My mother in law from my first marriage lived in Melbourne and especially after the girls were born, would come to stay with us here in Brisbane for a number of weeks every few years.
When the girls were napping I would often play recorded shows such as Taggart. Elsie would complain that she couldn’t understand a word that the star of Taggart Mark McManus would utter and she would get quite cross about this. This didn’t make sense to me as I could understand him perfectly. ( oh the arrogance of youth!) 🙄😬
Yep! Closed captions!
Many afternoons during her stay, she and I would sit and craft in front of the TV; I would mainly knit or sew and Elsie would crochet.
When the girls were napping I would often play recorded shows such as Taggart. Elsie would complain that she couldn’t understand a word that the star of Taggart Mark McManus would utter and she would get quite cross about this. This didn’t make sense to me as I could understand him perfectly. ( oh the arrogance of youth!) 🙄😬
Well for quite a few years, I’ve been ‘translating’ accented English on TV shows for DH. But recently something has happened. Watching episodes of the show Shetland, I’ve realised that I don’t always understand what the character of Jimmy Perez says. We’ve used the rewind function and I’ve still had occasions where I couldn’t translate what the characters have said...shock horror! Then one day I had a brainwave!
Yep! Closed captions!
Sorry for not really understanding, Elsie. ðŸ¤
( And now the show Hinterland taxes my hearing and brain too with those Welsh accents so closed captioning could come in handy for that too)
11 comments:
When I first started reading I thought closed captions and so did you lol
We are clever clogs
Maria, just today I was emailing a recently discovered relative in Scotland and I told her I had to put the text on when watching Shetland as I couldn't understand what they were saying. It used to be the same with Taggart. LOL!
I am laughing as I live on an Island off mainland Scotland the Isle of Lewis.
I can't watch any TV without subtitles these days. I only turn them off if they are the "live" ones which are always wrong and so far behind the speech that they are useless.
I'm disappointed that the new SBS World Movies channel doesn't subtitle any English in their movies, though.
We once went to see a Ken Loach film that was set in Glasgow. We were in a French cinema and were very grateful for the French subtitles even though our French is not that good!!
Maria, I hear what you are saying:) We use subtitles a lot now but haven't tried closed captions. I love Shetland, and was sad when the series finished. We would probably enjoy Hinterand as well. Best wishes, Pauline
Oh yes, absolutely, closed captions are essential for us too now. There's a difference in the amount of volume required for each of us so we have compromised with using the captions.
The real feel of the language used on Shetland comes through with the captions, I like that authenticity.
Just imagine a Canadian trying to watch those programs. I have to listen very closely, and even then sometimes have to guess at what is being said. Never even thought of using closed captions. Brilliant.
God bless.
We discovered this, too! We watch a lot of British and Australian productions and we were constantly going backwards to replay things we didn’t get the first time. Even then we didn’t always catch it and gave up. At some point it dawned on us — closed captioning! We actually went back and watched a couple shows we had given up on because it was so frustrating to our ears.
Also, I think it’s wonderful you had a nice relationship with your mother in law even after you divorced. I loved mine and miss her company.
Your subtitles are a great solution, Maria. The same thing sometimes happens to us with American movies. What's worse is young people sometimes say phrases that I hear perfectly but I have no clue what they mean :D
that made me laugh...I have a similar problem - trouble is if you want to sew and watch TV you still can't read the closed captions...I need it in the office though - we have a Scottish guy - oh my he is hard to understand.
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