Still think subbed is better after a friend showed me how much emotion gets lost in translation

Back in college my buddy translated a scene from Your Lie in April line by line and I realized the English dub butchered the tone completely, has anyone else had a moment where a direct translation changed how you felt about a show?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_beth7d ago

The thing people forget is that sub vs dub isn't just about words matching up. It's about rhythm and timing. In Japanese, characters pause or speed up in ways that match the culture's natural speech patterns. English dubs have to cram everything into the same mouth flaps so they change how long words take or where breaths happen. That tiny shift changes the whole emotional weight. My friend who studies linguistics pointed out that Japanese uses silence as part of the dialogue, it carries meaning. English dubs almost never keep those silences because they think dead air is awkward. So you end up missing half the subtext that was intentional from the start.

leep337d ago

Dub purists always take it too far. @the_beth is right that silence gets lost, but good dubs can still capture the feeling.