This question is for the German speakers here.
Warum ist es so schwer, in deutschen Filmen gute Untertitel zu finden? Why is it so difficult to find good subtitles in German movies?
One of the things that I've been doing to try to learn German is to watch movies in that language. I already own a few German films on DVD that I got from Amazon.com and one thing I've noticed is that none of them have subtitles in German. All the subtitles are either in English, Spanish, or French. They are never in the language the characters are actually speaking.
What is the reason for this? Do Germans just not like reading subtitles in their own language? Or am I shopping for movies in the wrong place?
And what are some good German-speaking movies that you know of that have accurate subtitles in German? I would appreciate some recommendations.
Es werden verschiedene Ausgaben der DVDs für verschiedene Märkte produziert. Wenn du sie in der deutschen Ausgabe kaufst, dann hast du auch deutsche Untertitel. Und Regionalcode 2, was für dich ein technisches Problem sein kann.
Oops, you're a beginner. I start again in English. DVDs are produced in country-specific editions, or for groups of countries (especially with the small ones). You need to buy the German edition of the DVD in question, then you get German subtitles. Be aware of the problem of these horrible regional codes, the German editions have regional code 2 which may be a technical problem for you.
The subtitle phrases are often not precisely like the spoken words, I do not know how they always manage to mess that up in the production process. So yes, I agree, the subtitles are often not that well-made.
I'm also old-fashioned like you and still watch a lot of DVDs, but you might end up happier using stream offerings if you have proper internet? You can try your luck at Amazon but they seldomly have ANY subtitles there, and also there's no proper search engine where you could filter for that kind of thing. So other platforms can only be better in that regard. For me, the subtitle issue is what makes me stick with DVDs, Amazon fails on that front and a Netflix plan is not worth the cost for me, I don't watch that much.
For films that run on telly, look at the Mediatheken (plural of Mediathek), the streaming platforms of the public broadcasters. Some of the content is subtitled, the button is often "UT" for Untertitel. I recall that at WDR's Mediathek you can filter for "subtitled only" when searching for content.
https://learnoutlive.com/watch-german-live-tv-streams-online-tablets-desktop/
I searched on Google “Filme für Hörbehinderte „ and found this site with documentaries with subtitetles in German. Don’t forget to click on the icon UT (Untertiteln) on YouTube.
<a href="https://www.br.de/mediathek/rubriken">https://www.br.de/mediathek/rubriken</a>;
Taras, the problem with DVD bought on Amazon is that they do not tell us if there are subtitles. My advice would be to go to a retail store specialized in DVD where they would search for you german films with English subtitles.
Maybe you should look for films for people who don’t hear very well, if you want german subtitles. I am sure that that exists.
