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(Mis)representation of language in Hollywood movies (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Through the years I've noticed that quite a few Hollywood films play fast and loose with any other language than English.

I was watching Oppenheimer yesterday and the titular character was supposed to be speaking Dutch fluently, but the actual lines spoken were mostly jibberish, and more like German than Dutch. As a native speaker, I found this quite jarring and sloppy. Though I can imagine that to non-native speakers this would probably fly under the radar.

This got me thinking if there were more examples of shoddy translation, weird pronunciation, mishandling of language or dialect that you as a native speakers have noticed when watching movies?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Also, in Japanese shows, I have no idea why they kept making the actors who can't speak English, speak English.

This is a common trope in anime, and it kills the immersion. Like, some girl (typically named "Elizabeth" or "Claudia"), who is British, but is now attending a school in Japan due to some foreign exchange program or something, speaks fluent Japanese but super broken English, but everyone is impressed regardless.. Or even worse, when they're supposed to be an English language teacher but still speak very broken English with a thick Japanese accent.

BTW, here's a pretty cool video everyone in this thread should check out: How English Sounds to Japanese People