The most relevant academic work is (2018), published in PLOS ONE . Key Findings on Hungarian Subtitles
Another relevant paper by Estélyi-Tala and Hortobágyi (2022) focuses on the "realia" (culture-specific terms) in Hungarian audiovisual translation (AVT), examining shifts between domestication and foreignization in Hungarian-to-English subtitles.
The study measured "proportional reading time"—the percentage of display time viewers spend actually looking at the text. For "normal" subtitles, this was approximately 55% , while faster subtitles required up to 68% of the viewer's time. Other Related Research Time Lapse subtitles Hungarian
When watching Hungarian videos, viewers generally preferred slower subtitles with text that had been edited down (condensed) rather than verbatim "unreduced" text.
In contrast, for English videos, viewers could keep up with and actually preferred faster subtitles with unreduced text. The most relevant academic work is (2018), published
Research on situational comedies like Friends and The Big Bang Theory has compared original English tracks with dubbed and subtitled Hungarian versions , noting that subtitle constraints (like limited screen time/space) often lead to a loss of humorous load compared to dubbing.
In Hungary, the historical preference has leaned heavily toward voice-over or dubbing . Voice-overs in Hungary typically aim to convey meaning within the same time interval as the source but often use slightly shorter target-language text to ensure readability. For "normal" subtitles, this was approximately 55% ,
This paper investigates how presentation speed affects the cognitive processing of subtitles across different languages. Specifically, it notes: