Subtitles: When and for whom?

Skeet from Lane Greene:

Oof. The Spanish national broadcaster is apologizing for having subtitled in interview with the mother of member of the men's World Cup team, because of her Andalucian accent.

[image or embed]

— Lane Greene (@lanegreene.bsky.social) June 26, 2026 at 4:56 AM

He adds:

On one hand: I get the annoyance in Andalusia.

On the other: they're well aware of the difficulties their accent causes! It's a point of regional pride!

Probably a mistake to subtitle, but a shame-faced "It was a great mistake" is perhaps more than strictly needed.

— Lane Greene (@lanegreene.bsky.social) June 26, 2026 at 4:56 AM

Hell, my own US southern family's accent caused my wife to whisper to me in Danish "what… are they saying….?" and her English is the best of any non-native-speaker I have ever met. People in the (US) south know they speak differently, and are proud there too.

— Lane Greene (@lanegreene.bsky.social) June 26, 2026 at 4:56 AM

I've heard similar stories about communication problems across varieties of Dutch and Italian, and in fact there are probably no widely-spoken languages where this isn't an issue. And for English, see also Glaswegian, e.g.

…where for most of us, it helps to turn on the subtitles.