Closed captions archive

[Lord of Fire]

Originally Posted by neothe0ne

translators should now be watching and listening to the episode, instead of just looking at the closed captions like used to be possible?

I still don't see why that would make a translation better.

[karice67]

^
Probably because only people with a decent level of Japanese will actually be translating?

Though it does make it more difficult for those people, as there will always be words that are a challenge to catch.

I will miss them, since they were good learning tools, but well, I'll make do with watching some episodes a few more times. Or maybe I'll just switch completely to watching dramas...

[Kokujin-kun]

Meh, from what I see the majority of the shows don't even have captions anyway (at least for the first broadcast), so although it's sad to see what we did have be unavailable, it's not really that big of a loss.

-Just wanted to add *maybe* the loss of captions will make for better translators who will shift from using captions as a crutch and force them to improve their listening skills. But make no mistake that it made everybody's lives a lot easier, and I mean everybody's.

[Kurre]

Not that the captions aren't still available through other sources, but I fail to see how the loss of them helps to improve the quality of fansubs... except if many people quit and only the most skilled continue. Bit perverse but realistic.

[Quarkboy]

Originally Posted by Kurre

Not that the captions aren't still available through other sources, but I fail to see how the loss of them helps to improve the quality of fansubs... except if many people quit and only the most skilled continue. Bit perverse but realistic.

I think the point people are trying to make is that without the CCs, the effort is takes for someone without very good skills is much much higher than if the CCs are available.

For example, a first year student of Japanese could easily (and relatively quickly) run through a CC script, looking up all the words he/she doesn't know, and come up with a very poorly translated script without much effort.
Without the CCs, they'd spend 5 times longer trying to pick up words from the dialog and get easily frustrated.

I.E. CCs enable crappy translators to produce crappy work quick and easily.

That being said, CCs also help _good_ translators produce good work faster and more accurate as well.
Well, I mainly get scanned pdfs so who am I to comment.

[TheFluff]

With captions it was possible (and common) for really shitty translators to churn out translations with the help of dictionaries and google translate. With the no-barrier-of-entry access to captions gone, that practice has already shown signs of ending. This is a good thing.

e:f;b

[Danodare]

The problem is not to throw the baby with the water of the bath... Many people, me included, were using the captions to actually *learn* japanese, without fansubbing in mind.

A good compromise would be to make the captions freely accessible as before, but 1 month after broadcast instead of 1 hour after broadcast.

Fansubbers wont wait that long, but japanese learners like me would be delighted. TheFluff, as you were the first to make the captions accessible to the general public on your website mod16.org, what do you think of that solution ?

Full of hope,
-Danodare

[TheFluff]

Originally Posted by Danodare

The problem is not to throw the baby with the water of the bath... Many people, me included, were using the captions to actually *learn* japanese, without fansubbing in mind.

A good compromise would be to make the captions freely accessible as before, but 1 month after broadcast instead of 1 hour after broadcast.

Fansubbers wont wait that long, but japanese learners like me would be delighted. TheFluff, as you were the first to make the captions accessible to the general public on your website mod16.org, what do you think of that solution ?

Full of hope,
-Danodare

That decision isn't mine to make. I can zip up and upload the last known version of the archive if you wish but I won't (and can't) get you new captions anymore.

[Schneizel]

Why the fuck would you try to learn Japanese from anime closed captions? How is that more "noble" of a cause than fansubbing?

[Isako]

Originally Posted by Schneizel

Why the fuck would you try to learn Japanese from anime closed captions? How is that more "noble" of a cause than fansubbing?

I have to say I have to agree. Unless you're using it as practice, while taking real classes or some other form of real training, it won't really get you very far in terms of a being a good tler.


Also, fansubbers aren't really held captive by CCs in general, as earlier stated only a select channels and amines have them. So in general, most groups are used to doing without them anyway. The decent ones anyway.

[jfs]

Fansubbing existed for at least 25 years without access to closed captions. Stop crying.

[Blue-kun]

I have to say I have to agree. Unless you're using it as practice, while taking real classes or some other form of real training, it won't really get you very far in terms of a being a good tler.

I don't really care about what that guy thinks or does, but it strikes me as obvious he'd be using them as practice. it's the one real use captions have for this sort of stuff.

Although, to be quite honest, I'll never understand why more people don't play eroge for stuff like that. You've got stories for pretty much everyone and it's a fantastic medium -- text, audio and even easily found applications to hook text and run them into dictionaries in case you ever get confused about the meaning of some word(s). It's got everything. Really.

As for the situation at hand itself, who cares. Aside from the whole learning Japanese thing, which, honestly, should be a minority, fansubbing will still go on existing. And we'll be safe from babelfish stuff. That was just annoying, really.

[Danodare]

To quickly answer the above points: the practical advantage japanese media (anime, tv shows, dramas, movies,...) has over textbooks or real lessons is that it is a way of studying when I'm eating or when I'm really tired.

Perhaps the younger folks eat really fast and are never tired, but I spend an awful lot of time everyday either eating or being too tired to study japanese in textbooks. Anime and similar media is really convenient for this, especially when it comes with closed captions.

But it was only a convenience... and it was good while it lasted. As it stands now, a few groups will get closed captions, keep them for themselves and not share with the community, thus depriving japanese learners of that opportunity.

I fail to see how making the closed captions public 1 month after broadcast instead of 1 hour could possibly deteriorate the quality of fansubs, but I repeat that it would be a huge help for students like me.

TheFluff: it would really help if you could upload a zipped version of the last known version of the closed captions. I thank you a million times in advance for this . I have kept mod16.org/captions in my bookmarks.

[cat928]

Originally Posted by TheFluff

That decision isn't mine to make. I can zip up and upload the last known version of the archive if you wish but I won't (and can't) get you new captions anymore.

That would be helpful. Thanks in advance. It can be useful for... something.

[tenkenX6]

Not having transport streams doesn't affect me personally. I've always subbed stuff by ear and have been able to TL stuff accurately. But of course, this is just my opinion.

[Shouta]

Studying and learning Japanese using anime is far better by ear than it is using captions. Better trains your ear to catch words and it'll give you a hook to remember vocabulary.

Fansubbing has been around for ages without closed captions so not having them is no big deal. It certainly helps get something out without as much trouble. There's a lot of anime out there with VA that pronounce words very badly or can't be heard because of poor sound mix and the like.

[xxanimefan4_ever]

Originally Posted by Shouta

Studying and learning Japanese using anime is far better by ear than it is using captions. Better trains your ear to catch words and it'll give you a hook to remember vocabulary.

Fansubbing has been around for ages without closed captions so not having them is no big deal. It certainly helps get something out without as much trouble. There's a lot of anime out there with VA that pronounce words very badly or can't be heard because of poor sound mix and the like.

umm... you can talk about as much as you want about fansubbing + captions but don't talk language learning and captions when you aren't learning Japanese. I'm assuming you're a translator because you know Japanese and not because you learned it via classes and all that.. but i wouldn't know.

"Studying and learning Japanese using anime is far better by ear than it is using captions. " I don't agree with this... whatsoever.

It's just really pointless bringing language-learning into this discussion when you yourself aren't learning the language... You obviously wouldn't understand..........
10,000 hours building listening comprehension... In other words people who are learning Japanese obviously hadn't had ridiculously large amounts of listening hours compared to someone who is Japanese/raised in aJapaese family and thus does not have as a strong a ear for catching Japanese. So I say I love J-subs as a learner of Japanese. It's really extremely helpful because 9 times out of 10 I have no problem understanding the lines, I just can't catch everything by ear. by all means this will be fixed with additional hours of listening but needlessly to say I'm not at 10,000 hours yet

There's nothing wrong with J-subs...
like what the hell is this... Better trains your ear to catch words and it'll give you a hook to remember vocabulary.
If I watch something without j-subs and try to type out what I think I heard and basically look up all the combinations (because I'm not sure what I'm hearing) in the dictionary it's going to take some time and find out what it means (and no it does not guarantee me remembering the definition or the word) and sometimes I reach a dead end or I'm not sure which it is (of the possible combinations) . It's all because of my listening hours/listening comprehension.
VS. have the j-subs,see that the word is _ which results with me saying oh I know what that means why didn't I hear it/make that connection OR I don't even have to look it up cause I know the kanjis that make that word up. It saves so much time and frustration plus I can put it in to ANKI without any worries.

Oh and you can make fun of AJATT all you want..... I blew it off at first but damn that shit really works.
the japanese-language learning type forum that's helped me...,

[Schneizel]

Originally Posted by xxanimefan4_ever

Blogging

Could someone translate this into English for me?

[Shouta]

Originally Posted by xxanimefan4_ever

umm... you can talk about as much as you want about fansubbing + captions but don't talk language learning and captions when you aren't learning Japanese. I'm assuming you're a translator because you know Japanese and not because you learned it via classes and all that.. but i wouldn't know.

I'm not Japanese and I've been learning since Middle/Junior high school. I have far more experience learning the language from scratch than most people on this forum.

Anime is best used as practice for listening because that's what it is, an audio and visual experience. If you want to learn Japanese through reading, manga is a far better medium to do so.

Originally Posted by Schneizel

Could someone translate this into English for me?

I don't think that's possible.

[karice67]

People, please, just leave it. What works/worked for you doesn't/won't necessarily work for others.

Personally, I think Japanese captions CAN BE useful for learners because it's a convenient link between what you hear with how it's written. However, it also depends on how you use them. I occasionally use captions myself now as a study/learning aid, muxing them to a video file, referring when I need to or want to pick out a term/phrase to plunk into Anki, and rewatching scenes if necessary. In my experience, they're much better if you have at least JLPT2 level listening and plenty of kanji under your belt. That said, I'd already gotten relatively decent at listening from ~2years of following radio shows by the time I started.