I’ve been in Portugal for two weeks (how quickly time passes when you think about it) and one thing that I have noticed is that the Portuguese speak quite well in English, I didn’t know what could be the reason until the other day in a conversation, someone told me what could be the key to this mystery and that is that in Portugal series and films are not usually dubbed and they are used to seeing them in their original language with subtitles.
Researching on this topic I came across a study that affirms that this is true and that not only happens with Spain and Portugal, this happens throughout Europe! According to his research, the origin of these differences can be found at the time when the large American productions arrived in Europe, the countries with the largest population chose to dub them and the rest to subtitle, which is a cheaper method.
It is very interesting to me that the origin of this difference in the level of English could be in something like this, which shows the importance that series and movies can have in our lives (although I will save that topic for a future post). I remember that when I was learning English, one of the first tips they gave me was to watch series and movies in English so that my ear would get used to the language, if I had been Portuguese, this advice might not have been necessary, and doing this I realized that it is true and that the more you see like this, the easier it seems to you, so I think that the conclusion of the article in which they say that in countries where dubbing is preferred over subtitles is not entirely correct. it’s really a matter of giving it a try.
If you have read this far, you may think that the best option is always subtitles, but let me now defend my country’s favourite option because I think it is not a simple matter. If we see series and movies as a tool it is clear that the best option is subtitles, but in my opinion, they are much more. If we look at its aesthetics it is clear that the best thing is not some letters floating on the screen, if you are not very used to it, you may focus on reading the subtitles and miss part of the performances and finally and for me the most important is the context, not all countries have the same jokes and expressions and if we do not translate them we may not understand the true intention of a phrase.
If you asked me, I wouldn’t be able to say which one is my favourite since I use both methods, but I can tell you that for more serious films I usually choose subtitles, but I prefer to see a comedy dubbed.
If you want to know more about this topic this is the study that I found
