The presumption of linguistic ignorance
Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
If I watch a French or a Czech film, it usually has subtitles for whatever languages are spoke on screen. If a character speaks German or Spanish, the words are subtitled.
Most American movies just put a caption [speaks German] or [Speaking Italian], the apparent assumption being that putting the actual words spoken wouldn’t be useful to the audience. Since I can follow better in writing from from hearing words spoken quickly, I find that unhelpful and the assumption itself sad.