English is the most studied foreign language in the world. One fairly common belief is that watching films in their original version with subtitles will lead to better learning this foreign language. This may be the reason why the trend of watching films and series in their original version in on the increase.

Despite this assumption, the reality is that the effects of subtitles on improving the perception of a second language have been little studied. Some researchers have proposed finding scientific proof for once and for all that this is indeed the case. Joan Birulés-Muntané and Salvador Soto-Faraco (ICREA), researchers of the Multisensory Research Group (MRG) at the Department of Information and Communication Technologies (DTIC) at UPF, have designed an experiment whose results were published in the journal PLOS ONE on 29 June.

Subtitles can help to overcome the problem of phonetic variability

The study aimed to investigate the possible benefits of watching a series subtitled in English in learning the phonology and vocabulary of this second language for speakers of Spanish and Catalan.

As regards phonology, the process of learning the sounds of a second language can be a very difficult task for an adult, especially due to the difficulty of classifying certain phonemes of the second language in their correct categories due to the great phonetic variability (because of the influence of context, intonation, accent, the gender of the speaker, etc.).

Subtitles provide written lexical information, which can help eliminate ambiguity and analyse the information about the phoneme, and thus facilitate the acquisition and/or fine-tuning of the categories of challenging phonemes. Previous studies suggest that subtitles in the audiovisual media can facilitate other aspects of learning a second language, such as vocabulary acquisition and a global understanding, but even in these studies, there is some controversy regarding the different conditions of subtitling and the ability of the listener.

Study design and practical implications

To provide evidence of the possible effects on learning resulting from watching subtitled audiovisual series, 60 Spanish-speaking people, aged between 21 and 28, intermediate level students of English were asked to watch an hour-long episode of a TV series  in the original English version (the first episode of the series Downton Abbey), with subtitles in English, Spanish or without subtitles.

Thus, before and after watching the episode, the study participants were tested on their listening comprehension and vocabulary in English, in order to assess the effects of the series on speech perception and the acquisition of vocabulary in English.

The results of the experiment revealed that after watching the version subtitled in English, the participants had significantly improved their skills of comprehension in English (17%) compared with those who saw the episode without subtitles (7%) and those who watched it with Spanish subtitles (0%). The authors conclude that “these effects of improving learning after just one hour of exposure could have major implications with longer exposure time”.

Regarding the vocabulary test, no differences were found between the groups. Finally, a test on the understanding of the plot at the end of the screening showed that, as expected, the students who watched the series subtitled in Spanish were those who best understand the content of the story.

Thus, watching films or series in their original version with subtitles can help you learn a second language, but with the disadvantage of a poorer understanding of the plot.

The learning potential through subtitling in the audiovisual media can have an important economic and social impact and may favour the development of commercial applications based on these experimental results.  

Reference work:

Birulés-Muntané J, Soto-Faraco S (2016)  “Watching Subtitled Films Can Help Learning Foreign Languages” . PLoS ONE 11(6): e0158409. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0158409