Download German Subtitles

[Alacoque Whitchurch]

I'm watching "Man In The High Castle" on Prime.
Sometimes everything is fine. Japanese dialog or text brings up the English translation in a subtitle box, and the same where there is German dialog or text, the English subtitles appear as they should.
During random episodes, when there are words on the screen, German subtitles will appear translating.
And then when there is Japanese dialog the translations come up in German subtitles.
And the of course when there is German dialog in the show, no subtitles appear at all.

Two weeks ago when I was watching "Upload" this would happen whenever there was any kind of text or signage on the screen, a German translation subtitle would appear.

I have gone through all the subtitle settings on both the Roku Ultra unit, as well in my Amazon Prime subtitle settings. Nothing is set to German anywhere.

When this German subtitle thing does happen, I've discovered that if I pause the show, switch on the CC for a moment, and then switch the CC off again, the German issue goes away and everything works as it should.

At this point, nothing I've watched on Netflix has caused this to happen.
I've asked on the Amazon community boards and they say try here.

For more information about that channel's features and functionality, you'll want to contact Amazon Prime Video support directly to inquire further. Many channels on Roku are developed and maintained by the channel provider themselves.

It still happens in random episodes of any show on Prime.
The only way that I've found to stop it, is at the start of an episode is to pause, go to subtitles and turn "OFF". Even though they are off.???
I had to do it with a couple of episodes of "The Boys" last night.

The same thing happened to me. I believe the way to fix it is press the pause button while watching a video. Using the arrow keys navigate to navigate up word twice and then move over to subtitles. Move over to where it says languages and that's where it was selected to Danish for me. Change it to be English and I think that may take care of your problem.

Since so many Roku owners are having this issue, and it only occurs when streaming Amazon on our Roku device, not any other streaming device, perhaps Roku support could contact Amazon support to get the solution instead of putting the Roku owners through the **bleep** that is Amazon support.

None of the suggestions above work for me. I paused the video, scrolled up to the settings, and checked my subtitles language. English was selected, but German was still displaying. I noticed that just above my choice of English was German, so the language above my choice was actually selected. I figured what happens if I choose the language BELOW my choice, which is Spanish? Well, I selected it and what do you know? The foreign language audio in my show was displaying English subtitles.

I have to say that I think the translation is really successful. The sentence structure, the words and the meaning behind the statements are very well preserved. I think I speak English well, I also played through the game once in English, but the second current playthrough with German subtitles brings me even more out of the game.

I am watching a lot of American and English movies on Netflix with the original sound and German subtitles. I've noticed that in the subtitles, when two people are talking, the formal pronouns are always used when the two characters address each other, regardless of their relationship.

The answer is probably that the choice between du and Sie in productions translated from English is not always necessarily natural. Primarily, this is due to the fact that English does not make the same distinction, so the translators have to guess which pronoun is appropriate starting with the first episode of a series.

In both cases, continuing to use Sie seems off to German viewers, but on the other hand, it can be hard to naturally switch the pronoun when the original dialogue doesn't. (That is, the original dialogue doesn't contain a line like "Let's say du to each other!", or anything less explicit that provides an obvious good time when characters should start switching to du.)

These issues are a reason for the tongue-in-cheek rule of thumb that in German versions of originally English language shows, "characters only use du if they have slept together" (presumably because no matter how unnatural a sudden switch to du would appear, it's still more believable than the characters sticking with Sie at that point, at least while they're alone).

With that said, it does not seem particularly alien to me for work partners who are also something like friends to use Sie toward each other. Maybe it doesn't happen so much in real life, but it is so common staple in detective shows and similar that two protagonists refer to each other only with their surname (without prepending Frau or Herr) and Sie. This is my impression of the principle at work in Sherlock, and appears in other police procedural or similar shows with two protagonists, as well.

Your assumption that it is not a slip-up because it is Netflix may be wrong. If it was too expensive to put effort in proper dubs or subtitle, or if it does not pay off otherwise they simply will not do it.

Usually we use the formal address Sie to unknown people, people of a higher rank, but also often amongst collegues or sometimes even amongst people we know for long. We always use Du amongst friends nowadays but note that this was different in the times Sherlock Holmes lived, when even children addressed their parents with Sie.

Whatever the intention of that show might be, one thing is for sure: they don't care about language as much as we don't switch from formal to informal and back. If this occurs within the same show it may indicate that more than one person wrote the subtitles and nobody reviewed them.

One reason might be, that they still have a somehow professional relationship which maybe should be enforced by the use of Sie. Especially in a business context in a German speaking company it is still quite common to use Sie instead of du, even when talking to colleagues you have known for years.

EDIT: Having just watched the first couple minutes of Black Mirror with German audio and German subs, I noted that the subtitles constantly changes between the use of du and Sie even within a single conversation between two people, while in the audio Sie is always used. There is also no obvious reason for the constant change of the pronouns and this can definitely be quite confusing to the viewer. So my conclusion that the German subtitles matches the German dub is not always right. And it even might be true that Netflix actually don't put much effort in producing the subtitles in some cases, however this is just a guess.

The form of address in German is part of the speech and vary in dependence of social relation. Further more it is different in parts of Germany how you address your counterpart by default. So it can be very subtle which address is suitable in which situation.

Sherlock has a special lack of social interaction. This is called Asperger. Often very intelligent people can not interact well just by feelings. Sometimes they have problems to get to close to anybody even nearest family members and close friends. So to keep a formal distance they might use the formal form of address always simply to avoid closer contact. Even if they are aware it is not applicable in this situation or relation they keep this by habit.Simply you also could say it is Sherlocks arrogance to keep everyone under his level even Watson. But how this can be excused related to special "disabilities" of Sherlock is a long, long discussion. ;-)

(When writing this answer I thought it is about the movie with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. I don't know the series, except knowing that it exists. So instead of old times I guess old fashioned would still apply.)

Not that long ago, people used to talk formally even to their own parents, or siblings, or husbands/wives. That can also be seen/heard in the German audio version of movies that take place in old times (maybe until the early 20th century or so).

Another answer suggests that it is due to the professional relationship between the two protagonists. While this might be part of the reason, I think that it is mostly because of the historical time, because while you would refer to your colleagues as "Sie" today in some companies, you wouldn't do so with your close friends (who may or may not be your colleagues as well).

Actually this is more a problem of the English language, which has only you for formal and informal style. (The ancient thou is seldom used outside of the bible, and the other choice is something like attaching "Sir"). Details may be found in Wikipedia under the somewhat dry title T-V distinction.

Yes, it is sadly. However, Jamie has already given the answer to his question - you would want subtitles, in the same language as the dialog, for language learners. We are planning to produce special subtitles, tailored to the needs of language learners, in contrast to the common subtitles, which, actually, have been designed for the needs of hearing disabled or hard-to-hear people.

Here in USA or Canada it is not a problem to get a movie on DVD in English with the English subtitles. To the contrary, it is nearly a rule that a movie on DVD will come with the subtitles. And the reason are the laws about the hearing disabled people and people with disabilities. (The laws do not oblige to put subtitles on DVD, but they demand to subtitle nearly any movie to be shown on TV. So putting subtitles on a DVD, which is very cheap in comparison to the cost of the movie, may be considerd a tradition. I believe the DVD subtiltling is also, at least in the case of American and British films, a source of an additional profit for the manufacturers, because not only the hearing disable people, but much more numerous non-native speakers and learners of English look for them .

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