I consider myself fairly intelligent, with the English language and grammar my strong suits.
But I cannot, for the life of me, understand half of what they’re saying when I watch an English movie. You know, from England. Right now I’m watching Layer Cake, with Daniel Craig and Sienna Miller. I almost gave up on it, because I couldn’t understand most of what was said. Then I realized I could put on subtitles, and that helps a lot.
Am I the only one?
Snatch
Dutch is my first language, and I can’t even follow a Dutch movie without Dutch subtitles. Maybe it’s the lousy sound quality.
I need subtitles more with English movies then I do with American ones though. The language use is just more complicated, with more unexpected turns.
Do you have trouble with American movies spoken with an accent different then your own? Trouble with movies with poor sound quality?
Whenever my friends and I watch a DVD, we usually put on the subtitles. We usually watch movies in the lounge in our dorm, and there’s always some kind of noise outside, so even English movies with familiar accents can be hard to understand.
Of course, now that someone has stolen our DVD remote, we can’t get subtitles anymore, so we have to go to some other lounge to watch movies.
Yeah,and I’ll blame a history of loud music and a lousy audio system.
No, and no. When I lived in North Carolina a few years ago, I couldn’t understand some of the old-timers sometimes, but then I got used to it.
Sometimes. One that immediately comes to mind is Last Orders. If it hadn’t been for subtitles, I don’t think I would have understood half the dialogue.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one.
And I can see why Daniel Craig’s the next James Bond. Boy’s right sexy, heh, mate?
Can’t say being able to understand the words has made this movie more enjoyable, though.
Oh yeah. Couldn’t have watched Transpotting without them. What accent is that? Cockney?
I turned the subtitles on for the British version of The Office too.
I always said that I’d like to visit the part of England where they speak cockney, because I’d find it funny to be able to say that I can’t understand English.
Then I started watching English movies and realized that I already can’t.
My wife and I (in our 60’s) both have reasonably good hearing but we use the CC options whenever possible and the “hearing impaired” settings when they’re the only choice.
Several factors contribute.
There are some amazing things in the captions at times that are critical enough to what’s going on that to be without them is to miss some major points.
We were traveling not long ago and the TV’s in our rooms ranged from good CC options to none. We felt cheated when we had to do without them.
One additional remark about CBS and their “sports coverage.” We turn their goddamn commentary off and listen to the radio coverage. They crank the crowd noise up so loud and their announcers mumble so badly that we’d rather just watch the picture. If they were to back off on the fucking promos for what will be on for the next six months on CBS, the game would be more enjoyable, too. Assholes.
Not usually. But a lot of my friends are Brits and so I’m used to listening to them.
Not usually, but I confess to view American movies/shows on DVD with “English for the hearing impaired” subtitles if available. (I learned English in a school system where British English dominates as the standard)
Never used to do this, till I started dating my gf. English isn’t her first language, and while she speaks it fine, she has trouble when people talk real fast on TV. So she always keeps subtitles on, not only for movies but the TV hearing impaired ones as well. Now I find my self doing the same thing, even when she’s not around. For some reason it makes it easier to catch everything, even though I don’t really find it hard to follow peoples speech on TV even if they have a heavy accent (Brad Pitt on Snatch being the exception).
Oh, and incidentally, I have never found myself obliged to turn on the subtitles of an English movie. 
On the other hand, I watched Marlon Brando in the Godfather today…wish I’d thought of subtitles.
Good Lord no. Couldn’t be further from Cockney (which is a dialect of the East End of London) if it tried. That’s Scottish. Specifically, it’s meant to be working class Edinburgh. I don’t understand all of it myself, though you get most of the meaning from context. Since the book is written in the vernacular, I didn’t understand that much either, though one does grow into it, a bit like A Clockwork Orange.
What I do find terribly patronising is the use of subtitles for foreign people speaking English, even when they’re completely comprehensible.
How could anyone watch “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” without them?
Thanks for the heads up with ""Layer Cake.
Didn’t “Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels” have a scene where the *subtitles *had subtitles?
It depends. It seems to me that British films depicting higher class people are not a problem, but often those of working-class people are pretty difficult to understand. In those cases, on go the subtitles.
The absolutely worst one we ever watched was Sexy Beast with Ben Kingsley. Throughout the entire film I did not understand one single word! They may have been speaking Swahili. Or might as well have been.
I think you’re absolutely right to bring the two books together…they’re two works where the only way of understanding their text is by delving into it.