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Comment by johnwatson11218 | Hacker News Reader

I have used dvds with foreign subtitles to learn languages. One thing I don't like is that the spoken translation is usually different than the subtitled one. I think it would be a nice learning aide if the two translations could be made to match. Or to at least have the option to put in alternate subtitled translations.

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Translated words and phrases often have to be very different than the literal translation. For example: "sack" in english can also mean firing a worker, or plundering a city. The word for "a large bag" in most languages will not have these same extra meanings.

Also, you may even need 3 subtitles:

- transcription of the spoken language: les jeux sont faits

- literal translation: the games are made/done

- correct/useful translation: the chips are down

I'm not 100% sure since I'm not the guy you responded to, but I think his situation is that he's listening to the audio in the same language as the subtitles, and they are different.

I've seen this happen when English subtitles were enabled for an English language movie I've been watching. Sometimes what is transcribed in the subtitles is different than what people are actually saying (though the gist is the same) even though both are in English.

In any case, this is clearly not something easily fixable by a website script.

Good catch. That looks right now you've pointed it out. I was thrown off by the word "translation".

I'm not sure if you're using "translation for "transcription" here but I think I'm in the same position.

I've been using foreign movies subtitled in the same language as is spoken, as a method for studying languages for years as well and really hate it when the transcription is different from the dialogue. Problem seems to be that the transcription is taken directly from the movie/show script, but when filmed, actors rarely go with the script word-for-word. Unless the movies has been fanSubbed by native speakers, it quite hard to find subs with the exact transcription.

I initially thought fixmysubs addressed this somehow, but i guess not. Cool project none the less.

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