MovieChat Forums > The Pianist (2003) Discussion > Do english speaking people understand th...

Do english speaking people understand the german parts?


I live in Switzerland, and while we do have our own dialect, we basically understand and speak german perfectly. So one day, I decided to watch this movie in its original version in english (we have german dubs here) - and I was surprised to see that there is still a lot of german in this movie. Not only do the german soldiers (well, most of them) talk in their language, we have an entire scene of Hosenfeld and Szpilman talking to each other in german - even without subtitles! (at least in the version I watched)

I naturally understood that perfectly, but it left me wondering how well foreign people are able to understand this. Is it the norm that german is being taught in schools? If not, how well can american/english people follow this?


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German is very popular in British schools (along with French and sometimes Spanish).
But very few are fluent unless they choose to take it to a higher level. But on my DVD there are subtitles for the German parts and I would assume the same with British television. Everything is subtitled here.

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Yes, there is always something called subtitle.

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:) Hi, I live in America. I think what happened is that different versions of the film might be released in different parts of the world. When I watched it, there were subtitles! But I was seeing it on T.V. Also, I understood some of other German parts. Some German sounds similar to English! (and I took one year of German in Highschool. It was mostly fruitless work, because my classmates were very roudy and made learning hard, but, I'd like to start studying again!)

I AM DINOSAUR...RAR!!!

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Ya, they say 'fire' when shooting someone, or 'gut' when expressing positive opinion, we can't understand.

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Yup, I think this is what happened. It's a German DVD. I usually watch movies in original English, and this version is on there too of course, but the subtitles were apparently removed.

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I live in the US and saw this film at the theater when it was first released.
Funny, I don't recall if there were subtitles or not. Spanish was the language taught in my elementary school because of our proximity to Mexico. German is similar to English in some ways, so you get the just of it.

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Not unless they can speak German too, or at least have a little knowledge of the language

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It kind of depends on the person.

I speak a lot more languages than the typical American but not German very well... but there are enough phrases that I can understand, so even without the subtitles on I got the gist. Those who actually took German in school would know more, if they still remember it. My high school offered Spanish, German, and French at the time and all students were required to take at least two years of one of them - although most college bound students took 4 or 5 years worth - if they took Advanced Placement classes. I took 5 years worth of Spanish in the 4 years of high school myself, but picked up enough phrases in German to understand some basic orders.

Kommen sie, Juden raus, achtung, schnell, schiessen, etc. I'm sure I garbled the spelling on at least one of those, but when the German soldiers said them I got the point.

Most Americans, however, would miss most of those... but the nice part is that many of the people that would watch a film like this would at least know a few words and get the point. The Transformers crowd, not so much. :P

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[deleted]

Didn't understand a word. I think it was on purpose, not understanding what the Nazi's were saying made it seem like they were less human. Like a foreign infection that looks human, but isn't. Like the Borg.

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I did some German at school but I were not really good and now I'm even worst but I understood everything except the dialogue with Hosenfeld that was more difficult. The officers orders where easy to understand :)

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