this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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I've never understood this idea. Usually I see it in reference to anime. How can you even appreciate the voice acting when its in a language you don't understand while you are trying to read something in English?
You don't need to be able to know the words to understand the emotions. It's asking why watch any movies in the original language.
When I went to go see Star Wars Episode 3 when I was overseas, the English version with subtitles was packed while the local language dubbed version had a moderate crowd. People want to see the original because the delivery is usually just better, even if they can't understand the words.
How can you know if the delivery is better if you don’t even know which words are being inflected upon, if they are being said awkwardly, so on and so forth.
That you use Star Wars kinda cements the point. The prequels were infamous for their odd dialogue and stilted deliveries.
It’s not that the voice acting or delivery is better; it’s that you can’t tell the difference because you don’t know what it should sound like.
You can still tell when someone sounds stiff and awkward vs when someone sounds genuine.
If someone gives an emotional monologue in tears, their acting ability should be clear. Even if you don’t speak the language.
No, you can’t. Intonation and tone is very different in different languages.
And sounding emotional is not the same thing as good acting, for example over delivery is a thing. Something you could not tell without speaking the language. Acting is a lot more than sounding emotional. Good acting is even more than that
Cmon man, don’t be obtuse. Nobody’s arguing that knowing the language doesn’t help. All we’re saying is that someone being dogshit at VA, vs when they’re competent, is pretty clear even if you don’t know the language.
Obviously knowing the language helps drastically and will help you clue in on more of the subtleties, especially when comparing VA’s that’re actually good vs just “sounding emotional”.
There’s a vast gap between “dog shit” and “good” though. Mediocre or Acceptable being an examples. Which is my point, if you don’t know the language you don’t know a good performance from a mediocre one from an average one or a good one.
I’m gonna point back to the example earlier. Non English speakers watching Star Wars in English even though the performances and dialogue were widely mocked w
The english dub in BOTW is distractingly bad because it wasn't written for english. The characters saying ridiculous things sounds better when it's in Japanese, and most of the time with Nintendo games it doesn't even matter what they are saying it's just sound.