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Comment by traceroute66 | Hacker News Reader

Given the author mentions the "subtitles on Netflix" route as an option. The only thing I've got to say to that is subtitles on Netflix are shit. I'm sorry, there's no other word for it. Other streaming services not that much better, but Netflix seems to be particularly bad.

COVID has given me a reason to watch more content. I've found myself watching some fabulous output from Korea, Japan and elsewhere on Netflix.

But the subtitling on Netflix is just abysmal. I mean seriously, we're talking about schoolboy fundamentals here. White text on white/bright background ? Yup, Netflix does it, not just occasionally but A LOT. Subtitles bouncing around the screen during the course of the same film/episode (i.e. jumping between top and bottom of screen). Yup, Netflix does it, again not just occasionally but A LOT.

Honestly, makes me feel sad for those hearing impaired people who actually rely on subtitles.

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Far worse than the presentation is that they often don't even match. And it's not that they are leaving out words (which is already horrible for language learning), but the subtitles are phrased entirely different than the spoken words.

I've tried to improve my French via Netflix and it's useless. Netflix subtitles are often just the English subtitles independently translated. Even for original French content you are not guaranteed to get correct subtitles.

This bothers me to no end. It makes the vast majority of content on Netflix nearly useless in terms of trying to pick up new words.

Spoken words are constrained to match mouth movements in a different language, the written forms don't have this restriction.

I doubt they were considering language learning when subtitling, unfortunately.

I can't speak for the quality of the default subtitles on Netflix, but the "Language Learning with Netflix"[0] system is easily the most amazing new system I have run across for language learning. Access to excellent subtitles in the original language and learner's language, combined with a very smooth UI via a browser plugin, gives a wild experience. As a student, I worked through the first five minutes of Money Heist (La Casa de Papel) and every sound spoken exactly matched the subtitle. Maybe the quality degrades in other source material, but it worked fine for me so far. I take new words and phrases from the dialogue display and drop them into my personal Anki deck, so I can fix the new material in my mind.

[0] https://languagelearningwithnetflix.com/

Yeah the quality of the subtitles isn't very consistent across languages (or even shows). In my experience, subtitles for German and French content has been decent. But I have seen some errors for Japanese content.

I do agree with your sentiment that the web at large unfortunately still isn't great in terms of accessibility :/

As someone who used Netflix to help my Spanish, it probably varies a lot depending on the language. The Spanish programming with Spanish subtitles is generally pretty good.

That hasn't been my experience, unfortunately, except for Money Heist. Can you recommend other Spanish (or Latin American) shows with good subtitles?

Club de Cuervos

Except for some short phrases, the subtitles were very close to what was spoken in rapid-fire Spanish.

The problem with “La casa de papel” is that is a serious multi-layered plot with complex characters that requires a lot of thinking.

“Club de Cuervos” is entertaining and no thinking compared to it. However, the constant use of Güey or Wey and “no manches” may annoy you.

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