So you're from Wallander!town?! Awwww, I looooove the Wallander films (and books). Not just the new ones with Branagh, but the old ones as well. I haven't been to Sweden yet, but it's definitely on my "countries to visit" list. Last year I thought about taking Swedish lessons, but so far I haven't started. I like the sound of the Scandinavian languages.
Yep, you're right - many Germans can't speak English very well, though 99% of the younger generations have learnt it at school for at least 4-7 years. I think it's just a lack of practice (apart from our famous problem with the "th" *g*) and actually I blame our dubbed TV shows and movies. In many other countries (like the Netherlands e.g.) you get to see English originals with subtitles. That way you improve your English automatically. But here in Germany everything is dubbed. Same goes for books. 99% of the books here are translated into German. So if you don't practice the stuff you've learnt at school otherwise, it's lost sooner or later.
That's what happened with my French. I can read/understand it - but I think I wouldn't be able to speak/write things in French anymore. Just a lack of practice. Which is a shame.
Apart from English and my crippled French, I understand Dutch to a certain extent. Can't speak it, though. Just a few words ...
Languages I'd be interested in as well: Russian, Italian and Spanish
WHEN you come, I'll drag you around everywhere! I know this place every bit as well as Robin knows Sherwood. :-D Where in Germany do you live?
I agree with you on dubbing, that's bad. :-( It should be banned!
Oh, so you are a Wallander fan! Sit down and I'll tell you something that will awe you. I used to live opposite the house on Mariastreet that was filmed as Wallanders flat. Yup, it's true. Had to point it out to tourists all the time. :-D
You actually considered studying Swedish!? Now I'm impressed!!! And thank you for reminding me: Russian and Italian is a given!
I live near Dortmund, Westfalia. That's in the north-western part of Germany. So no, I don't wear a Dirndl and I can't yodel either *g*.
The mean thing about dubbing is, that you just don't get the real thing. The first time I saw Richard in N&S, he was dubbed. Just imagine: Richard without his chocolate voice! O.O So I definitely agree with you - dubbing should be banned!
Mariagatan?!? Wow, that's cool!! I used to watch the Wallander series with Krister Henriksson and I have to admit that I had a soft spot for the guy who played Stefan Lindman. I was devastated when his character died. Dunno, I seem to have a thing for Swedish crime stories in general. I do like Håkan Nesser and the next book(s) on my reading list is the Stieg Larsson trilogy.
Ystad sightseeing sounds great, btw! So should I visit Sweden one day, I'd be more than happy to be "dragged around" by you ;-). Same goes for you of course, should you visit Germany ...
North-west, that's not far! *waves* I knew an Austrian girl once, she refused to admit to ever having worn a Dirndl but no one believed her! :-D
Stefan Lindman was played by Ola Rapace, he's good! He's married to Noomi Rapace who plays Lisbeth Salander in the filmed Stieg Larsson trilogy. You'll love that read, I'm warning you. ;-) Come back and rae afterwards, I'll be here to listen. :-D
The sad thing is that Johanna Sällström, who played Linda Wallander, did die, for real. She was an incredibly fine and humble human being, I met her a few time through work. :-(
I had a thing for Alan Rickman and the Sense and Sensibility DVD had German dubbing as an option. I tried to listen to the German tenor dubbing AR just for fun... It was a short lived attempt. ;-)
So we can both be prepared for some amusing "dragging-around", LOL!
700 kilometers or something. So no, not that far *waves back*
I knew an Austrian girl once, she refused to admit to ever having worn a Dirndl but no one believed her! :-D
*lol* But honestly, I swear! I have never worn one! Westphalians don't wear Dirndls! That's something for the Bavarians (and Austrians of course *g*). But I do admit that I eat Sauerkraut from time to time *g* No Bratwurst, though. Bleugh! :p
Alright, I'll report back when I've finished the Larsson books. Yes, I've heard about Johanna Sällström and I was quite sad as well. I liked her.
One last thing about dubbing: Sometimes it does indeed improve the originals. Like films with John Travolta. Our German dubbed Travolta has got a pretty cool dark voice. When I heard Travolta's real voice for the first time, I fell off my chair laughing. Not that his real voice is thaaaat bad, but compared to the dubbing voice he sounds like Mickey Mouse XD. You're right about Alan Rickman, though. His dubbing voice can't compare to the real thing.
*The mean thing about dubbing is, that you just don't get the real thing. The first time I saw Richard in N&S, he was dubbed. Just imagine: Richard without his chocolate voice! O.O So I definitely agree with you - dubbing should be banned!* Exactly. That is my big beef with Italians; they dub *everything* >:( Like I say (and you've probably seen me comment on it, like, 20 times ;) ), the first time I saw anything of RH (ie Guy), it was the crazy-ass ep 110 (Saracen ninja girls) on Italian TV. I was *very* impressed by the guy in black leather, but without hearing his voice, I managed to survive about three months until this past January before seriously checking it out and becoming duly obsessed :D
So you live in the dubbing!hell as well. Awful, isn't it? At least German and English have the same rhythm and pace, so the German dubbing is pretty much lip-synch. But Italian seems to be a much faster language, so it surely must be completely out of synch and even more annoying to watch ...
At least Italian TV does show Robin Hood. German TV doesn't :/ They rather show American stuff.
Italian is somewhat faster than German and English, but not as fast as Spanish - that one must be a real pain to dub. But here, they change character names and even film titles, so it is difficult to keep track of new releases and even talk about old ones if I only know their English titles.
They show RH here (with Guy as Guido ;) ) but after I became really obsessed this Jan, I just downloaded the whole thing (s1-2 at that time) in two days - could not get enough of Guy ;) - and did the same for s3 later.
...but regular Italian TV, other than the occasional football match, is so crappy that I never watch it anymore. The only way to watch anything decent is to get cable, but these days I have the internet instead ;)
GUIDO?!?!? *lol* Okay, here the characters can usually keep their name. Except for (and this is one for thymelady now): Emil i Lönneberga. Here in Germany Emil turns into "Michel", because around that time there was another popular children's story which had an "Emil" and two different Emils were just too much *g* Guido ... *mutters* I still can't get over that! *lol* Could he at least keep his last name?
Well, film titles are changed quite often here as well. And sometimes they don't give the films German titles, but just new English ones. Don't ask me why ...
He definitely kept the Gisborne part. What I saw now in a quick check for the third season has him listed as Sir Guy di Gisborne, as close as it gets, but I do remember the Guido reference from earlier!
*Russian and Italian is a given* Want some classes? :D I am native in one and pretty fluent in the other ;) I'd like to speak some French, too, but it is not exactly a business-essential language unless you live in France, so I never got to study it :( And I guess Chinese (not sure whether Mandarin or Cantonese) would be pretty useful these days!
So for a native Russian speaker: how's Lucas coping with Russian? Is it bearable or rather awful for your ears?
Want some classes?
Hehe, that's a brilliant idea. You could teach thymelady and me Russian and Italian, Thymelady could teach us Swedish and Danish and I could teach you German and well, some Dutch words ;)
Well, French shouldn't be to difficult for someone who speaks Italian and Spanish. At least Spanish and French have quite some similarities, as far as I know.
What, you did not see my onetime-linguistics-major bitching in the Lucas thread? :D He makes the mistake of either misplacing the stress in words or pronouncing the whole word with the same level of stress, which does not authentic Russian make ;) Thing is, there is a big difference in Russian between stressed syllables, which are also lengthened, and unstressed ones, which are shortened and generally mumbled through. So in order to be authentic it is enough to (1) remember where the stress is; (2) learn to enunciate the stressed parts; and (3) mumble through the rest. Guaranteed to work. Instead, he paid too much attention to getting individual sounds right, but lost on overall plausibility. Mind you, the principal point of the rant is to say that I would have made a much better accent coach than whoever he was studying with :D However, his fake Russian accent when he was impersonating the oligarch (unlike his implausibly aristocratic appearance :D ) was pretty credible.
*lol* No I'm afraid I missed the linguistics major bitching thread, sorry ;). For my uneducated ears his Russian sounds sort of alright, but somehow I expected something like that *g*. Yep, let's blame the voice coach - and yep, I totally believe that you would have liked to be Richard's voice coach ... who wouldn't? ;D
Well, but are the sentenses itself alright? Grammarwise and stuff? I'm just thinking of the RH audiobooks (Siege) and the awful and completely ridiculous translation of "open the gates" into "erschliessen Sie jetzt." Three words - three mistakes. As if they used the google translator. If you re-translate the German words back into English, it's something like a very polite and senseless "Develop (as in: land development) now!" And actually it's a shame, because Richard pronounces those German words rather well.
I do not remember all the Russian phrases he used, and he did, er, mangle them a bit. If I remember correctly the grammar was not too bad though. Actually, Sarkisian in 808 was the worst offender pronunciation-wise and text-wise. But in his oligarch turn, Richard did manage to convert what would have been a fairly heavy duty swear word into something nearly unrecognisable. I blame his modesty :D
...I was amazed at Richard's voice work when he did that audiobook - all of them actually, but that one in particular, as he really sounded like a different person when yelling in German!
And here is something I have forever wanted to ask a German speaker! At the start of Gladiator, when the German(-ic) tribe leaders throw the ambassador's head and yell something like (forgive my spelling) "Ehr sich verfuchte hunde", does *that* make sense? Something like "you fucking dogs"?
Yep, you're right - many Germans can't speak English very well, though 99% of the younger generations have learnt it at school for at least 4-7 years. I think it's just a lack of practice (apart from our famous problem with the "th" *g*) and actually I blame our dubbed TV shows and movies. In many other countries (like the Netherlands e.g.) you get to see English originals with subtitles. That way you improve your English automatically. But here in Germany everything is dubbed. Same goes for books. 99% of the books here are translated into German. So if you don't practice the stuff you've learnt at school otherwise, it's lost sooner or later.
That's what happened with my French. I can read/understand it - but I think I wouldn't be able to speak/write things in French anymore. Just a lack of practice. Which is a shame.
Apart from English and my crippled French, I understand Dutch to a certain extent. Can't speak it, though. Just a few words ...
Languages I'd be interested in as well: Russian, Italian and Spanish
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I agree with you on dubbing, that's bad. :-( It should be banned!
Oh, so you are a Wallander fan! Sit down and I'll tell you something that will awe you. I used to live opposite the house on Mariastreet that was filmed as Wallanders flat. Yup, it's true. Had to point it out to tourists all the time. :-D
You actually considered studying Swedish!? Now I'm impressed!!! And thank you for reminding me: Russian and Italian is a given!
Reply
The mean thing about dubbing is, that you just don't get the real thing. The first time I saw Richard in N&S, he was dubbed. Just imagine: Richard without his chocolate voice! O.O So I definitely agree with you - dubbing should be banned!
Mariagatan?!? Wow, that's cool!! I used to watch the Wallander series with Krister Henriksson and I have to admit that I had a soft spot for the guy who played Stefan Lindman. I was devastated when his character died. Dunno, I seem to have a thing for Swedish crime stories in general. I do like Håkan Nesser and the next book(s) on my reading list is the Stieg Larsson trilogy.
Ystad sightseeing sounds great, btw! So should I visit Sweden one day, I'd be more than happy to be "dragged around" by you ;-). Same goes for you of course, should you visit Germany ...
Reply
Stefan Lindman was played by Ola Rapace, he's good! He's married to Noomi Rapace who plays Lisbeth Salander in the filmed Stieg Larsson trilogy. You'll love that read, I'm warning you. ;-) Come back and rae afterwards, I'll be here to listen. :-D
The sad thing is that Johanna Sällström, who played Linda Wallander, did die, for real. She was an incredibly fine and humble human being, I met her a few time through work. :-(
I had a thing for Alan Rickman and the Sense and Sensibility DVD had German dubbing as an option. I tried to listen to the German tenor dubbing AR just for fun... It was a short lived attempt. ;-)
So we can both be prepared for some amusing "dragging-around", LOL!
Reply
700 kilometers or something. So no, not that far *waves back*
I knew an Austrian girl once, she refused to admit to ever having worn a Dirndl but no one believed her! :-D
*lol* But honestly, I swear! I have never worn one! Westphalians don't wear Dirndls! That's something for the Bavarians (and Austrians of course *g*). But I do admit that I eat Sauerkraut from time to time *g* No Bratwurst, though. Bleugh! :p
Alright, I'll report back when I've finished the Larsson books. Yes, I've heard about Johanna Sällström and I was quite sad as well. I liked her.
One last thing about dubbing: Sometimes it does indeed improve the originals. Like films with John Travolta. Our German dubbed Travolta has got a pretty cool dark voice. When I heard Travolta's real voice for the first time, I fell off my chair laughing. Not that his real voice is thaaaat bad, but compared to the dubbing voice he sounds like Mickey Mouse XD. You're right about Alan Rickman, though. His dubbing voice can't compare to the real thing.
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Exactly. That is my big beef with Italians; they dub *everything* >:(
Like I say (and you've probably seen me comment on it, like, 20 times ;) ), the first time I saw anything of RH (ie Guy), it was the crazy-ass ep 110 (Saracen ninja girls) on Italian TV. I was *very* impressed by the guy in black leather, but without hearing his voice, I managed to survive about three months until this past January before seriously checking it out and becoming duly obsessed :D
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At least Italian TV does show Robin Hood. German TV doesn't :/ They rather show American stuff.
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They show RH here (with Guy as Guido ;) ) but after I became really obsessed this Jan, I just downloaded the whole thing (s1-2 at that time) in two days - could not get enough of Guy ;) - and did the same for s3 later.
...but regular Italian TV, other than the occasional football match, is so crappy that I never watch it anymore. The only way to watch anything decent is to get cable, but these days I have the internet instead ;)
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Well, film titles are changed quite often here as well. And sometimes they don't give the films German titles, but just new English ones. Don't ask me why ...
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Want some classes? :D I am native in one and pretty fluent in the other ;) I'd like to speak some French, too, but it is not exactly a business-essential language unless you live in France, so I never got to study it :( And I guess Chinese (not sure whether Mandarin or Cantonese) would be pretty useful these days!
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Want some classes?
Hehe, that's a brilliant idea. You could teach thymelady and me Russian and Italian, Thymelady could teach us Swedish and Danish and I could teach you German and well, some Dutch words ;)
Well, French shouldn't be to difficult for someone who speaks Italian and Spanish. At least Spanish and French have quite some similarities, as far as I know.
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He makes the mistake of either misplacing the stress in words or pronouncing the whole word with the same level of stress, which does not authentic Russian make ;) Thing is, there is a big difference in Russian between stressed syllables, which are also lengthened, and unstressed ones, which are shortened and generally mumbled through. So in order to be authentic it is enough to (1) remember where the stress is; (2) learn to enunciate the stressed parts; and (3) mumble through the rest. Guaranteed to work. Instead, he paid too much attention to getting individual sounds right, but lost on overall plausibility. Mind you, the principal point of the rant is to say that I would have made a much better accent coach than whoever he was studying with :D
However, his fake Russian accent when he was impersonating the oligarch (unlike his implausibly aristocratic appearance :D ) was pretty credible.
Reply
Well, but are the sentenses itself alright? Grammarwise and stuff? I'm just thinking of the RH audiobooks (Siege) and the awful and completely ridiculous translation of "open the gates" into "erschliessen Sie jetzt." Three words - three mistakes. As if they used the google translator. If you re-translate the German words back into English, it's something like a very polite and senseless "Develop (as in: land development) now!" And actually it's a shame, because Richard pronounces those German words rather well.
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And here is something I have forever wanted to ask a German speaker!
At the start of Gladiator, when the German(-ic) tribe leaders throw the ambassador's head and yell something like (forgive my spelling) "Ehr sich verfuchte hunde", does *that* make sense? Something like "you fucking dogs"?
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