I have a little upper-range hearing loss, and I sometimes replay a scene with accents or whispering so I can cypher out what they said. I recently watched Sexy Beast, and I had to replay some parts several times. After 5 run-throughs, I still couldn’t figure out what Cal said when the boss pressed him about the missing (killed) Don (Kingsley’s character.)
Holy cow, what a vile character Don was! I would have killed him myself. :eek:
This is very true, we tend to emphasize different parts of the word, totally changing the rhtyhm of the sentence. I recently had a holiday in New York and I couldn’t believe the trouble I had comunicating. I honestly feel more confident talking French in France (in which I’m really not fluent) than I do talking English in the US. I had no trouble understanding people (I suppose because I’ve been exposed to years of US accents on films and tv) but I was amazed how difficult people seemed to find understanding me. I don’t even have a regional accent, I speak in a slightly posh RP accent.
The worst incident was trying to order a sandwich. I was a bit flustered anyway due to being confused by all the options and not really understanding what I was supposed to be asking for, but I asked for “tomato” - totally blank look form the guy. I tried again: “tomato” - still, totally blank, no spark of coprehension. By now completely defeated I turned to garius for help - he said “tomaYto” - the guy understood instantly. I did know the words were pronounced differently (I had just forgotten in my fluster) but I was astonished that he couldn’t even recognise the word as I was saying it. This sort of thing happened almost every time I tried to order anything.
I did find the problem was worse speaking to people who didn’t seem to have English as a first language, which is understandable - it’s hard enough conversing a foreign language, let alone dealing with unfamiliar accents.
I’m usually doing something else when I’m watching TV, so subtitles help me keep track of what’s going on. It helps that I’m a speed reader.
I don’t have much of a problem with the British Films, even if they are prone to mumbling or chaotic speech-over-speak scenes at a fast pace.
I’ve even served as an intrepreter of sorts for other movie patrons when watching some Brit Film and the slang comes up. Can’t remember the film we watched, but the women I translated the " Chuck a wobbler" and other charming vernacular for just were in awe of my skills. ( Some I figure out. Others I just knew for some reason. Dunno.) I’m crackers for cheese!
Russell Crowe is neither English or a great speaker. He is the worst of the lot for mumbling, IMHO.
What I cannot understand fer the life of me are the Brit-Bollywood films with the indian Accents thrown in and trying to figure out who the heck is who in the story line and who in the hell just said what. I usually have to watch the movie twice to grasp it. (Monsoon wedding, Bride and Prejudice and something else I watched and loved that I can’t remember.) Oh, and are all the women in India gorgeous or what?
Now the irony is that when I first went to a shakespear film ( Much Ado About Nothing with Kenneth Brannaugh) I didn’t understand 1 word in 10 spoken. I felt like I was airdropped into a foreign world and by the end of the movie I had a splitting heading from trying so hard. ( It didn’t help I was not familiar with the story line at all. ) I was convinced I was the stupidest person on the planet.
I was depressed for at least a week over my failings to grasp the Great Bard and hie thee butt off to the movies ( solo) again to force myself to figure it all out. With in about 20 minutes or so, whatever it was in the dialect clicked in my brain and was translated.
Now, i just watch anything Shakespear twice to have this work.
Yes. Born and raised in Massachusetts and I have never needed subtitles for any English language movie. I had no problem with Monsoon Wedding , in fact it’s one of my favorite movies. *The Full Monty, Bend it like Beckham, MOnty Python, etc. *. I wasn’t raised listening to it. My mom never watched Masterpiece Theatre or anything like that. It just seems natural to me.
However, I’ve never seen Trainspotting or Snatch so it’s very possible it will happen to me eventually.
I do use subtitles all the time though. I can’t watch a dubbed foreign language movie. It sounds so dumb.
How on earth did you follow Monsoon Wedding on your own? They weren’t even speaking English half the time!
Seriously? I don’t remember it being mostly foreign language.
So, one of 3 posibilities:
As cool as option 3 would be, most likely 1 or 2 applies. This is one of the reasons I don’t usually like watching foreign movies on TV - you never know if it’s the true version. Now I’m gonna actually have to pay to buy the movie to see if it’s the same one I saw on TV.
I have to use closed captioning with just about any english movie. And South Park with the speeded up voices. I always thought that poor recording technique was the cause of my not understanding the english movies. But South Park? Does anyone understand Wendy with her high squeaky voice?
I sure can’t without closed captioning.
AIRC (and I did see it a few years ago, so I’m a little fuzzy) it’s in a fluid mixture of Hindi and English - I don’t know if they actually call it Hinglish, but you know how Spanglish radio mixes can be? Like that. But then I could just be wrong and have had a hard time with the Indian accented English - that’s one accent I have a really hard time with, even in person, for some reason.
I watch a lot of British TV and listen to a lot of British radio, and I’m proud to say I can follow pretty much any accent now. Sean Penn in Snatch is the only one I’ve had trouble with in recent years, and as was pointed out, that was largely intentional.
But you could get the jist. They sprinkled Punjabi (I think it was) in with English, much like some do with Yiddish or Spanish etc. I had no trouble following most of the characters in MW, but when they spoke softly or didn’t face the camera, then I had to strain a bit.
rekkah --I had a similiar experience in UK last month. Guy behind the counter at a fish and chips place was asking me something…took me three tries to get “vinegar”. 1. we don’t normally use that here, so I wasn’t expecting it*, 2. he was all glottal and 3. I don’t think his lips moved at all!
Also had trouble with the customs guy from France into UK. He also didn’t move his mouth, yet a string of words emanated from his just open lips. He was not pleased to have to repeat himself. :eek:
*I am now addicted to chips and vinegar. 
K, just watched it again (rented) and you’re right. Probably over half the movie is not English. I can’t believe I never noticed it before. I still had no problem understanding the majority of the English. The only time I did was when my boyfriend made me turn it down.
Well, it doesn’t help that that particular accent is always rapid-fire, as well. I think it’s mostly that I have a real problem catching Indian English, and so I couldn’t necessarily seperate English from other words on the fly when combined like that and I was afraid I’d miss too much without the subtitles.
I had no problem with Trainspotting after the first few minutes. I had to have subtitles with Billy Elliot.
I like how with Snatch you have “pikey” subtitles and there’s this bit where all you see is “?” Thanks subtitles!
I can’t recall any English movies, although there was a Scottish film I had a heck of a time with. It was called “My Name is Joe” and I saw it at the theater in Germany. At first I had to read the German subtitles to figure out what they were saying in “English” (Glaswegian, iirc), although I picked up the majority of the slang and words about 1/3 of the way in.
FWIW “Billy Elliot” is set in Newcastle and the Geordie (sp?) they speak there is unintelligible to me as well, although I don’t recall having any trouble understanding that film.
I am very anal about wanting to hear every last line of dialog (not necessarily in shows like ER where lots of medical jargon is being thrown around and is obviously not essential to the plot), so even in shows with American accents, I’ll pause and rewind and turn on the subtitles several times per episode. If there is background noise (someone eating or the dishwasher) I’ll leave them on for the entire episode.
I swear I am deficient when it comes to parsing normal speech.
We have a (relatively) new TV, which has necessitated a fleet of remotes, so once the CC is turned on (and set up - we always play around with different fonts and colors, just for grins), it usually stays on for good. It comes in quite handy, even with everyday language. The only thing I don’tlike is being compelled to read what I understand - I cannot train myself to ignore the damn thing, so I end up missing things on screen because I’m reading!
I can’t understand most things said in Serenity unless the subtitles are on. It’s a shame, really.
I used to work in the closed captioning biz, and I can attest to the fact that for most British shows, even where American viewers think they’re hearing correctly, they often aren’t, as a look at the script will indicate. So just because you put the closed captions on, don’t assume that the captioner is understanding any better than you. Yes, they’ll usually have a paper script to work from, but sometimes the script itself is not accurate, and sometimes the captioner will just work from audio. If they think they understand it, they won’t look at the script for confirmation. A word to the wise!