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Multilingual Europeans | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| lengua Senior Member United States polyglottery.wordpre Joined 6686 days ago 549 posts - 595 votes  Studies: French, Italian, Spanish, German | Message 33 of 40 14 August 2006 at 9:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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The funny thing about dubbing v. subtitles is that it's also a lot cheaper to make subtitles than to go through the trouble of dubbing a film or tv program. To sub a show, you only need one person who understands the language in the film to make a transcript of it. From there, you just perform the equivalent of closed captioning. To dub something, not only do you need a full translation of everything said, you also need a set of people to voice the roles. They need to have convincing accents. They need to read their lines roughly in time with the speech in the film...and so on. It's ironic that the more educational method (subbing with the original language at full volume) is cheaper than the "catering to the masses" method. Edited by lengua on 14 August 2006 at 9:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FlorentT Triglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 6322 days ago 119 posts - 120 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: Portuguese, Flemish, German, Hindi | Message 34 of 40 12 August 2007 at 8:01am | IP Logged | ||
The Belgian situation is pretty complex. You'll find that most Flemish people in the North are quite at ease with languages as you describe, while Southerners Walloons whose mother tongue is French are more likely to be monolingual, just like French people are. Most Belgians from North or South will have English skills superior to the ones found with Frenchmen though. In the North, older Flemish people will have definitely a command of French that younger generations do not have anymore, for historical reasons. Younger speakers will be more at ease in English. When I was working in Flanders, older colleagues were insisting on speaking to me in French since they spoke it fluently and did not master English well enough. Younger workers would let me speak Dutch or English. Actually Belgium is a trilingual state, as German is an official language too spoken by a small minority of people close to the German border. They are also a good example: while German is their mother tongue, they will almost all speak fluent French since their community is embedded within the Southern Wallonia region where French is the administration language. This is all coming down to usefulness: French is on the decline in Flanders because French is not the predominant language in Belgium anymore, Dutch is becoming more important for French speakers, English is on the rise for obvious reasons, other "vacation" languages (Spanish, Italian) are gaining in popularity. A nice melting pot for a small 10-million inhabitants country resulting in above average language skills indeed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Karakorum Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6571 days ago 201 posts - 232 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written)* Studies: French, German | Message 35 of 40 13 August 2007 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||
That's exactly what I was gonna say. I had the same experience moving, not only between Belgium and France, but between the Flemish and Waloon parts of Belgium. If you visit France (or to a lesser extent Germany) you wouldn't think Europeans are particularly gifted polyglots. And as some implied already, Europeans as opposed to Americans tend to learn more foreign languages because they need to. Americans don't. I know this isn't exactly PC, but most Americans don't feel they need to learn a foreign language (they may feel they want to, but not need to), and they are often right. But this is going off on a tangent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| SamD Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6661 days ago 823 posts - 987 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Portuguese, Norwegian | Message 36 of 40 16 August 2007 at 9:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I wonder if one reason why so many Europeans seem to be multilingual is the fact that the languages they learn are often related languages. I realize that this situation may apply in other parts of the world.
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| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6449 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 37 of 40 17 August 2007 at 10:48am | IP Logged | ||
I don't think this is entirely fair for a couple of reasons. The first foreign language is always "hard" and for most people it won't be a related one. It's an uphill struggle even if you choose something "easy". Speakers of Romance languages have perhaps the most attractive advantage in this sense but few Europeans (including speakers of Romance languages) are multilingual in the sense of speaking only closely related languages. If you look at Latin America most people are monolingual even though theoretically they have a large pool of related "easy" languages to choose from. It's a matter of necessity and usefulness and let's face it, the closer the border the more useful a language. Africans and Indians live in similar environment. Americans speak a language that perhaps does not offer a Spanish/Portuguese discount but even for an English speaker the difficulty of languages like Spanish is rated rather low - assuming they have some prior language learning experience. Edited by reineke on 17 August 2007 at 10:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6770 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 38 of 40 17 August 2007 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
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^^
Most of the Spanish-speaking South Americans I've met have at least a passing familiarity with Portuguese, but I don't know if my acquaintances are a typical sample or not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FSI Senior Member United States Joined 6361 days ago 550 posts - 590 votes Speaks: English* | Message 39 of 40 17 August 2007 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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^ Yup. It depends on the locale. People next to Brazil will naturally have more Portuguese than those farther away - much like Spanish's distribution in the US. That said, most people in South America aren't bilingual for the same reason most people in North America aren't - they don't need to be. If you can get by with one language, there's little reason to learn another, practically speaking. That said, Portuguese speakers generally have an easier time learning Spanish than the reverse, due to the greater phonetic variety in Portuguese, and grammatic patterns.
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| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6449 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 40 of 40 17 August 2007 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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In any case a passing familiarity in Portuguese or another language whether through actual language learning or exposure hardly qualifies as being "multilingual". Edited by reineke on 17 August 2007 at 1:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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