Word by Word

speaking course!

Star Movies and HBO have been flashing it for quite some time now,and the latest to join the word-press is Star World with Bones and Boston Legal. “For a non English speaking janta,this is a boon,” points out Meta Club’s Harmanjit Singh who,along with others,enjoys the pleasures of a Japanese or Iranian film thanks to subtitles. “It’s also one of the best things that can happen to someone who’s hearing impaired,” he observes.

It was a research that made Star’s team take to subtitling. “Because it helps the viewer follow a series/movie better. An unfamiliar accent,heavy ambient sound (mostly seen in action sequences),complex,lengthy dialogues are some of the big reasons a viewer may not be able to enjoy viewing to the maximum. This is where subtitling works wonders,” says Jyotsna Viriyala,Vice President,Programming,Star World adding that Lost along with other handpicked shows will air with subtitles on Star World India.

In the meantime,the little devil of a Tickr has kept audiences glued to MTV. A running strip of subtitled commentary,the Tickr’s quite a major hit. “MTV Orkut has a community dedicated to it!” tells Ashish Patil,VP and GM,Creative and Content,MTV adding how also DVDs are a hit because they come with subtitles. “Sometimes actors speak so fast that you miss the line,that’s where a subtitle runs to your rescue,” he says. However,actor cum actor Khushboo Kochhar feels that while it encourges people to watch English or other language films,it’s distracting. “I hope Tata or Dish customise and give the option of an ‘off’,” she prays.

In another part of the world,the famed Technology,Entertainment and Design (TED) is making thought-provoking lectures by giants of technology,science and the arts available in dozens of languages. “TED’s mission is to spread good thinking globally,and so it’s high time we began reaching out to the 4.5 billion people on the planet who don’t speak English,” feels TED curator Chris Anderson. In what they call a ‘magical global experience’,the TED Open Translation Project has launched with a small array of videos augmented with subtitles and transcripts in 40 languages. As TED team adds,“We’re not far from the day when anyone on Earth can directly access the world’s great teachers speaking to them in their own language. How cool is that?” Yup,how cool is that!