# Star Wars conversing method
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 17, 2009, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754 "2009-08-17T17:49:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2009, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/21 "2009-08-17T22:13:27Z")
I’m reminded of the Larson cartoon with the scientists listening to dolphins: “No, nothing intelligent. Just more of that “Ha Blah Ess Pan Yole” gibberish”
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### Author:  [@choie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/choie)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/22 "2009-08-17T22:31:34Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> Wait. Wait. No. Wait. No.
>
> I thought it was just that the movie was telling us “Okay, we know you get it, they’re talking through interpreters, let’s just skip the actual representation of the interpreting part, and get down to what they’re actually saying to each other.”
>
> Maybe I’m thinking of the wrong movie.
That’s kinda what happens in the original _Judgment at Nuremberg_, during the opening argument of Maximillian Schell’s character, the attorney for the defense who was speaking German. The speech began in German, with pauses for the official English court translators, and then suddenly there was a sort of zoom-in closeup at which point Schell suddenly began speaking in English. OTOH, many of the questions made to German-speaking witnesses were depicted as having to be translated through an earpiece, while they in turn spoke accented English that (presumbly) had to be translated to the English-speaking attorneys and judges. It seems more confusing in my explanation than it actually is.
(I wonder if the same thing happened in the remake that was on, uh, TNT a few years ago? Because IIRC, Alec Baldwin was in that, and maybe that’s what you’re thinking of?)
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### Author:  [@BMax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMax)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/23 "2009-08-17T22:39:39Z")
> [@Leiko](#):
>
> **BMax** , Ackbar spoke in… oh, what does Star Wars call its not-English? Basic? Common? Anyway, English. Do you mean Leia and Jabba?
>
> Don’t click on this link if you don’t have hours to waste or much better willpower than most: TvTropes calls this [Bilingual Dialogue](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BilingualDialogue) and has many an example.
You’re right, “It’s a trap!” is obviously English. I don’t know who I was thinking of.
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/24 "2009-08-17T22:53:17Z")
> [@BMax](#):
>
> You’re right, “It’s a trap!” is obviously English. I don’t know who I was thinking of.
Jabba the Hutt, probably.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2009, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/25 "2009-08-17T23:10:56Z")
In the 1970s TV series _Grizzly Adams_ Adams always spoke English and his Indian friend Nakoma always spoke whatever Native American language he spoke\*, and they understood each other perfectly. The TV series debuted in February 1977, three months before Star Wars was released. There was an earlier Grizzly Adams movie (1974) with the same actors, but I don’t remember if the movie used the same device.
\*Don Shanks, the actor who played Nakoma is Cherokee, but I want to say the character was supposed to be Shoshone.
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### Author:  [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/26 "2009-08-17T23:21:02Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> Yes, the OP is talking about the very fact you’re talking about–that SW people _understand_ languages they do not _speak_.
Well, with my limited and pretty unsuccessful experience with trying to learn Spanish I learned this.
Its \*\*much \*\*easier to understand another language than it is to speak it.
Understanding only requires a passing and almost passive understanding of a language. Speaking it requires much more mental agility IMO.
Of course this falls apart if both side abilities are pretty poor or is the discussion is very nuanced or complicated.
But the practice makes sense to me in a way.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [August 17, 2009, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/27 "2009-08-17T23:21:54Z")
Its a lot easier to understand a language than speak it, and many people who understand a language may fins actually speaking it difficult. I understand Farsi perfectly, just don’t ask me to speak it.
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### Author:  [@yendis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yendis)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2009, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/28 "2009-08-18T06:55:38Z")
I do this all the time. I am often in business meetings that are conducted mostly in afrikaans but I will speak in english because my pronounciation is atrocious.
An even wierder situation occurs when people will switch between languages multiple times in a conversation. This is because people will default to the language they are most comfortable with if they are having problems getting a concept across. An engineer I work with, for example, will speak in afrikaans but switch to english for technical stuff because most of the techincal terms are in english and he thinks about them in english.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2009, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/29 "2009-08-18T12:00:37Z")
Go to India, or Pakistan or to a lesser extent Afghnaistan. Ask someone “how many languages do you know” and they will answer “I speak x, y, z and I can also understand a, b and c”. The above posters bit is known as “code swithcing”. And its not weird, its natural. At least in my opinion.
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### Author:  [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2009, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/30 "2009-08-18T13:19:30Z")
> [@Frylock](#):
>
> Yes, the OP is talking about the very fact you’re talking about–that SW people _understand_ languages they do not _speak_.
So? They’re all different species with different vocal equipment. Usually they physically \*can’t \*speak another species’ language. BFD.
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### Author:  [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2009, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/31 "2009-08-18T15:12:55Z")
> [@choie](#):
>
> That’s kinda what happens in the original _Judgment at Nuremberg_, during the opening argument of Maximillian Schell’s character, the attorney for the defense who was speaking German. The speech began in German, with pauses for the official English court translators, and then suddenly there was a sort of zoom-in closeup at which point Schell suddenly began speaking in English. OTOH, many of the questions made to German-speaking witnesses were depicted as having to be translated through an earpiece, while they in turn spoke accented English that (presumbly) had to be translated to the English-speaking attorneys and judges. It seems more confusing in my explanation than it actually is.
A similar scene was in Star Trek VI. Kirk and McCoy are in the dock holding translators to their ears while Kang begins his arguments in Klingon. The camera pans up to a bank of people translating. It then pans back down to Kang who is now speaking English.
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### Author:  [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2009, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/32 "2009-08-18T15:16:35Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#):
>
> So? They’re all different species with different vocal equipment. Usually they physically \*can’t \*speak another species’ language. BFD.
Calm down there, cowboy. No one said anything about anything being a big deal.
You’re an unusually confrontational fellow, **ElvisL1ves**.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/33 "2009-08-18T15:48:22Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> You’re thinking of the right movie but the wrong scene.
>
> Early in the movie, Connery and the other Russian officers speak Russian. Then, in the scene in Captain Ramius’s (Connery’s) quarters with the political officer, as the officer is reading one of Ramius’s books, the camera zooms in, and as it comes back out, the officer is speaking English. It’s a clever way for the filmmaker to tell us “Okay, from now on we’re dispensing with subtitles.”
Actually, to me the best part of this is that when they switch (on a tight close up of Sam Neill’s lips, the last Russian word/first English word is, I believe the same in both languages: Armageddon.
Clever, that.
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### Author:  [@TJVM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJVM)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/34 "2009-08-18T15:51:29Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> when Ramius expresses surprise that Ryan speaks Russian, Ryan uses the line about needing to understand one’s adversary. Ramius then addresses Scott Glenn’s character (Commander Mancuso, IIRC) in English, formally surrendering his vessel and asking for asylum - and, of course, demonstrating that he’s at least tied for being the smartest man in the room.
I’ve always liked that exchange (and the movie in general). As I recall, Ryan says, in Russian, “It is wise to know the ways of your adversary, don’t you think?” And Ramius says, in English, “It is.”
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### Author:  [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)
#### Post date: [August 18, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-wars-conversing-method/506754/35 "2009-08-18T18:05:59Z")
> [@bibliophage](#):
>
> In the 1970s TV series Grizzly Adams Adams always spoke English and his Indian friend Nakoma always spoke whatever Native American language he spoke\*, and they understood each other perfectly. The TV series debuted in February 1977, three months before Star Wars was released. There was an earlier Grizzly Adams movie (1974) with the same actors, but I don’t remember if the movie used the same device.
I remember this quite well. The way they translated what Nakoma said with out subtitles was to repeat his words back in English like this: “your right Naokoma a bear really does shit in the woods.”
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