Subtitles

[diego_pmc]

I want to ask something about English movie subtitles. If in a single 'scene' the subtitles show the dialogs of more than one person, is it written like this:

- Who are you?
- I'm John.

... or like this:

"Who are you?'
"I'm John."

I know there's no such thing as a dialog line (-) in English, and that only quotes are used, but I'm unsure whether this applies for subtitles as well.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Anglika]

Welcome to the forums.

On any films with subtitles that I watch, the text is given without quotation marks or other symbols and usually there is not more than one person's speech given at any time.

I will be interested to see what others have found.

 

[diego_pmc]

Welcome to the forums.

On any films with subtitles that I watch, the text is given without quotation marks or other symbols and usually there is not more than one person's speech given at any time.

I will be interested to see what others have found.

Thanks!
In case no one else replies, which one do you, as a native, think would be better?

 

[Anglika]

For subtitles, a dialogue line.

But the danger with putting more than one line of dialogue up as subtitle is the possible confusion about who said what.

 

[David L.]

Dialogue can be rapid-fire (the characters are speaking very quickly) in some movies. When this happens, and the conversation between two characters appears simultaneously, it is given as you listed, on separate lines:

- Who are you?
- I'm John.

 

[Batfink]

I have seen subtitles in different colours to allow us to see that a second person is speaking.