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English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

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Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#161

Post by atmosx »

antirez wrote: post #154
atmosx wrote: post #119

I can related with the OP. I guess most non-native English speakers can. > Before 1950, when the "TV Language Unification" happened, everybody was still taking with their dialects and italian was only mastered by a small percentage of people. Sicilian itself, the language talked the most by my family, predates Italian by centuries. For a hands-on example about what he is talking about, those of you who learned Italia…

I love this song btw :-) It's 20 years I listen to it from time to time.

Yeah, I love it too!

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#162

Post by pvaldes »

pvaldes wrote: post #116
angry-hacker wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For some reason, I thought every country subtitles movies/tv-shows that are not produced in their own language. When I moved abroad, to Spain, I found it amusing to play clips to movie fans in English and ask who is this? Based on the sound. Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio etc. - they didn't know any because the famous ones have even their personal voice doublants.

If you could be Harry Callahan, Darth Wader, Captain Kirk, Terminator, 007, Blad Runner's Roy Batty and The king lion's Mufasa, all in one lifetime, you might look like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantino_Romero Talking about interesting lives...

(I wrote "blad" runner?, ouch)

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#163

Post by sampo »

jacobolus wrote: post #75
frooxie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is my third language; I've read and written English almost every day for 30 years, but I've only ever spent two weeks in English-speaking countries. I sometimes find myself unable to pronounce words that I've used for decades in writing – often, it's the type of more formal vocabulary that doesn't often come up in movies or TV series. For instance: cuticle, paean, echelon, emaciated, heinous, comely, disreput…

kyoo-tih-kul, pee-uhn, esh-uh-lon, eh-may-she-ay-ted, hey-nuhs, cuhm-ly, dis-reh-pyoo-tah-bul, hahrth, derth, kuhn-too-muh-ly, bee-at-if-iy, sub-seh-kuent

Haha, that is helpful only if you already know how to pronounce English.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#164

Post by kwhitefoot »

petke wrote: post #16

Ever noticed how people from small countries in Europe often tend to speak English well, while people from big European countries dont? Think Sweden vs Italy. Its mostly just a happy accident. You see, in small countries they usually dont dub movies or tv shows, simply because the market isn't big enough. They simply put subtitles on. Subtitles fly past way too quick for young kids to read though. So young kids dont…

Sounds plausible unless you happen to know that children's programmes are dubbed, at least they are in Norway and as far as I know in the rest of the Nordic area.

As an adult subtitled programmes are very useful for locals learning English and foreigners, like me, learning Norwegian.

English spelling is often a problem because people are told that it is simply irregular when the truth is that if you know a little etymology you can figure out a lot because when you know where the word comes from you can then find out what set of rules are to be used for it. I'll admit that there are still difficult words :-)

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#165

Post by noamyoungerm »

andreasvc wrote: post #109
Vomzor wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we don't use dubbing, English is way more prevalent. Most kids have a somewhat basic grasp of English before being taught in school. Years of hearing English also made it easier to learn in school. You already know how to pronounce many words, it's also less foreign because you grew up with it. With French, you learn it in school and when you go home.. That's it, no more French influences. With English, you t…

So I agree with all your points, except that the subtitling/dubbing issue is the cause of all this. The subtitling/dubbing is an effect, not a cause. Mere exposure does not make you learn/enjoy a language. The status/prestige/coolness is a cultural thing, and this is what explains the difference in motivation to learn languages.

> Mere exposure does not make you learn/enjoy a language

Then how do babies ever learn to speak? The most fluent speakers of foreign languages are almost always immigrants, because exposure is the key to learning to speak.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#166

Post by andreasvc »

noamyoungerm wrote: post #165
andreasvc wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I agree with all your points, except that the subtitling/dubbing issue is the cause of all this. The subtitling/dubbing is an effect, not a cause. Mere exposure does not make you learn/enjoy a language. The status/prestige/coolness is a cultural thing, and this is what explains the difference in motivation to learn languages.

> Mere exposure does not make you learn/enjoy a language Then how do babies ever learn to speak? The most fluent speakers of foreign languages are almost always immigrants, because exposure is the key to learning to speak.

> Then how do babies ever learn to speak?

How exactly that works is still a hotly debated topic, but there is a clear difference between mere exposure to TV versus interacting linguistically in an environment.

> The most fluent speakers of foreign languages are almost always immigrants, because exposure is the key to learning to speak.

In my experience it's hit and miss. Some people simply have a knack for it (or interest), others not so much. So you can just as well have a very fluent second language learner who hasn't spend significant time immersed in the language, as well as the opposite of an immigrant who still has a thick accent after 20 years.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#167

Post by ziotom78 »

stevekemp wrote: post #134
DanBC wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd argue the "phonetically broken" nature of English has more to do with his learning it as a second language than anything intrinsically wrong with English. ough: Bough (ow), Though (oh), through (oo), thorough (uh), rough (uff), cough (off), hiccough (up) That's broken.

And don't forget words that are pronounced differently with identical spelling, for added hilarity: * Polish people live in Poland. * Polish your boots.

Another example:

* I read this book whenever I feel lonely.

* I read this book many years ago

A friend of mine coming from Scotland once told me that he phoned Twinings (the English tea maker) in order to understand how to pronounce it ("twain..." or "twin...").

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#168

Post by kwhitefoot »

fridek wrote: post #98
Drup wrote: post #17

Being an academic, I often hang out with people of various nationalities, usually each with it's own english-based language, slightly modified by grammar quirks and foreign vocabulary. A linguist friend call that "international english", which I like quite a lot. After a while, you can play "guess the nationality" based on the grammar quirks. And everyone is still easier to understand than Scottish people. :) I got l…

I'm from Eastern Europe and I've heard from native speakers that we use perfect tenses more often than a native speak would. It is interesting to see how much easier it is to communicate with other non-natives in English than with natives. I always struggled with UK accent and considered the US version simpler. However it seems British have developed more tolerance for varying accents over time, while Americans have…

Britain has had a lot of people immigrating to the country from all over the world for hundreds of years so a little tolerance in the biggest cities and towns is a necessity. But also accents used to vary dramatically over the British Isles so just talking to someone from the next county could require a little adjustment and conversing with a person from the other end of the country could be a very slow business.

And of course the language and vocabulary evolves. I've been out of the UK for almost 30 years now and I find that a lot of current slang is completely incomprehensible on first hearing.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#169

Post by gongador »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #164
petke wrote: post #16

Ever noticed how people from small countries in Europe often tend to speak English well, while people from big European countries dont? Think Sweden vs Italy. Its mostly just a happy accident. You see, in small countries they usually dont dub movies or tv shows, simply because the market isn't big enough. They simply put subtitles on. Subtitles fly past way too quick for young kids to read though. So young kids dont…

Sounds plausible unless you happen to know that children's programmes are dubbed, at least they are in Norway and as far as I know in the rest of the Nordic area. As an adult subtitled programmes are very useful for locals learning English and foreigners, like me, learning Norwegian. English spelling is often a problem because people are told that it is simply irregular when the truth is that if you know a little ety…

As far as I can remember, that's a relatively recent trend though (dubbing childrens' programmes), at least in Sweden. I can't remember any being dubbed until possibly in the late 1990s, more likely the early 2000s.

Re: English has been my pain for 15 years (2013)

#170

Post by elbear »

masklinn wrote: post #51
WalterBright wrote: post #8

I enjoy watching foreign movies with subtitles, and then trying to learn a few words in the language that way. I watched a French movie a few days ago that way, and was surprised at how many French words I already knew. I've been told that's how the Dutch learn English. The country isn't big enough to make it worth dubbing the shows, so they are shown in English with Dutch subtitles.

> I've been told that's how the Dutch learn English. The country isn't big enough to make it worth dubbing the shows, so they are shown in English with Dutch subtitles. IIRC that's the case in all scandinavian countries, I'd also expect it in most of eastern europe (but having started much more recently).

At least in Romania, subtitles have always been the standard.
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