Also, you guys keep mention examples of learning English by being dumped into it. Good for you. But I grew up watching some Disney movies in English and didn't learn a single word from it. I'd watch the picture, have an idea what was going on, but nothing more.
Yeah, we don't just watch them in English of course. They still get subtitled, so you know what's going on.
But while doing that, you also learn English, especially if you are young.
Get enough "exposure" as such, and you already know the basics before even getting english classes on school. Most of the kids here do. Those who struggle with English are more exception than rule...
As you said, if you are younger it's far easier to take it all in. If you got most of it before 12, it's a lot easier to learn than when you are already an adult.
I am pretty bad at learning languages after all... yet I never really had that much trouble with English.
Oh, I totally choose subtitles over dubbing, whether I know the language or not.
But subtitles are also unfair to people who can't read (either because they don't know how to or because they physically can't, such as bad eyesight or can't read fast enough).
So I like that both are equally available in France. Although I agree computer games still aren't like that very much. Console games let you choose your language though.
I think people have difficulties with different languages. I took years of German and can't speak it, I find it extremely difficult. I took two months of Japanese and did much better (although I forgot most of it now).
The only thing that annoys me is when people say things like it's specific to English. I'm glad I get to see movies in English subbed rather than dubbed, but I'm glad I also have that option for movies in Spanish, Italian, Japanese and whatever F*cking Amal or the Green Butchers were in.
I'm not going to say English isn't important, but you'd also lose a lot by learning only English or subbing only English and dubbing the rest. (Or worse, have a habit of neither dubbing nor subbing anything, and just either releasing stuff in the languages or not releasing them at all. Surely you have to see how that limits the amount of things someone can read/watch/play).
Another thing I dislike is when translations are released, but in English.
Say, a Japanese game/movie released in a non-English speaking country, in English.
If you're not translating it, can't you at least let it be the original? Either translate it in the right language or not at all. It makes no sense to give people something that's neither the original language nor the country's language.
Eh, pretty sure we keep all other languages "intact" too, but they just aren't as common as English (or, well, Dutch).
I think they do the Japanese-English translation and then shipping it over to non-english countries just to save on translation costs. Very few europeans know japanese. Thus; a translation. However, most of them do know english. So just giving them the english version saves them from having to translate them another time, for a far smaller market than the english version, which may mean loss.
Same reason TTG can translate, but doesn't itself, leaving it to foreign producers. The effort may not be worth the additional expense...
The only thing that annoys me is when people say things like it's specific to English. I'm glad I get to see movies in English subbed rather than dubbed, but I'm glad I also have that option for movies in Spanish, Italian, Japanese and whatever F*cking Amal or the Green Butchers were in.
I'm not going to say English isn't important, but you'd also lose a lot by learning only English or subbing only English and dubbing the rest. (Or worse, have a habit of neither dubbing nor subbing anything, and just either releasing stuff in the languages or not releasing them at all. Surely you have to see how that limits the amount of things someone can read/watch/play).
True, I certainly advocate using subtitling no matter what the original language is, and I oppose anything that limits availability of media. The reason why I singled out English in my examples is because it currently is the dominating language of many entertainment industries as well as the web, making it more useful to know that language than any other -- if you regularly use those forms of media. That way if you're e.g. a movie fan, you can watch all English language movies (probably the majority of the movies you watch if you live in the west) with no translation, and all other movies with subtitles.
If you're a die-hard opera fan on the other hand, English will probably be useless to you... you'll want to learn German and Italian instead. If you watch operas for hours every day (the same amount of time that many people spend in front of the TV or on the web) wouldn't it be worth the time and effort to learn those languages?
Another thing I dislike is when translations are released, but in English.
Say, a Japanese game/movie released in a non-English speaking country, in English.
If you're not translating it, can't you at least let it be the original? Either translate it in the right language or not at all. It makes no sense to give people something that's neither the original language nor the country's language.
I agree that such a situation is less than ideal. What ticks me off the most is when I can't get stuff in the original language. The other day I was looking for the classic Asterix animated movies from the sixties, seventies and eighties. It turns out that the Norwegian DVDs are dubbed in Norwegian, (they are considered children's movies, apparently. Children's stuff are the only things that are dubbed here) and do not include the original French audio tracks. I checked the UK versions, and they too appear to be English dubbed only. If people embraced subtitling over dubbing more, those DVDs would at least have included the original audio tracks as an option.
Edit: And to add insult to injury, I remember seeing a couple of those movies on TV as a child, but that was in French with subtitles... it's a bit annoying that I can't get those versions on DVD.
To be fair, I've been trying to get these movies too (and the Lucky Luke one) and man are they hard to find.
However the versions I found (that were out of stock) all had several languages (such as this). If you're in Norway that'll be zone 2 so you could play them since they're made for Europe.
I do agree with the "can't find it in the original language". Here in Canada, which is a bilingual country, I'm having the hardest time finding some French things in French. It's frustrating, even moreso considering French IS an official language.
To be fair, I've been trying to get these movies too (and the Lucky Luke one) and man are they hard to find. However the versions I found (that were out of stock) all had several languages (such as this). If you're in Norway that'll be zone 2 so you could play them since they're made for Europe.
Hey, thanks for that. I did some further research, (dvdcompare.net has good info) and it looks like four of the movies are published by Fox Pathé Europa in France, and these include French audio and English subtitles. I've ordered myself a boxset that includes all of the four Fox Pathé movies, hoping that my information is correct... Unfortunately three of the remaining movies are published by a different company, Paramount, and I haven't found any good information on those yet.
I do agree with the "can't find it in the original language". Here in Canada, which is a bilingual country, I'm having the hardest time finding some French things in French. It's frustrating, even moreso considering French IS an official language.
That must be be frustrating indeed... just curious, do you live in a French- or English-dominated area?
The other day I was looking for the classic Asterix animated movies from the sixties, seventies and eighties. It turns out that the Norwegian DVDs are dubbed in Norwegian, (they are considered children's movies, apparently. Children's stuff are the only things that are dubbed here) and do not include the original French audio tracks. I checked the UK versions, and they too appear to be English dubbed only.
You can order it from Amazon.fr. There's a version with French and English audio, and one with French, English, German and Dutch audio and subtitles.
That must be be frustrating indeed... just curious, do you live in a French- or English-dominated area?
English-dominated. I've been on holiday in French-dominated areas and both French and English were available. I can totally get that English is spoken more than French here but that still get annoying.
Incidentally, every time I talk about Canada to people in French, they're confused to learn that Canadians aren't all fluent in both languages. They're all "but I thought it was a bilingual country!". It's funny, because I don't think they expect all Belgians to speak French and Dutch fluently, or all Swiss to speak French, Italian and German. So I'm not sure where they get that.
Western Canada is almost universally English; just about the only places you'll see French there are on government signs and product packaging.
Quebec actually abolished English as an official language back in 1974, though some government services there are available in English.
I'm pretty sure my extremely limited French language skills were picked up from reading breakfast cereal boxes during trips to British Columbia as a child.
I get the why. It just worries me. I guess I'm afraid these languages are going to just vanish or something. That would be a high cultural loss.
This is happening a bit in Dutch. People are already using more and more English words in normal conversation here, while there's a perfectly equivalent Dutch word available, or a group of words. The pinnacle of that is the word 'efficiency', 'efficiëntie' in Dutch. The difference between the words when pronounced is just emphasising a different syllable, yet a lot of Dutch people pronounce it the English way. That really gets on my nerves.
With words like 'computer' or something it's somewhat understandable, since there's no Dutch translation for it (We could of course do what the French did and make one up, but still). But when there is a Dutch equivalent but people don't use it, I get annoyed. Usually I correct the person, if I know them.
It's a pet peeve of mine.
But yeah, playing English games really helps with learning the language. Like Joop and Hassat Hunter, I was better at English than the rest of my class, mostly thanks to playing games. I think English movies with Dutch subtitles helped me too, but I can't really remember that clearly.
Now I prefer English subtitles, so I can see how the few words I don't know are spelled, which makes looking them up easier. I rarely have to do that anymore though
Now I prefer English subtitles, so I can see how the few words I don't know are spelled, which makes looking them up easier. I rarely have to do that anymore though
Another Dutchie using english subtitles.
I only use it because I am a little hard-of-hearing for human voices though, so it's often pretty hard distinguishing them from background noise and music.
Which is why it makes me sad the Sam&Max series DVD have no subtitles, I miss several jokes because I just can't hear what's being said .
Oh, I also use subtitles because I'm afraid I might miss some jokes. The downside of that though, is that I catch myself reading too much, instead of mainly listening and watching the characters. Still, once I realise what I'm doing I can force myself to listen more.
I often catch myself that I actually need English subtitles as an additional safety net, especially when watching DVD (or playing adventure games). When there aren't any, I can do without, but I feel safer with them.
That's not what I said at all. They already have the programmers. For translators they'd need to hire some, which means starting a whole hiring process. And how would they select them? They can hire new programmers because they have programmers who can tell if the people applying know their stuff or not. They can't do the same with translation teams.
Then they'd need to find translators for a bazillion languages, too. And if the games are to be dubbed, voice actors, too.
And it's just not what they do. They make games. It's like complaining to a writer that they don't release their books in more languages. They're a writer, what they do is write books. Translating is done by other people, who buy the rights to do it and do it. People from whichever country. The writer doesn't go to fetch translators. Foreign publisher contact the original publisher and ask for the right to translate the works, and then they take care of finding a translator.
So if you want the games to be translated, don't ask Telltale to take care of that. Go find a game publisher in your country and ask them. What telltale does is making them, not translating them.
Honestly, I just don't get you. Do you write letters to authors to complain their novels aren't released in Spanish at the same time? Do you write to movie studios to ask if they're working on the Spanish dub too? It's normal for the translation to be dealt with on the other hand, from the target country.
The best you can do is gather fans and get them to work on a patch like was done with Monkey Island, if that's allowed.
We play for MANY YEARS ALL MONKEY ISLAND and Sam & Max hit the road from lucasarts ... in spanish ...
avistew. This is discrimination. You play wallace & grommit ?. Oh yeah. its multilanguage !!. But this game is for xbox 360 (and pc). They have the money for traslators. and this game is not dubbed. Only subtitled.
You talk about a game publisher .... Okey. Today 04-11-2010 we DONT HAVE A SUBTITLED SAM & MAX SEASON 2 !!!. wtf ??. Today you have a sam & max season 3......
The novels in spanish are released in months. NOT THREE YEARS !!
The telltalle CAN MAKE A MULTILANGUAGE VERSION. they have the money, the people (wallace & grommit), the writers. But for a stupid and unknown reason we dont have subtitled versions.
Telltale made a great work with this games. But honestly i disappointed with this company and i prefer another company for this clasic and very very famous(IN THE WORLD. The world is not only usa and england !!) games.
English wal of text.:eek:
I stopped reading at page 2:p, btw S&M S2 is already translated in others languages than english on xbox, so the only thing they have to do is to copy/paste it to the pc version.:rolleyes:
The telltalle CAN MAKE A MULTILANGUAGE VERSION. they have the money, the people (wallace & grommit), the writers. But for a stupid and unknown reason we dont have subtitled versions.
Telltale made a great work with this games. But honestly i disappointed with this company and i prefer another company for this clasic and very very famous(IN THE WORLD. The world is not only usa and england !!) games.
I don't think Telltale ain't as big as you make them out to be.
The telltalle CAN MAKE A MULTILANGUAGE VERSION. they have the money, the people (wallace & grommit), the writers. But for a stupid and unknown reason we dont have subtitled versions.
But we don't know that much about the Wallace and Gromit thing. Maybe it's was a Xbox thing and Xbox provided the translators. Maybe it was asked by Aardman and they provided the translators.
Or maybe it didn't work out well for some reason so they decided to go back to the previous way.
I understand why you're annoyed about season 2, I am too (English isn't my first language either, incidentally), but Telltale isn't to blame with that. The people in charge of the retail version ended being bought or something and it took much longer than expected to make. I'm not sure about the details, but either way if you're annoyed you should complain to them, not telltale, is my point.
They already have the programmers. For translators they'd need to hire some, which means starting a whole hiring process. And how would they select them? They can hire new programmers because they have programmers who can tell if the people applying know their stuff or not. They can't do the same with translation teams.
Then they'd need to find translators for a bazillion languages, too. And if the games are to be dubbed, voice actors, too.
Comments
But while doing that, you also learn English, especially if you are young.
Get enough "exposure" as such, and you already know the basics before even getting english classes on school. Most of the kids here do. Those who struggle with English are more exception than rule...
As you said, if you are younger it's far easier to take it all in. If you got most of it before 12, it's a lot easier to learn than when you are already an adult.
I am pretty bad at learning languages after all... yet I never really had that much trouble with English.
But subtitles are also unfair to people who can't read (either because they don't know how to or because they physically can't, such as bad eyesight or can't read fast enough).
So I like that both are equally available in France. Although I agree computer games still aren't like that very much. Console games let you choose your language though.
I think people have difficulties with different languages. I took years of German and can't speak it, I find it extremely difficult. I took two months of Japanese and did much better (although I forgot most of it now).
The only thing that annoys me is when people say things like it's specific to English. I'm glad I get to see movies in English subbed rather than dubbed, but I'm glad I also have that option for movies in Spanish, Italian, Japanese and whatever F*cking Amal or the Green Butchers were in.
I'm not going to say English isn't important, but you'd also lose a lot by learning only English or subbing only English and dubbing the rest. (Or worse, have a habit of neither dubbing nor subbing anything, and just either releasing stuff in the languages or not releasing them at all. Surely you have to see how that limits the amount of things someone can read/watch/play).
Another thing I dislike is when translations are released, but in English.
Say, a Japanese game/movie released in a non-English speaking country, in English.
If you're not translating it, can't you at least let it be the original? Either translate it in the right language or not at all. It makes no sense to give people something that's neither the original language nor the country's language.
I think they do the Japanese-English translation and then shipping it over to non-english countries just to save on translation costs. Very few europeans know japanese. Thus; a translation. However, most of them do know english. So just giving them the english version saves them from having to translate them another time, for a far smaller market than the english version, which may mean loss.
Same reason TTG can translate, but doesn't itself, leaving it to foreign producers. The effort may not be worth the additional expense...
If you're a die-hard opera fan on the other hand, English will probably be useless to you... you'll want to learn German and Italian instead. If you watch operas for hours every day (the same amount of time that many people spend in front of the TV or on the web) wouldn't it be worth the time and effort to learn those languages?
I agree that such a situation is less than ideal. What ticks me off the most is when I can't get stuff in the original language. The other day I was looking for the classic Asterix animated movies from the sixties, seventies and eighties. It turns out that the Norwegian DVDs are dubbed in Norwegian, (they are considered children's movies, apparently. Children's stuff are the only things that are dubbed here) and do not include the original French audio tracks. I checked the UK versions, and they too appear to be English dubbed only. If people embraced subtitling over dubbing more, those DVDs would at least have included the original audio tracks as an option.
Edit: And to add insult to injury, I remember seeing a couple of those movies on TV as a child, but that was in French with subtitles... it's a bit annoying that I can't get those versions on DVD.
However the versions I found (that were out of stock) all had several languages (such as this). If you're in Norway that'll be zone 2 so you could play them since they're made for Europe.
I do agree with the "can't find it in the original language". Here in Canada, which is a bilingual country, I'm having the hardest time finding some French things in French. It's frustrating, even moreso considering French IS an official language.
That must be be frustrating indeed... just curious, do you live in a French- or English-dominated area?
You can order it from Amazon.fr. There's a version with French and English audio, and one with French, English, German and Dutch audio and subtitles.
English-dominated. I've been on holiday in French-dominated areas and both French and English were available. I can totally get that English is spoken more than French here but that still get annoying.
Incidentally, every time I talk about Canada to people in French, they're confused to learn that Canadians aren't all fluent in both languages. They're all "but I thought it was a bilingual country!". It's funny, because I don't think they expect all Belgians to speak French and Dutch fluently, or all Swiss to speak French, Italian and German. So I'm not sure where they get that.
Quebec actually abolished English as an official language back in 1974, though some government services there are available in English.
I'm pretty sure my extremely limited French language skills were picked up from reading breakfast cereal boxes during trips to British Columbia as a child.
Are you a lumberjack by any chance, sir?
Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia!
The giant redwood, the larch, the fir, the mighty scots pine!
The smell of fresh-cut timber! The crash of mighty trees!
With my best girlie by my side! We'd sing ... sing ... sing!
With words like 'computer' or something it's somewhat understandable, since there's no Dutch translation for it (We could of course do what the French did and make one up, but still). But when there is a Dutch equivalent but people don't use it, I get annoyed. Usually I correct the person, if I know them.
It's a pet peeve of mine.
But yeah, playing English games really helps with learning the language. Like Joop and Hassat Hunter, I was better at English than the rest of my class, mostly thanks to playing games. I think English movies with Dutch subtitles helped me too, but I can't really remember that clearly.
Now I prefer English subtitles, so I can see how the few words I don't know are spelled, which makes looking them up easier. I rarely have to do that anymore though
Another Dutchie using english subtitles.
I only use it because I am a little hard-of-hearing for human voices though, so it's often pretty hard distinguishing them from background noise and music.
Which is why it makes me sad the Sam&Max series DVD have no subtitles, I miss several jokes because I just can't hear what's being said
Common !!
OR they have programmers who can port games, but they don't have translators, and they focus on things they can do without hiring tons more people?
They are a business after all...
Okey. The traslators are more expensive ...
really ??
That's not what I said at all. They already have the programmers. For translators they'd need to hire some, which means starting a whole hiring process. And how would they select them? They can hire new programmers because they have programmers who can tell if the people applying know their stuff or not. They can't do the same with translation teams.
Then they'd need to find translators for a bazillion languages, too. And if the games are to be dubbed, voice actors, too.
And it's just not what they do. They make games. It's like complaining to a writer that they don't release their books in more languages. They're a writer, what they do is write books. Translating is done by other people, who buy the rights to do it and do it. People from whichever country. The writer doesn't go to fetch translators. Foreign publisher contact the original publisher and ask for the right to translate the works, and then they take care of finding a translator.
So if you want the games to be translated, don't ask Telltale to take care of that. Go find a game publisher in your country and ask them. What telltale does is making them, not translating them.
Honestly, I just don't get you. Do you write letters to authors to complain their novels aren't released in Spanish at the same time? Do you write to movie studios to ask if they're working on the Spanish dub too? It's normal for the translation to be dealt with on the other hand, from the target country.
The best you can do is gather fans and get them to work on a patch like was done with Monkey Island, if that's allowed.
This post is strangely ironic.
and stupid.
We play for MANY YEARS ALL MONKEY ISLAND and Sam & Max hit the road from lucasarts ... in spanish ...
avistew. This is discrimination. You play wallace & grommit ?. Oh yeah. its multilanguage !!. But this game is for xbox 360 (and pc). They have the money for traslators. and this game is not dubbed. Only subtitled.
You talk about a game publisher .... Okey. Today 04-11-2010 we DONT HAVE A SUBTITLED SAM & MAX SEASON 2 !!!. wtf ??. Today you have a sam & max season 3......
The novels in spanish are released in months. NOT THREE YEARS !!
The telltalle CAN MAKE A MULTILANGUAGE VERSION. they have the money, the people (wallace & grommit), the writers. But for a stupid and unknown reason we dont have subtitled versions.
Telltale made a great work with this games. But honestly i disappointed with this company and i prefer another company for this clasic and very very famous(IN THE WORLD. The world is not only usa and england !!) games.
I stopped reading at page 2:p, btw S&M S2 is already translated in others languages than english on xbox, so the only thing they have to do is to copy/paste it to the pc version.:rolleyes:
I don't think Telltale ain't as big as you make them out to be.
But we don't know that much about the Wallace and Gromit thing. Maybe it's was a Xbox thing and Xbox provided the translators. Maybe it was asked by Aardman and they provided the translators.
Or maybe it didn't work out well for some reason so they decided to go back to the previous way.
I understand why you're annoyed about season 2, I am too (English isn't my first language either, incidentally), but Telltale isn't to blame with that. The people in charge of the retail version ended being bought or something and it took much longer than expected to make. I'm not sure about the details, but either way if you're annoyed you should complain to them, not telltale, is my point.
But is big for Ipad, Ps3, Wii versions ...