haha hardsubbed means the subtitles are on the video itself.

softsubs means you have a raw file (without subtitles) and a softsub file (ASS/SRT file) and you name both the raw file and softsub file with the same name and put in the same folder, so when you watch the clip the softsub will appear.

sometimes people prefer to have softsubs, because when you wanna do screencaps, you can off the subtitles so it'll look nicer, but for hardsubbed, the subtitles are on the video itself, so when you screencap, the subtitles will be on it..

haha~ not sure if you can understand.. XD