Dubbing or Subtitles?

When watching a Foreign film or show, do you prefer English Dubbing or Subtitles?

Personally, I like subtitles WAY more than dubbing. Some people I know say "well, when you have subtitles, you have to read through the entire movies". I still like subtitles because when watching a movie, I usually pay close attention to it. And when a character has a bad dub actor that doesnt even match the original lines very well, I can't take the film seriously. I dont mind having to read the lines. I hate it when there is a foreign film released in America and the only available version is dubbing. Strangely enough, the best dubbing I've seen for a foreign film is Son Of Godzilla. The acting of the voice actors matches up well with the characters of that film.

For me it's not really Engl. Dub vs. Subtitles but Dub vs. OmU (OmU is the german abbreviation for "Original with subtitles") . And the answer to that is mostly OmU nowadays. Grew up on german dub, but when DVD came out I started to get interested in the original audio which was mostly English at the time. After getting more and more interested in asian movies and anime I also started to watch them with eng. subtitles. I could have watched them with german ones, but there were a lot of cases where the german sub didn't match the original dialogue (Many times the german dub was used to make the movie goofier as it really was and the sub showed what was said in the german dub). But there are still some movies or shows where I still prefer the german dub over the original dub. For example the Mad Mission - Movies, the Louis DeFunes - Movies or the Spencer/Hill - Movies...those mostly got their popularity from the german dub. As for english dub...be it for anime or foreign movies, it is something we most of the time make fun of or not even care to watch.

Dubs are only acceptable in really cheesy movies, or if someone is intentionally changing the dialogue for comedic effect. If I'm trying to watch something serious, I need the actors to be speaking their own lines, whether I understand the language or not. Unsynced mouth movements are distracting...

Besides, subtitles can be educational - I have a rudimentary grasp of Japanese thanks to the 20+ years of anime I watched, and these days the subbers are much more accurate and reliable than they used to be.

I wanna take my previous statement back - the first three seasons of Ranma 1/2, which I'm now rewatching with my daughter, are absolutely the best dub work I've ever seen. Until they changed some of the cast later on, this was THE show to watch for quality voice acting.

Subtitles all the way as you catch the performance of the original actor (be it a good or bad performance). The quality of dubbing varies but even with the best ones you lose the emotional impact those words may have had. I watched a dubbed version of REC that was very well done and I couldn't even tell it was dubbed - but there was something off about the actor's performances which, I later found out, was because of the dubbing.

With anime, however, I like dubbing. I don't watch a whole lot of anime and it's not like they're matching the visual performance of another actor. Some things get lost in translation though, but it doesn't bother me too much. The only times I seek out a non-dubbed version of an anime is if I have a particular interest in the original voice cast. For instance, a lot of Morning Musume artists I <3 so much have appeared as regular characters on several different anime shows. Different actors that I follow have made appearances either as a regular character or a cameo in anime. To put this into perspective I really enjoy hearing Koharu Kusumi voice a character in Kirarin Revolution the same way die-hard bronies love hearing Tara Strong voice a character in My Little Pony.

Call me a purist, but I prefer a film or anime in the original language it was present in. Especially since the quality of the translation can vary. I watched dubbed when I am with the family, but when I am alone watching something I watch subs.

I'll watch something in Subtitles if the dub really bad.

For live action, I prefer subtitled. However if I'm watching an anime, I'll almost always give the first episode a try dubbed. Sometimes the dub can be really well done. Ranma as was said before, Baccano, Trigun, Bubblegum Crisis... Yeah sometimes they really do a great job with it. Some like Baccano you actually lose a lot when you watch the subtitled version, mostly because it's set in the 30's in Chicago and a lot of the slang and the dialects don't really translate well and it comes out a little messy.