Foreign language subtitles.

[Kablooie]

My wife is Japanese and speaks English well but still has a hard time following many movies and TV shows because of the rapid slang and character speech.

There are websites now that have subtitles you can download in many languages for tons of movies and TV shows.
They are not professionally produced but written by fans.

I've found Japanese subtitles for Game of Thrones, The Crown, Breaking Bad, Mad Men and others.
One catch is that you have to have a digital file of the show and sometimes have to adjust the sync but it works well once that's done.

Often the the written subtitle dialogue seems different to me from the English line but she says it's correct and captures the meaning well in Japanese.

If you're interested check out:

https://www.opensubtitles.org/

To adjust the sync of the subtitles:

https://subtitletools.com/subtitle-sync-shifter/

Once you have that you simply select the subtitle file in VLC or some other video player and it appears on the screen as the video plays.

I also use Plex, a free application that allows videos from your computer to be played on your smart TV screen, along with the subtitles of course.

[soothsayer]

1. Neat!

[NanceGreggs]

2. A bit off-topic, but ...

... I tend to watch TV shows with the closed captioning on, because my hearing isn't what it used to be.

Most closed captioning is done by court reporters, and being I've been one for decades, I am always aware of the 'quirks' that are sometimes apparent.

For court reporters who use steno machines, their translations are based on phonetics. Therefore, their translations can be a bit skewed when transcribing words that are spoken with an unfamiliar accent.

I recently watched a true crime show that featured two detectives from Brooklyn, NY - and the phonetic translation of their dialogue was obviously done by a reporter unfamiliar with that pattern of speech.

So when they discussed the murder victim's wife in terms of "her" potentially being the murderer, it came up on screen as "huh", e.g. "I don't believe huh alibi," or, "I'm liking huh for the crime."

Being from Brooklyn myself, I appreciated the phonetically accurate translation - because "huh" is exactly how we Brooklynites pronounce the word.

But it undoubtedly baffled everyone else.

[Generic Brad]

3. My wife keeps closed captioning on TV all the time

It helps her catch the occasional word she doesn't catch. I don't speak Japanese and she doesn't follow any Japanese TV other than the news on NHK.