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To subtitle or not ? your thoughts ...


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Hello,

 

I have some test footage here I am trying to gauge how easy the accents are to understand by people from around the globe - here in New Zealand people are finding it hard to understand, but maybe an American, British etc... viewer would have a better (or worse) understanding ...

 

I am trying to avoid subtitling as English is the first language of the people involved (Liberians), but it may become necessary.

 

Firstly:

http://vimeo.com/4390160 - some people cannot understand a word

 

and:

http://vimeo.com/4272669 - after the wind noise is gone isn't too hard (?)

 

I have intentionally hidden the person talking with imagery so visual cues cannot be used to aid understanding as this will likely be the case in the final presentation.

 

Any feedback appreciated !

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I have some test footage here I am trying to gauge how easy the accents are to understand by people from around the globe - here in New Zealand people are finding it hard to understand, but maybe an American, British etc... viewer would have a better (or worse) understanding ...

 

Hi Chris,

subtitle it. The message is way too important to get across to the 10% who won't have a hard time to understand. The guy is a little easier to understand than the lady is. But still hard. I'll be facing a similar problem soon, but in this case it's an Austrian speaking German who won't be understood by 90% of the other Austrians speaking German too. And that's only 350km from Vienna! Over there in the Alps every valley used to have their unique and distinctively different dialect!

 

Cheers, Dave

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Definitely subtitle it. If I listen really intently, I can understand about 50% of what is being said, but I'm trying so hard to understand the words that I can't relax and just watch the video.

 

I wouldn't feel bad about putting English subtitles on a native English speaker. These people talked to you because they have something to say, so what good is it to use their words if the vast majority of the audience can't understand them? I think your interviewees would understand and your audience would understand, and appreciate it, if you subtitled these speakers.

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