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Languages in (American) English Films | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio |  | |
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6870 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 1 of 6 23 July 2013 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
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This is a funny article about the ways foreign languages are usually handled in films and TV (mostly) from America.
Rated PG-13 for some crude language. Enjoy! http://www.cracked.com/article_18721_the-5-stupidest-ways-mo vies-deal-with-foreign-languages.html 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4664 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 2 of 6 23 July 2013 at 2:56am | IP Logged | ||
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I remember several years ago going to the movies to watch Spiderman 3. I'm a French speaker but, like so many others, opted to see the original version. There's a scene in a French restaurant. The host spoke French, but it was so bad that the entire crowd laughed. I could hardly believe that since the character had just a few lines, Hollywood couldn't find any suitable actor actually capable of speaking French.
I was curious as to how the scene had been translated and was told that in the French version, the restaurant was Italian. Good choice. Many many years ago, I had stumbled on a Beverly Hills episode in which the the characters were in Paris and had a though time ordering their meal in French. Since they were dubbed in French, it was, to say the least, very strange. To be fair, I haven't watched the whole episode, but I assume that if it was obvious they were in Paris and they had many scenes over there, it would have been impossible to pretend they were elsewhere. It was amusing anyway. Edited by Avid Learner on 23 July 2013 at 2:57am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| osoymar Tetraglot Pro Member United States Joined 4738 days ago 190 posts - 344 votes Speaks: English*, German, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Spanish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 6 23 July 2013 at 10:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think in Spiderman 3 it's supposed to be an inside joke- the maître d' is played by
Bruce Campbell, who worked with the director in his earlier movies, and he has cameos in the first two movies. That being said, there are certainly other examples- my personal (least) favorite being Kevin Bacon in X-Men: First Class. Especially unfortunate as he was playing opposite Michael Fassbender, who speaks very fluently. The movie was a total disaster anyway, so it shouldn't surprise me that they blew that casting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6870 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 4 of 6 24 July 2013 at 3:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Fassbender grew up speaking German, so he had an edge up.
I prefer seeing the foreign language all the way through, but some of the neatest transitions I've seen from foreign language to English, but still representing the foreign language is when in "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country" during the trial of Kirk and McCoy. The scene has Chang speaking Klingon to the court. Kirk and McCoy have a little walkie-talkie they are listening through (and through which we hear the English). The scene cuts to the interior of an interpreter's booth where three interpreters are sitting. One of them is translating the speech simultaneously while they other two are waiting to take their turn (another nice touch, since interpreters often work in shifts in these cases). As they are translating, mid-sentence the scene cuts from the interpreters to Chang where he carries on exactly in English, but it is implied he is still speaking Klingon. The rest of the movie has a fair amount of Klingon in it, although still not enough, in my opinion. Another movie that doesn't even bother with transitions but just goes for it is "Dances with Wolves." They had the Lakota speak their own language (albeit apparently a slightly grammatically simplified version). I don't know how good their pronunciation is, but I haven't really heard they sound terrible in it. Kevin Costner sounds a bit rough but since he learns it as an L2 in the movie too, that's forgivable. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4255 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 6 24 July 2013 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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This reminds me of Swordfish, where there's a character "Axl Torvalds" (from Linus Torvalds, the Finnish developer of Linux) and he speaks "Finnish" to his advocate or something (he actually speaks German) but the icing on the cake is that Linus Torvalds is a native Swedish speaker. Apparently when they were dubbing the film into German they had a "hold on..." moment and had someone actually dub the character in Finnish with German subtitles.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| chenshujian Diglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5452 days ago 122 posts - 139 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, English Studies: French | Message 6 of 6 25 September 2013 at 10:19am | IP Logged | ||
I had a similar feeling when i watched the film Tom Raider2. Lara Croft had a few lines in Chinese. I guess the director wanted to show that Lara is an super intelligent person that could speak so many foreign languages. But actually the way Lara spoke the Chinese lines are worse than a robot. I was wondering why Hollywood couldn't find any random Chinese to dub the line? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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