I also thought that with it being dubbed into Italian, that the subtiltes would match up very well. This is oddly not the case! There are three subtitle tracks for Italian, but only one seems close to complete. It still doesn't seem to be a word-for-word translation, but is instead (seemingly, since I am still a beginner), a summation of what is being said. I guess the idea is to help a reader get the gist? Anyway, due to the following post and associated readings, my main idea was just to watch The Simpsons with Italian dubbing and Italian subtitles, and well, enjoy Italian!
Stefan wrote:Captioned video for L2 listening and vocabulary learning: A meta-analysisWatching Subtitled Films Can Help Learning Foreign LanguagesThe overall results of our meta-analysis revealed a large superiority of captioning in that captioning groups significantly outperformed the control group on both listening and vocabulary posttests. Results thus support the claim that captioning helps learners to improve comprehension and fosters vocabulary learning.In order to test the potential learning effects derived from watching subtitled media, a group of intermediate Spanish students of English as a foreign language watched a 1h-long episode of a TV drama in its original English version, with English, Spanish or no subtitles overlaid. Before and after the viewing, participants took a listening and vocabulary test to evaluate their speech perception and vocabulary acquisition in English, plus a final plot comprehension test. The results of the listening skills tests revealed that after watching the English subtitled version, participants improved these skills significantly more than after watching the Spanish subtitled or no-subtitles versions. The vocabulary test showed no reliable differences between subtitled conditions. Finally, as one could expect, plot comprehension was best under native, Spanish subtitles. These learning effects with just 1 hour exposure might have major implications with longer exposure times.
I understand the reasoning behind jumping into the water but all scientific data seems to confirm that L2 subtitles benefits listening comprehension more than L1 or no subtitles. Is there anything pointing in the other direction?
I have a few usage questions, and a few technical questions.
Tech first:
Does anyone know an easy/legal way to rip DVDs with subtitles to one's hard drive? I have Windows 10 and an external optical drive. Fortunately, VLC will play this DVD even though it is region 2. However, I don't want to have to hook up the external drive every time I wish to watch the DVDs, and I think it is probably a good idea to make backups now since then I can save them to my hard drive and save the wear and tear on the DVDs themselves.
I do not need full functionality of being able to switch audio-tracks and rotate subtitles, etc....I'd be happy to just rip one version with the Italian dubbing and Italian subtitles. A free and user-friendly version is ideal.
Usage:
For those of you that have learned with watching TV, any tips? Is it sort of like reading where I could do it intensively (pausing each scene and not pressing play until looking up each word) or extensively (just keep it moving and hope my comprehension increases over time while context clues from what I am seeing help me parse things now)? Or are there other ways to do it conceptually too?
I ordered four seasons, so should have a couple dozen hours of material!