Although Portugal is traditionally a subtitling country, with regular exposure to English audiovisual materials, the population's foreign-language skills (English) appear as statistically low. This research seeks to evaluate translation, as an activity in the educational area, and its relevance to foreign-language development and learning; it aims specifically at evaluating the effectiveness of subtitling as a language-learning tool amongst learners in Portugal.The data resulted from three studies. The first two tested the understanding of content through exposure to subtitles. The third evaluated the production skills of EFL students, in a very specific area of language - idiomatic expressions-, via the use of the mother-tongue, after prior exposure to subtitled material.The findings from the 3 studies indicate that the presence of subtitles, interlingual or intralingual, always contribute towards viewers' comprehension of the content, even in culture-specific areas such as idioms. Putting the reader in the picture: screen translation and foreign-language learning Abstract Although Portugal is traditionally a subtitling country, with regular exposure to English audiovisual materials, the population's foreign-language skills (English) appear as statistically low. This research seeks to evaluate translation, as an activity in the educational area, and its relevance to foreign-language development and learning; it aims specifically at evaluating the effectiveness of subtitling as a language-learning tool amongst learners in Portugal. The data resulted from three studies. The first two tested the understanding of content through exposure to subtitles. The third evaluated the production skills of EFL students, in a very specific area of language - idiomatic expressions-, via the use of the mother-tongue, after prior exposure to subtitled material. The findings from the 3 studies indicate that the presence of subtitles, interlingual or intralingual, always contribute towards viewers' comprehension of the content, even in culture-specific areas such as idioms.