jstele Bilingual Senior Member United States Joined 6657 days ago 186 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Korean*
| Message 1 of 21 18 November 2007 at 9:12am | IP Logged |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS_vAYHok9c&feature=related
Enjoy!
Edited by Fasulye on 13 March 2012 at 7:16am
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sanfran1988 Triglot Newbie United States theromancelanguages. Joined 6265 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin Studies: Portuguese, Tagalog
| Message 2 of 21 18 November 2007 at 12:22pm | IP Logged |
That's the funniest thing I've ever seen.
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mcjon77 Senior Member United States Joined 6613 days ago 193 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), French
| Message 3 of 21 21 November 2007 at 9:24am | IP Logged |
I've seen that clip 20 times at least, and it is STILL FUNNY! I love it!
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Thespis Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6455 days ago 20 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, French
| Message 4 of 21 21 November 2007 at 1:44pm | IP Logged |
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clW8j6EKegU
Saw this during Nip/Tuck last night...almost as funny as Rosie getting attacked by an eagle. ^_~
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Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6896 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map
| Message 5 of 21 21 November 2007 at 4:50pm | IP Logged |
I hate to be a spoilsport but, strong supporter and passionate fan of the British sense of humour as I am, this clip (the first one above) did not even register above the noise level on my funniness guages. If anything the needle was desperately bending in the other direction against the stop.
I honestly cannot understand what is so funny about making guttural monkey sounds and rolling your eyes when you see an African face in front of you, or whining parroty shrieks in the direction of the Asian participant at that meeting. The other nationalities were handled in the same vein. I can only see this as the lowest form of making fun, cheap fun at that, of other cultures, with xenophobic or even racist overtones.
The Spanish expression "vergüenza ajena" comes to mind, loosely translated as feeling disgusted and ashamed on behalf of somebody else.
EDIT: That clip linked to by Thespis was quite witty though, as commercials often are.
Edited by Hencke on 22 November 2007 at 8:49am
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mcjon77 Senior Member United States Joined 6613 days ago 193 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Egyptian), French
| Message 6 of 21 22 November 2007 at 11:10am | IP Logged |
I found nothing racist about the humor. The joke is that her "version" of French, Swedish, Chinese, etc is EXACTLY what many of those languages sound like to monolingual English speakers. Essentially, it was much like a previous post here showing youtube demonstrations of people trying to speak fake English. I actually wondered if non-native speakers of English would get the joke and find it funny.
Another thing I found interesting is that I thought the impressions of a monolingual trying to speak those foriegn languages where dead on accurate EXCEPT the Spanish accent. The reason was that she was giving an impression of a Spainards version of Spanish, not a Mexican of other Latin American version of Spanish which I, being an American, am more used to.
Also, the subtle humor about overestimating your abilities and the ramafications of such was quite entertianing.
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Scott Horne Newbie Canada Joined 6227 days ago 34 posts - 38 votes
| Message 7 of 21 22 November 2007 at 11:49am | IP Logged |
I share Hencke's opinion. This so-called joke is in poor taste.
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Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6586 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese
| Message 8 of 21 22 November 2007 at 12:29pm | IP Logged |
I saw the clip a while a go and didn't like it either.
I also think it has nothing to do with the fact, that we're non-native speakers of English. We understood why the clip was supposed to be funny and did not find it funny..that's all.
Edited by Vlad on 22 November 2007 at 12:31pm
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