Subtitles versus dubbing is not just taste. Why subtitles compress, what dubbing changes, what each loses and how to choose by situation.
Subtitles are limited by how long they stay on screen and how many characters fit at once. Reading is slower than speech, so transcribing dialogue exactly would outrun the viewer. Subtitles are therefore always a reduced version, and jokes, wordplay and repeated verbal habits are the first things to go. So judging a character's manner of speech or personality from subtitles alone can miss what was originally intended.
Dubbing escapes the character limit but must match how long the character's mouth moves on screen. Fitting that length changes wording. In exchange, you can watch the image continuously and miss nothing in expressions or background detail. A voice actor's performance can also add an interpretation different from the original actor's, so the same character may feel slightly different in the dubbed version.
The two approaches sacrifice different elements, so the right choice depends on what the work relies on. In the end it is less about which is better and more about choosing what you will miss less for this particular title.
Films dense with visual information, or with a lot of on-screen text, split your attention when watched with subtitles. Conversely, works where vocal performance carries the character, or where accent does narrative work, are better in the original audio. Animation, voiced after the fact by design, tends to meet less resistance to dubbing. Narration-heavy genres such as documentaries can also be easier with dubbing or a voice-over track.
Subtitles and dubbing often produce different translations even from the same source. Subtitles prioritise being read quickly, so sentences are split and trimmed; dubbing must sound natural when spoken aloud, so it matches the rhythm and length of speech first. Watch the same title both ways and characters' manner of speaking and the nuance of jokes will feel slightly different. It is hard to say either is more faithful to the original — each is the best choice made within different constraints. If you are curious about the difference, watching one favourite scene both ways is the quickest way to see it.
There is no right answer, but one option is usually better for a given situation. It is natural for the same person to choose differently depending on how tired they are and who they are watching with. For a title you love, watching once in the original and once the other way and enjoying the differences is a good approach too.
Mistaking the quality of the subtitles for the quality of the work itself happens more often than you would think. If awkward subtitles made a character seem odd, rewatching with a different subtitle track or the dub can change that impression. Also, once you get used to the first version you encountered, the other tends to sound wrong no matter what — usually a matter of familiarity rather than quality. For a multi-episode series, sticking with one method to the end rather than switching midway helps immersion. If subtitles appear before or after the speech, the problem lies with the subtitle file or settings rather than the work, so try a different track.
The same title often offers more than one subtitle track. Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers include sound effects and speaker labels, which can aid comprehension in complicated scenes. Checking whether size and position can be adjusted also reduces eye strain. If you can add a semi-transparent background behind subtitles, they stay legible even in bright scenes.