I’m rewatching Spirited Away with English subs I grabbed off opensubtitles.org and I had already been confused by some phantom lines that didn’t correspond to any spoken dialogue but this scene made it obvious what was happening- there’s extra lines added in places where the characters are facing away from the camera michael-laugh

Either the subtitler was hallucinating or these originate from the dub. I grew up watching a VHS tape chomsky-yes-honey in Japanese with Finnish subtitles and I don’t recall this scene having dialogue

  • Zozano
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    2 months ago

    It’s kind of a necessity. Japanese and English language structures are very different.

    For example, you’ll typically hear names at the start of a sentence in Japanese, whereas in English, they can technically either be at either. Though, for the sake of engaging dialogue, are typically at the end of a sentence.

    On top of that, most dubbed movies will try to sync lip flaps (turning away from the camera makes it convenient to utilise empty space).

    And on top of that, there are quirks of language which make intonation more important then the script, for example “yes” can be inferred as enthusiastic or begrudging depending on the language, but makes more sense to translate is “Absolutely!” Or “If I have to…”, depending on context.