Posts tagged with "subtitles"

When living or traveling in Brazil, you’ll notice that there’s quite a lot of foreign movies, TV shows, and music being consumed. Most of the time, you’ll find one of two things: subtitles or dubbing. We’ve talked a bit about this in the past, and as far as learning is concerned, I highly recommend both types. Subtitled videos are helpful for building vocabulary, and dubbed videos are useful for listening comprehension, especially for beginners, since you’ll commonly find dubbed content for children, like cartoons.

Subtitles are called legendas [leh-zjen-dahs], and something with subtitles is called legendado [leh-zjen-dah-doh]. Let’s see it in a sentence:

Eu vi um filme legendado, só que achei as legendas meio ruins. I saw a subtitled movie, but I thought the subtitles were kind of bad.

Then there’s dubbing. Dubbing is called dublagem, [doo-blah-zjem] and something that is dubbed is called dublado [doo-blah-doh].

Não gosto de assistir programas dublados. A dublagem sempre é muito diferente das falas originais. I don’t like to watch dubbed shows. Dubbing is always very different from the original lines.

Let’s take a look at the same video: one is legendado, the other is dublado.

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Do you notice any differences between the legendas and the dublagem?

Great news for all language students! The TED website allows you to watch videos (all in English) with subtitles in dozens of languages! This means you can practice your Portuguese skills by adding subtitles to English videos where they are available. When you click the links, just look for the text below the video that says “Subtitles available in...”

Watching English video with Portuguese subtitles is a great way that expats often practice their language skills when living abroad, and is one of the ways I found really helpful to learn new vocabulary words. It’s something you are often forced to do without thinking about it when living in Brazil, but while in your home country, it’s a bit more difficult. Here’s your chance!

Plus, TED has several great videos of Brazilians discussing a range of different topics. Check them out!

Juliana Machado Ferreira, Biologist

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Click HERE to watch the video in Portuguese

Jamie Lerner, Urban Planner & Mayor of Curitiba

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Click HERE to watch the video in Portuguese

Vik Muniz, Artist

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Click HERE to watch the video in Portuguese

Here’s a great video for intermediate speakers, since there are subtitles and the narrator speaks in English. It’s a fantastic short documentary about Curitiba and its high quality of life, due largely to excellent city planning and making people–not cars–a priority.

Check it out!

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Questions: Checking Understanding

1. How do you say “a person from Curitiba?”

2. What is “qualidade de vida?”

3. How do you say “efficiency” in Portuguese?

4. How do you say “that’s fine” or “that’s ok” in Portuguese?

5. What is “obra” in English?

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