Why are dubbed movies/shows and their subtitles so off from each other?

Question

I love anime and a lot of foreign films/shows that are on Netflix. I mostly watch in the original audio, but sometimes watch with dubbed audio because the subtitles are not great. I’ve always noticed though, that the subtitles are way off from the dubbed audio. I’m assuming that they’re done separately, but why wouldn’t the studio try to sync them up as best as possible? Looking for any linguists out there to shed some light.

In: Other

Answer 1

There are a few reasons for this. As you said, subtitles and dubs are generally translated separately, by separate groups. Translation is a bit of an art. You can emphasize exactness of vocabulary, or the feeling that a native speaker would have hearing a particular word or phrase, or a multitude of other aspects, because it is very difficult or impossible to consistently get a translation of a sentence that is exactly 1:1 in both the literal meaning of the words, the layered meanings of the sentence, the way the sentence sounds, the tone, the register, etc.

This alone will result in slightly different translations of the same thing when different people are translating. Then you have to factor in that the dubs tend to have an extra constraint, where the translators will do their best to sync the timing, and sometimes even the specific mouth movements, as well as they can. This means that they often have to get creative in not just conveying the meaning, but conveying it in a way that fits the form of the conversation you are seeing.

Subtitles don’t have this restriction, and frequently you will get much more literal translations for subtitles that are giving you an exact translation of what was said, as close to word-for-word as possible. Meanwhile dub translations tend to be much looser, aiming for something that fits both the visually depicted flow of the conversation as well as something that will sound good when spoken aloud by whoever is dubbing.

The differences in these constraints, combined with how inexact translating is in general, means that the translations can often be very different in both word choice and general sentence structure.