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[dreandre]

I'm watching Brad Pitt in "The Fury" and it's a good example.  It's a English speaking film, but often he speaks German since the film is based in Germany.  How do you manage subtitles when you don't what the entire film to show them, only when the character speak in another language? 

Simple answer please... I'm a layman!   

[RoderickGI]

It is called forced subtitles when an alternate language is shown in subtitles on a film that is primarily in your language.

Make sure that your preferred language and subtitle behaviour is set up in Option/Video. If the video file has the correct type of subtitles in it, as DVDs and some MKV files do, then they should work. If the subtitles aren't included, you need to find an srt file with the subtitles in it, put it in the same directory as the video file, and name it the same as the video file with an srt extension.

Then it may work.

Sometimes you can find srt files with just the Forced Subtitles that you want in them, and no other subtitles. Those are easiest to use. If the subtitle timing matches. Note that if you find those, all you need do at the start of the movie the first time you play it is select the subtitle file using the MC OSD display, and then MC will remember to always use that subtitle file in future.

Research Forced Subtitles. It is a confusing mess of a topic. Sorry, there is no real simple answers to this one.

[blgentry]

This seems like one of those problems that's not a problem.  If the film maker intended an English speaking audience to understand the foreign language being spoken, then he would have included hard burned subtitles in those places where the other language is spoken.  Really these aren't "subtitles" as they wouldn't even be on a subtitle track.  They'd be part of the video of the film.  Like in The Hunt For Red October, when they speak Russian.  The English translation is right there in the video.

If the filmmaker didn't think you needed to understand it, he wouldn't put it in.  Doesn't that make sense?

Brian.

[RoderickGI]

I've seen that argument a lot Brian when it comes to subtitles in these situations. Copious amounts of that argument. Search for Breaking Bad Season 3, Episode 6 and you will see how much. It doesn't hold any water for me.

If you saw the movie at the theatre, it may have had subtitles in it.
If you bought the DVD, it could have the subtitles in it. There are even Forced Subtitle tracks in some DVDs.
If you bought the Blu-ray, it might have the subtitles in it.

If you sourced the movie elsewhere, it probably won't. Even a digital download purchase, say from iTunes, may not. Even though the original presentation did.

For some people, not having the subtitles detracts from the film, even if the film maker didn't think it was necessary to understand the film. Lots of film makers prefer not to burn in subtitles as well, so they have one source video, and can add any language subtitle that they want to that. After all, that is what Forced Subtitles were invented for.

[dreandre]

Hey Guys!! thanks for the responses!  I have to go with Roderick on this one!  Once I started trying to learn about this stuff, I started paying attention to the number of times that subtitles appear in English speaking films.  Maybe a better example would be all of the alien sci-fi films where the alien language is subtitled while the humans speak English.  Makes complete sense that there would be "forced" subtitles in those situations.

This is good, cause my next post was going to be "What are forced subtitles?"

Great job, thanks!!