Do French or German people ever watch this show?
And if so, what do they think of it?
shareDo you mean are they watching it in its original form (wath or wathoot sobtittles - Crabtree)? Or have they dubbed it? Since a lot of the humour depends on English slang, puns and innuendos, one wonders if much of it survives the translation. Born, brought up and living in Montreal, Quebec, (bilingual) have seen clips of the French concept of "Doc Martin", and find it hard to associate with. "C'est la vie" as we say, here.
And while we're on the subject of translation, there is a phrase which I've seen/heard both in 'Allo 'Allo and You Rang M'Lord, usually uttered when there is a slight state of confusion - "K-V"(pronounced "kay-vee"). Have checked on the 'net and only find foreign or technical terms that do not seem to relate. Could it be a phonetic version of the French phrase "quelle vie!" - literally "what a life!", but could also be freely translated as "omigosh" or "odear, odear", etc.
I was just wondering how they'd react to the way they were portrayed. Such as the French openly collaborating with Germans, and the German officers being gullible buffoons and so on.
shareIf you plow through all the posts there are a few others which have addressed the topic. Some say it as revealing of British attitudes/prejudices towards other cultures, and therefore poking fun at this. And, Crabtree represents the stereotypical anglophone who cannot get his tongue around a foreign language. It's all in fun. Love it when Helga announces (stands stiffly and shouts) "GENERAL VON KLINKERHOFFEN" or "BRING HIM(prisoner)IN" (to the colonel's office)- too bad they didn't capitalize the DVD subtitles.
shareYou are right, there's a big problem about things being converted and dubbed too much in certain countries, which harms and hampers natural learning of english in my opinion.
I wouldn't know english as well as I do (not that my command of the english language is perfect, but I'd say it's at least average), had it not been subtitled TV shows and such to learn from.
People don't seem to understand that having original audio plus subtitles would encourage kids to learn to read faster, earlier and better (I learned to read relatively early on, so maybe I am biased). Just dubbing everything 'so kids can enjoy it' just takes away the desire to learn subtitles OR english, so it's a double-whammy against kids.
Basically enabling and worshipping stupidity is the decided course of action, all just so kids wouldn't have to lift a finger. Wouldn't it be an incredible motivation to have this 'wall' that kids have to themselves break through if they want to understand things? I learned japanese so I could understand undubbed japanese videos (and now I do), so I know exactly what I am talking about.
Also, it's a lot of fun to learn a language and to learn to read (learning to read in japanese is at least as hard if not harder than learning to read 'your own language' as a kid) again.
In my opinion, it would be a great motivational boost for not only kids, but also adults to have subtitles and never dub anything.
Dubbing is a crime as well, because it takes something that was done in a certain way, and mutilates that artwork in a way that's probably FAR away from the vision of the actual creator of that something. The very IDEA of dubbing is an insult to the art or whatever the original thing is. Nothing should EVER be dubbed, because even when done 'well' (if this even exists), it's never the SAME. It can never be as good, because it comes from a different source.
It's like making a pear tree produce apples or vice versa; it's just not the same, and it just can't be done
When I was in a German airport - after all, airport is an INTERNATIONAL PLACE where all kinds of people gather and travel through - I was expecting to find english magazines and such things. I approached a 'kiosk' (or whatever it was), saw many magazines there, and decided that at least the german people are wise about this stuff in the airp.. OH NO, it's ALL IN GERMAN.
Every single thing was in german, there was absolutely nothing in english. I couldn't believe it, why would they go THAT far, to translate english or american magazines into german?
That experience taught me that german goverment (or culture) loves their own language so much, they won't even allow INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS to have english magazines!
No wonder some germans might think everyone in the world speaks german (because in every movie, they do, due to dubbing (urgh)!), and when one german started suddenly vomiting a string of excitement in that language to my face, I responded in another, non-english language, and they were left SHOCKED, as if they have never heard of a non-german language before.
These experiences have taught me that german and french most likely dub pretty much everything, so good luck trying to show this brilliant show to germans and french in such a way that they get all the jokes, nuances, idioms, and 'linguistic humor based on mispronouncing english words or using accents to signify languages'.
Gooooooooooood luck.