English teacher Shozo Shimazaki still remembers how difficult it used to be to watch Japanese shows in the U.S., when his family could only rent recordings from the local video rental shop. Now, as access to international media has been expanded through streaming sites like Netflix and Crunchyroll, more viewers are watching shows in foreign languages, bringing subtitles and dubs to center stage. In fact, a 2024 report by Ampere Analysis found that 54% of Internet users in four of the largest English-speaking media markets — the UK, US, Australia and Canada — watch foreign language content, showing even higher percentages among viewers aged 18-34 and significant growth among viewers aged 45-64.
Although he can still understand movies and shows in Japanese, for other foreign media such as the 1997 Italian film “Life is Beautiful,” Shimazaki turns to subtitles so that he can absorb the plot’s emotional aspects and supplement it with the translated meanings. Sophomore Caroline Zhang agrees with this approach, especially in comparison to dubbed content.
“When you watch with subtitles, you’re able to hear the original language of how they actually speak,” Zhang said. “You can see how actors have different tones or inflections in their voices, and I like putting on the subtitles better because I really like to hear the different emotions that they can make.”
For Shimazaki, the original Japanese in television series like “Hitotsu Yane no Shita,” or “Under the Same Roof,” carries a sense of nostalgia. He finds himself drawn to such shows and Japanese songs with their original audios.
“There is an emotional tie-in with watching the Japanese show,” Shimazaki said. “Even with music, I’d gravitate towards singing some Japanese song, because some of the lyrics just express the emotion correctly for me. There’s this emotional connection to it.”
Zhang notes that this connection, particularly the cultural elements, can be lost when relying on subtitles. She points out the differences between the cultural bases of English and Korean media, particularly with how characters interact. To her, differing tropes specific to American and Korean culture, as well as usage of different Korean formalities when different characters speak with each other, change the feeling of the show in ways that subtitles can’t quite capture: a sentiment Shimazaki echoes.
However, Zhang acknowledges that this difference is more a product of location than language. When watching C-dramas, even though she can pick up on emotional nuances because she understands the language, Zhang says she doesn’t fully understand the cultural contexts as a result of her upbringing in America. Senior Zoe Yu has observed the other side of the same coin — she says her experience growing up in Taiwan changes her perspective when she watches Chinese-language shows.
“A lot of C-dramas have backgrounds based on Chinese culture,” Yu said. “For example, for the C-dramas that are set in high school, you need to understand the background of how experiencing Chinese high school and American high school is very different. In Chinese high school, they get caught and they need to write their names down when they are late to school. Things like that from Chinese culture are things I understand, so I take a different perspective than other people when they see the drama.”
However much of a difference an understanding of cultural undertones may make, Shimazaki and Yu see foreign language media as a somewhat useful way to learn a new language. Shimazaki recalls that when he studied abroad in Japan, an international student from Korea had learned Japanese from TV to what Shimazaki found a surprising level of proficiency. Yu agrees that watching English-language media was useful to her when learning English — though not as much American culture.
“Watching movies in English back in Taiwan was my opportunity to better learn English, not just through writing and doing essays when I was in English class,” Yu said. “It did give me a perspective of what American culture could be like. But after coming to America, I feel like a lot of the movies might not be really accurate about actual culture.”
Even so, Shimazaki sees language learning — whether to understand international shows or to travel to new places — as beneficial to developing an open and empathetic worldview.
“At a young age, being exposed to more than one language made me more open-minded to begin with about languages and that people say things differently,” Shimazaki said. “But they’re human, too. They have the same emotions and everything, and they’re just expressing differently.”
