Arabic Subtitling Service

What is the difference between subtitles and closed captions?

Subtitles and closed captions (CCs) look pretty similar, however choosing between these two options can have significant effects on your video contents’ reception, and may reveal more about your brand than you realise.

Those who do not regularly use subtitles or closed captions may think there is no significant distinction between the two. Both are often used interchangeably, but there is a significant difference between them, especially for the hearing impaired.

Subtitles
Subtitles are the textual representation of spoken words in a video, usually appearing at the bottom of the screen, in order for the audience to read-along whilst the video plays. Subtitles, in contrast to closed captions, are intended for viewers who can hear the original audio but have some trouble understanding it.

One use for subtitles is to aid those who watch videos in a language other than their own. It is for this reason that subtitles are used to help audiences understand spoken content of foreign films.

However, subtitles are not only used for foreign content. We are all well aware of the fact that English has developed into a worldwide language, and many people from all over the world are able to understand video content that is presented in English to some degree. For those that are unable to do this however, subtitles are a useful solution.

Closed captions
Closed captions are not only substitute for dialogue, but also for other audible parts of the soundtrack, such as background noises, phones ringing, and other auditory cues that without description, would be difficult to decipher.

Closed captioning is typically used for audiences who are hard of hearing, or for situations in which audio cannot be played out loud. In these particular instances, viewers require additional description in order to differentiate between different people speaking, emotional shifts in their voices, or non-vocal audio that is prominent to the plot or message of the content.

Access for all
So there is a significant difference between subtitles and closed captions.  On the one hand, closed captions can be distracting and potentially frustrating for viewers, when they are used in circumstances where just the use of subtitles would be sufficient. Even worse, however, would be to use subtitles when captions are required, which could potentially isolate members of your audience.

Both subtitles and closed captions serve the same purpose, which is to make your footage accessible to a larger audience. Although these audiences may differ slightly, your goal is to make your video understandable to everyone.  It’s just a question of understanding the needs of the particular audience.

So, what should you choose for your content, subtitles or closed captions?
The target audience for your video projects will determine whether you utilise either closed captions or subtitles. However, as the internet connects your content to the entire world, both are becoming more and more significant.

It is not an uncommon view that every video should include closed captions and subtitles, rather than choosing between the two. In addition to languages, it’s important to consider web accessibility and making sure nobody is alienated from your video content.

Let us help you with your subtitling and closed captioning needs
Here at Matinée, we have a brilliant team of in-house engineers, who will take care of all the technical work (time-coding, synchronisation, encoding, etc.), and have the ability to customise both closed caption and subtitle styles.

If you’re still unsure on which option is best for you, get in touch with our top-notch project management team, who will advise which solution would work best for your content, and your target audience.

Everything you never wanted to know about the Arabic language

Arabic is an official or co-official language in twenty-five countries around the world. Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Bahrain are among these nations.

Camel transportation is prevalent in North Africa and the Middle East. A camel can survive without water for one week, which is four days longer than humans. It is due to the fat stored in their humps, which they can use for energy when food and water are scarce.

If you wish to visit the largest underwater theme park in the world, you must brush up on your Arabic and travel to Bahrain. The park encompasses more than 100,000 square metres and is incredibly popular among scuba divers of all skill levels.

Moroccans can celebrate the New Year three times. There is the Gregorian New Year on January 1, the Amazigh New Year on January 12 according to the Agrarian calendar, and the Islamic New Year in July.

They do not celebrate love with heart shapes in Morocco. Instead, the liver is the symbol of love. There is an affectionate expression, “you’ve conquered my liver.” Because in Morocco a healthy liver, not a healthy heart, promotes well-being!

If you wish to lose weight, you should avoid Kuwait. About 75% of the population is overweight, making it the eighth most obese country in the world. Perhaps the food is delicious, but it is too hot to exercise.

Some Egyptologists believe that Tutankhamun’s death was the result of an attack by a hippopotamus. Tutankhamun suffered a leg fracture that may have become infected and led to his death. During Tutankhamun’s lifetime, it was common to hunt hippos, and they are notoriously aggressive animals.

If you visit the Tunisian city of Mos Espa, you may believe you have landed in outer space. The majority of Mos Espa was constructed for the filming of Star Wars. You can see the buildings used in the first film to represent the slave city where Anakin Skywalker was held captive.

When the three Kings visited the infant Jesus and brought him Frankincense, it could have originated in Oman. Here, frankincense trees are abundant, and it is burned in the majority of homes. Frankincense is used to make expensive perfume in Western culture.

If you want to see one of the world’s most active volcanoes, you should travel to Comoros, where Mount Karthala frequently terrifies the locals. Comoros is the least visited country in the world, which may be because there is an average of one coup every two years, indicating that the country is as unstable as the volcano.

A short history on the Arabic language

Arabic, the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family, is spoken throughout Northwest Africa and the Middle East. The spoken language consists of many varieties, which have all descended from Classical Arabic dating back to the 6th century.

Classical Arabic, in which the Qur’an is written, remains the formal version of the Arabic language. It is still taught in schools and used by religious scholars.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) has evolved – as the name would suggest – as a modern, standardised version of the language. It is widely understood across the Arab world, and used to teach Arabic as a foreign language, as well as by the media and politicians. Colloquial (or dialectal) Arabic is the everyday spoken language, which has a great many regional variants. These can be mutually unintelligible enough to be considered separate languages, although this is a very contentious issue (many Arabs profess that they speak a single language).

Which countries have Arabic as a national language?

Arabic is an official language in 25 sovereign states: Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

How many people speak Arabic as their first language?

As there are so many different varieties of Arabic, it’s hard to pin down just how many people speak it as their first language, but estimates range from 200 to 400 million. This makes it around the fifth or sixth most spoken language in the world.

Here are some recent figures for the top five most widely spoken dialects:

Egyptian Arabic – 55 million
Levantine Arabic – 21 million
Sudanese Arabic – 17 million
Mesopotamian Arabic – 15 million
Yemeni Arabic – 15 million

Did you know…

• Maltese is the only variety of modern Arabic that is officially recognised as a separate language, rather than an Arabic dialect. It is written with the Latin script.
• Arabic is written using the Arabic alphabet, which is an abjad script written from right to left. It uses Western rules of punctuation, but some of the symbols are inverted (eg commas) or reversed (eg question marks).
• The use of different types of Arabic for different social situations within communities is an example of diglossia. Diglossia is an interesting linguistic concept that usually applies to languages with ‘high’ (ie MSA) and ‘low’ (ie colloquial) varieties.
• Arabic has had a major influence on many European languages, particularly Spanish and Portuguese. Many Arabic words have been incorporated into the English language – mainly through the medium of other European languages – including alcohol, coffee, lemon, magazine and sofa.

The Middle Eastern economy

This diverse – and largely Arabic-speaking – part of the world is most famous for the production and export of oil. The oil industry has a major impact on the economies of all Middle Eastern countries, both through the revenue it generates and the movement of labour through these countries.

Due to the fluctuating price of oil, most Middle Eastern countries are also investing heavily in new industries, so that they are not overly reliant on the oil industry. These include banking, tourism, manufacturing and agriculture.

However, the instability caused by the 2010/2011 Arab Spring uprisings has put a major brake on development. A report from HSBC in October 2013 predicted that at the end of 2014, the GDP in the seven worst-hit countries – Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Bahrain – would be 35% lower than if the uprisings had not happened.