Using Anime to Learn a Foreign Language Posted Jan 24, 2024

Using TV shows that a dubbed with subtitles seems like it should be an easy way to learn a foreign language, but sometimes you feel like you are playing Everygame Poker and somebody is bluffing.

Learning a foreign language can be difficult.  In the beginning, it is just trying to learn the foundation words.  Then is becomes trying to train your hear to hear and understand the language.  Many people are turning to TV series and movies to help in this area.

Watching TV shows and movies in your target language offers a fun and engaging way to boost your learning. You'll be immersed in natural speech, picking up pronunciation, intonation, and slang effortlessly. Visual cues and context help clarify meaning, making vocabulary stick like glue. Plus, the entertainment factor keeps you motivated while exposing you to different cultural nuances. It's basically learning disguised as your favorite pastime!

Using the Chrome extension Language Reactor

Language Reactor is a free chrome extension that you can use to turn any video that you find on Netflix or YouTube into a study tool. Language Reactor was previously called Language Learning with Netflix and Language Learning with YouTube.

Language Reactor’s job is to take the subtitles already available in any given video and present them in a way that is engaging and significantly more useful for learning a language.

With Language Reactor, you get these features above just watching the video in the language you are trying to learn:

• current subtitles in the target language, front and center
• their translation into your native language
• an overview of the previous/next subtitles, with their translations
• automatic pausing when reviewing specific words or phrases

If your video "has subtitles" (not embedded as an image onto the video), the program works great.  Two sets of subtitles are displayed on the screen.  For example, the spoken language of the video is English, and my language is Spanish.  So the English subtitles are displayed in large text, and the Spanish subtitles are displayed in smaller text blow it.  Visually, this looks very nice.  On a computer with a wide screen, on the right side is a list of all of the subtitles.  On average, I can see 10 subtitle lines, and I can get access to the rest through a slider button.

Since the main language is English, the subtitles are displayed in English.  When I put my mouse over the line of text on the right, on the right side I can see a star.  If I click on the star, it saves the translation into my personal list.  But you have to have an account in order for this to work.

You also have the option to have a pro account (free for two weeks) with these additional features:

• Save words and phrases
• Subtitles for dubbed movies (Netflix)
• Machine translation (Netflix)
• Support the developers (always a good thing)

When you hover over a word or a sentence, you get a tooltip on the left side.  If you put the mouse cursor over the blue arrow, it will just show the translation of the whole sentence.  If you put the cursor over a word, it will show you the translation of the word (or short phrase) on the top of the tooltip, there will be a line, and then below that is the translation of the whole sentence (subtitle displayed on the screen).

When I tried a video going from English to Hebrew, it worked great.

But then I tried a video that was going from Hebrew to English.  First, on the right side where the list of subtitles was supposed to be displayed, it said "No subs for this video".  At least on YouTube, nothing appeared.  I should disclose that for the specific series I was using as an example, there are no subtitle files on websites like OpenSubtitles.org.  For this specific series, the subtitles were an image that placed on top of the video, and they were not a separate subtitle file.  So not only could the program not read the subtitles displayed in the video, it could not use AI to translate the subtitles into another language.

However, using AI to translate subtitles is still restricted to the most common languages:

1. English
2. German
3. French
4. Spanish
5. Portuguese
6. Italian
7. Dutch
8. Polish
9. Russian
10. Bulgarian
11. Hungarian
12. Czech
13. Slavik
14. Danish
15. Estonia
16. Finnish
17. Greek
18. Latvian
19. Lithuanian
20. Romanian
21. Slovenian
22. Japanese
23. Chinese (simplified)

If we are talking about Anime, and you are a Japanese person wanting to learn English or an English speaking person wanting to learn Japanese, you are in luck.  But if you are looking to learn a more obscure language like Arabic or Hebrew, "mileage may vary" or you are just out of luck.

But unfortunately, there are problems with using subtitles and TV Show and Movies to learn a foreign language.

Dubbing and subtitles do not match

In some cultures, dubbing is required by law.  In France, Brazil, and Argentina, it is required by law that all movies have to be dubbed, not just subtitles.  But in Israel (Hebrew), there is no such law.  So for a lot of movies and TV shows, the subtitles are created first (by one group of people), and then the movie or TV show may be dubbed by a different group of people.  The result is that the dubbing and the subtitles do not match.

So you are watching a TV show.  You decide that you are going to put on the subtitles in Hebrew and the dubbing in Hebrew, so you can hear the words and see the text on the screen.  But the words on the screen don't match the words that are being spoken.  The general idea is the same, but the exact words are different.  If Hebrew is your native language, it is not important.  The meaning of the two are close enough that you get the idea of what is being spoken.  But if you are a language learner, it becomes very frustrating.  Sometimes I feel it is better to either display the subtitles in English or just turn off the subtitles altogether.

But that is nothing compared to what is going on in the Anime market with dubbing and subtitles.

Anime and dubbing and subtitles

Problem:

If you have ever thought about using Anime to learn a foreign language (for example, you speak Japanese and you want to learn English) ... you can forget it.

The Anime translators have been altering the translations to fit an agenda for over a decade.  So it is not just changing the word "pretty" for the word "beautiful" or "gorgeous", synonyms, but still the same general meaning.  The translators have been outright changing the story.

Here are some comments from users on Reddit:

"It's gotten more malicious recently starting with them removing and or changing entire personalities in Fire Emblem they deemed "problematic" along with anime and light novels in recent years."

"Fire Emblem Fates was butchered and the story was so bad I returned it instead of playing it. I only bought Fire Emblem Three Houses after hearing its story wasn't censored."

"These "people" have been maliciously altering the source material to suit their personal agendas now for well over a decade, and then playing the victim when the fans find out about their alterations and complain about it. "

Now Anime TV Shows, Movies, and Books and using AI to help with translation.  The response from fans is mixed.

"While some argue AI translations lack the authenticity that human translators bring to the table, others have said the move will stop localizers from placing political biases and modern social issues into translations, thus deviating from the original artists' intent."

" many critics of human translators have focused on the alleged insertion of progressive viewpoints into these translations when converting from Japanese to English dubs."

"The fear is that AI, driven by certain ideological biases, will tamper with the intent of the original Japanese texts, resulting in a loss of originality and cultural integrity,"

"Over the last several weeks, some anime fans online rejoiced at the idea of AI taking over the position of localizers, citing numerous examples of botched translations."

All of these comments are just talking about how the stories are actually being changed, and when you add in trying to learn a foreign language, the whole purpose of using subtitle files or parallel reading goes away.  Or worse, AI companies are using subtitle files and book parallel translations to teach the AI how to translate.

So it will be interesting to see how AI translation evolves in the Anime market due to fans rejecting human translations for taking "creative liberties " with their translations.