad with names, and even with subtitles, it always takes me a couple of episodes.

[michelel72]

I have slight difficulties with auditory processing, and I tend to find that music (and sometimes sound effects) is mixed in much louder than dialogue. The words are very important to me, so I use captions to make sure I get them all. Yes, they sometimes spoil a joke, but on balance, I far prefer to have them than not.

[yourlibrarian]

Same here -- though it's particularly annoying when they start getting out of synch, which we've had happen a number of times. (Not super often, but not completely rare either).

[honigfrosch]

The main reasons for me are: a) I don't speak the language, b) I speak the language but it has accents / quiet dialogue / the mixing is terrible, and c) ADHD which includes auditory processing issues. I have trouble focusing in general and with filtering out background noise / music. Sometimes people are talking too fast (especially Youtubers) or there's crosstalk. Often I have to rewind several times to really process what was being said, or I notice too late that the previous five minutes of plot have completely passed me by. I found that subtitles make it easier for me to follow the content, and 9 times out of 10 I will use them whenever available. (Tangentially related: I wish more podcasts had transcripts!)

[yourlibrarian]

My partner has ADD and often ends up having to rewind content because he drifted. The captions definitely help keep him on track.

I've picked up lots of things from captions that I wouldn't have known about had I not used them. Sometimes it's a background line and sometimes it's stuff that apparently got changed or deleted in the script. Plus, the name of songs is usually listed, and I've picked up some of those from watching a show.

[meridian_rose]

Too much mumbling but also the background sounds and/or soundtrack keep overpowering the dialogue. Or the music/sfx are so loud that you have to keep the volume quieter but then struggle to hear all the words. Sometimes fiddling with the soundbar settings will fix it but sometimes the tv and the soundbar settings do nothing to help. I rather like the subs, it helps me take things in more sometimes. But some family don't like them onscreen so I don't get to use them as often as I'd like.

[yourlibrarian]

And yes, as honigfrosch said above there's fast talking or cross talk or background dialogue. Lots of things to muddle together.

[dancing_serpent]

I'm an EFL speaker, and sometimes it takes me a while to get into an accent when it's really thick. Subtitles are a welcome help. I really grew to love and rely on them once I started watching movies/TV in other languages. I do understand a tiny bit of Japanese and Mandarin, but only just enough to get the ever repeating questions about someone's health, name, age, or other formalities.

To be honest, some of the regional programmes in Germany have really strong dialects/accents, and I find myself wishing for subtitles for those, too. *g*

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, lots of variation in accents for the same language!

[violateraindrop]

When my depression was much worse, I found it hard to concentrate without subtitles. Now I'm used to it. I also watch a lot of things on my tablet during my commute and turn down the volume, so I don't miss any announcements on the train.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, I could see that it would be very handy during commutes.