After work, we usually go out for a bite to eat. Last night, we went to a local eatery selling Chinese food items. The lady running it used to sell food from a cart, and had a great little business. Then she moved.
Her new store is open to the street, has no wall or window on the streetside, and therefore is VERY noisy. Thanks to captioning on the TV, though, everyone was able to watch TV and not worry about hearing the dialogue on the latest Taiwanese soap operas.
I wonder why the BBC doesn’t use captions more. I know they are available on page 888 of Teletext, but in Taiwan captions are available on most non-live programming as a default. It’s a valuable tool for many reasons, including helping people to read Chinese characters which are pretty difficult at times. In fact, when Taiwanese watch foreign TV, it’s natural for them to read the subtitles. They don’t mind.
In Britain, only a few years ago, it was the rare movie with captions that made it big. Most had to be dubbed into English.