Remember when there used to be only cable connection- no modern set-top boxes, on-demand television or OTT platforms? There were channels that you’d accidentally come across (that you had never heard of) and some were international channels that aired films in several languages? One would simply have to remember the number of the channel and then tune in each time to explore if there’s some interesting movie in a foreign language. And some weeks later we’d have to explore every nook and cranny of the cable service to find the same channel as the number had changed, only to find some other similar channel? Well, if the answers to all of the above questions is ‘No,’ then I might be the only weird person who did that!
Films seem to have an amazing power. Their brevity says so much in such few scenes, that language is no barrier at all. It is beautiful how a short frame can induce a long impending chain of thoughts in our mind. Of course, to understand what some scenes or conversations mean, we’d need subtitles. Some subtitles are so good, it makes us have immense respect for the bilingual person who translated it. It is wonderful how different languages communicate emotions differently. What is worth noticing each time is that no matter which language film you watch, there’s usually this one word which is kind of untranslatable. Looking up what it means is the most fun- these days, a phone with a browser is like an ultimate cultural and linguistic film companion.
Apart from understanding the movie by reading subtitles, there are a lot of things that one can learn from a foreign language film- how the French pronounce their ‘R’s, how Koreans enjoy their Kimchi with Ramen, how Maharashtrians believe in eating Kanda Poha when they fix marriages, how passionate Colombian people are about their Arepas, how elaborate and delicious Turkish breakfasts are, how important Carnivals are for Brazilians, what social stature does a middle-aged single woman have, how conservative some people across the world are about marriage, faith in God- and see how culturally diverse we are yet how similar some of our beliefs are. And languages act like a pretty wrapper to wrap all of these nuances into authentic cultural bundles.
When you watch a film or (a series), some words just fall into your ears and stay in your head forever. Becoming a fan of some words such as Ghansambvida and Kumo voyo from Korean, Morgen from Danish, Merhaba from Turkish, Mazel tov and Chutzpah from Yiddish, Abantu from Zulu is quite interestingly, easy! Evidently, watching a film in a language that you’re trying to learn is one of the most effective ways of grasping and better understanding it. Better yet, watch it with subtitles in the same language as the one you are learning if you’re an intermediate learner and you’d be proficient in no time!
Sometimes, even if you know a language, it is difficult to grasp what the other person is saying if it is from some other place or country and they have an accent. For example, in English itself there are so many accents that it is sometimes difficult for an Indian person who knows English to understand what an American is saying: subtitles- are what pop up and help us! Having watched so many films from so many parts of the world, it is also fun to sometimes try and compare how similar some words are in different languages. Ultimately, a linguistic nerd like me always looks for three to four words to keep in mind and remember forever- thinking I know some tiny fraction of a language!
A love for languages, cultures and that yearning to learn some greetings and common words of a language are enough evidence of a lifelong friendship with subtitles. I would choose to watch a film with subtitles any time over watching the same film dubbed in a language I know. What about you?
-Ananya Shah
For the Culture Edit- Issue 3, February 2021 Issue of the Vertex Magazine
theuniqueportal 
Very informative and well written article. I loved this.
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Thank you 😊
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