Subtitling Tools: Great for eTwinning videos

As web-based video is becoming more and more popular, see how you can use easy online tools to make your eTwinning videos multilingual for everyone to enjoy.

Online videos start to rival television in popular usage worldwide. In case you are making, or interested in making, videos with your pupils, it makes perfect sense to try using online subtitling tools to add a whole new language dimension to your videos. In this article we will examine the rationale for subtitling, some of the processes involved and provide you with a review of some of the existing tools available on the Internet today.

1. Why should you use subtitles?
   
2. Objectives of using subtitles
   
3. Using subtitling in learning the language of your neighbours
   
4. Benefits of using subtitles in foreign language learning
5. Limitations of using subtitles in foreign language learning
6. System requirements for subtitling
7. Personal prerequisites
   
8. Subtitling tools

1. Why should you use subtitles?

Video subtitles are a gold mine of untapped potential. They make video clips accessible for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing; they make it possible for all of us to watch video content in languages we do not speak; they give video creators access to a far bigger and potentially multilingual and global audience. You should consider using subtitling tools if you want to enhance your video clips, if you desire to express your thoughts and ideas about existing video content by adding commentaries, if you need to engage in novel ways in sharing videos online.

Accessibility: giving people more ways to access web-based video content – should be the primary motivator behind any subtitling tool. By subtitling your web-based video clip, you expand its reach. This is a great way to add value to your video clips, whether from the above-mentioned accessibility perspective, from the desire to reach an audience outside of your video’s language, or even to annotate your content.

Subtitling tools are not going to magically write subtitles for you and the act of subtitling is never going to be the quickest task you ever sit down to - but it is nevertheless a great way of expanding the horizons of your video content. The ultimate vision would be to provide accurate subtitles for all video clips in all languages, thus embracing the power of overcoming accessibility and language barriers for web-based video.

2. Objectives of using subtitles

• Subtitles help children with word identification, meaning, acquisition and retention.
• Reading subtitles motivates viewers to read more and read more often.
• Subtitles help children establish a systematic link between the written word and the spoken word especially in less phonetically spelled languages.
• Pre-readers, by becoming familiar with subtitles, will have familiar signposts when they begin reading print-based material.
• Subtitling has been related to higher comprehension skills when compared to viewers watching the same media without subtitles.
• Children who have a positive experience in reading will want to read; reading subtitles provides such an experience.
• Reading is a skill that requires practice, and practice in reading subtitles is practice with authentic text.
• Subtitles provide missing information for people who have difficulty processing speech and auditory components of the visual media (regardless whether this difficulty is due to a hearing loss or a cognitive delay).
• Pupils often need assistance in learning content-relevant vocabulary (in biology, history, literature and other subjects), yet with subtitles they see both the terminology (printed word) and the visual image.
• Subtitling is essential for children who are deaf or hard of hearing, can be very beneficial to those learning a foreign language, can help those with reading and literacy problems and can assist those who are learning to read.

3. Using subtitling in learning the language of your neighbours

Embracing the culture of a neighbouring country often reveals similarities linked to a common history or a shared geography, which often facilitate cooperation. Learning a neighbouring language and culture implies a mutual respect and understanding of the 'other'. This sometimes means leaving behind a troubled history of relations and overcoming prejudices often directed at neighbours and "foreigners" living amongst us.

Neighbouring tandem learning, the way of organising foreign language learning which brings together speakers of two different mother tongues who live in neighbouring countries to learn and teach each others’ languages and cultures reciprocally, has started in out-of-school youth encounters, yet forms of exchanges at primary and secondary school level can be successfully established through projects, centred around activities such as the production of subtitles for selected video clips. The use of video subtitles in your neighbours’ language(s) can provide a dynamic and rich source of communicative language in use.

4. Benefits of using subtitles in foreign language learning

Just like taking notes in a live lecture helps retain material even if you do not ever look at the notes again, learners who also read a text version of the video retain more vocabulary and specific details than they would have otherwise.

A subtitled video clip provides a triple connection between image, sound in one language and text (usually in another, not always though), sound and text being typically linked by translation. This type of connection generally encourages strong associations for retention and language use. If we consider the supplementary effects that both visual images and translation on their own typically entail for foreign language learning, their combination here is necessarily extremely powerful.

These are some of the benefits of using subtitles in language learning activities:

• Their use bridges the gap between reading and listening skills.
• Students can learn to process text in the foreign language rapidly and improve rapid reading, by trying to keep up with the subtitles that accompany the dialogues.
• Students can learn how to pronounce many words, consciously and unconsciously.
• Learners can develop word recognition skills.
• Subtitles can help learners to acquire new vocabulary and idioms.
• Students can understand humour (such as jokes) that would be hard to recognize without the help of the subtitles.
• Subtitles can motivate students to study the foreign language outside the classroom context, especially by watching TV and web-based video, listening to the original dialogues.

 
5. Limitations of using subtitles in foreign language learning

There are two main handicaps of using subtitles in foreign language education. One is that learners may concentrate too much on reading the subtitles and forget about the spoken dialogues. Yet this problem can be solved by preparing specific tasks that force learners to pay attention to the dialogues, so that they get used to do both activities, reading and listening, at the same time or alternatively.

The second problem deals with the difficulty to break the habit of reading subtitles once students are used to doing so. The teacher has to prepare then tasks that combine the use of subtitles with viewings without them, or any other task that can make students feel equally safe with or without the support of subtitles. This way, the support is removed gradually, in a scaffolding manner, until learners feel totally comfortable abandoning it.

6. System requirements for subtitling

General system requirements:

• Adobe Flash Player 10.0.22+ plug-in
• Firefox 1.1+, Internet Explorer 7.0+, Google Chrome, Safari or Opera
• broadband connection with 500+ Kbps 

PC specific requirements:

• platform: Windows 2000 or higher with latest updates installed
• processor: 500MHz or faster
• RAM: 128MB or more
• video card: at least 64MB of video memory
• sound card: at least 16-bit

Mac specific requirements:

• platform: Mac OS X 10.3 or higher with latest updates installed
• processor: 1.83MHz Intel Core Duo or faster
• RAM: 128MB or more
• video card: at least 64MB of video memory
• sound card: at least 16-bit

 
7. Personal prerequisites

1) Linguistic skills:

• Excellent mother tongue skills
• At least B2 level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages in the foreign / second (third a.s.o.) language, where applicable
• Good translation skills, where applicable
• Editing and spotting skills
• Ability to understand and use idiomatic language 

2) Ability to prioritise and summarise

3) Practical ICT skills – beyond basics

4) A questioning nature

5) Love for precision work and patience

6) Reliability

8. Subtitling tools

• Universal Subtitles (www.universalsubtitles.org) 

Created by Miro and the Participatory Culture Foundation and supported by Mozilla Drumbeat, Universal Subtitles is an easy way to add subtitles, captions or translate video clips. It works with these sites and formats: YouTube, vimeo, blip.tv, h.264 and HTML5, in a Wikipedia-like fashion. The software is free and open source and can be used by anyone. 

How does it work?

You register with the site, submit your video, add the Universal Subtitles widget to the video clip, click the “subtitle me” button and start typing what you hear. Next you sync the subtitles and review your work. Afterwards you are given an embed code that you can put on any website.

Subtitles are saved on universalsubtitles.org, but you can download them. Once subtitles exist, any viewer can add a translation in any language. Viewers can also improve existing subtitles and translation – this way, subtitles are constantly getting better, much like an article on Wikipedia. There are good tutorials on the site. One can also read the Universal Subtitles blog and follow Universal Subtitles on Facebook and Twitter.

How does it stand out?

Typing is by far the most time consuming part of the whole effort of subtitling, so Universal Subtitles optimizing for typing efficiency by separating this work from the work of syncing a video clip is salutary.

• Overstream  (www.overstream.net)

The free online Overstream Editor allows you to create and synchronize your subtitles to any online video clip on YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Video, Veoh, blip.tv, Archive.org and vimeo, store them on the Overstream server and send a link to the subtitled video overstream to your friends.

How does it work?

The easiest way is to register with the site and add a special bookmark to your Firefox toolbar. While watching a video on any website, when clicking the bookmark a simple but effective interface is brought up, which adds readable words at any point in the video clip.

For the other browsers, you will just need to log in and click the ‘Create Overstream’ button. There are good tutorials on the site. One can also read the Overstream blog, forum and news.

• dotSUB  (www.dotsub.com)

dotSUB is a browser-based technology for subtitling video clips into and from any language. dotSUB allows you to view, upload and subtitle video clips on the web. You do not need to download, buy or install any software. You just need to register with the site.

How does it work?

You can upload your own videos (dotSUB accepts all digital file formats, size limit: 700MB) and subtitle them yourself, or open them up for anyone who may want to subtitle the video clip into their own language in a ‘wiki’ type of environment. You can also share your videos with the world by embedding them on other sites, complete with subtitles in multiple languages.

It is also possible to upload a .flv file from an existing Internet address. There are good tutorials on the site. One can also read the dotSUB support page and blog. See how it works in practice for a Spanish eTwinning teacher.

How does it stand out?

1. If you have the Google or Firefox spell check in your toolbar, you can use these when you are working online in dotSUB.
2. Multiple users can subtitle the same video in real time – however, only one user can change an individual line at any given time.

• YouTube Auto-Caption (www.youtube.com)

YouTube allows its users to request auto-captions on their videos. Speech recognition is used to automatically transcribe what is said in English in a video. Auto-captions require a clearly spoken audio track. Videos with much background noise or a muffled voice cannot be auto-captioned.

How does it work?

You need to sign into your YouTube account and mouse over your username located in the upper right corner of every page. Once you click on ‘My Videos’, you will be directed to a page showing your uploaded videos. Find the video to which you would like to add subtitles and click the down arrow located to the right of the ‘Edit’ and ‘Insight’ buttons. Select the ‘Captions and Subtitles’ button from the drop-down menu. Click the ‘Request Processing’ button. You will see ‘Machine Transcription (processing)’ in the list of available caption tracks. It usually takes a few days for the speech recognition track to become available for viewing. You will now need to check the transcription to make sure it is accurate.

Of course there are many other subtitling tools, such as: CaptionTube, Subtitle Horse, Jubler. You may be using a completely different tool yourself. We would be glad to hear about your experience and recommendations.  You can tell us about your experiences here using whatever language you wish.

“Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right’.

Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command,

and better tools will be found as you go along.”

 George Herbert, Welsh poet


This article has been written by Daniela Arghir, eTwinning Ambassador, Romania.

 

Web Editor: Claire Morvan Published: 03.08.2011 Last changed: 12.10.2011