I'm a spanish speaker, but I can understand quite well english, even when the level on my country's schools is very very low. I'm self-taught.
I saw the film in its original language, but only the english parts where subtitled. Damn, I really wanted to know what the nazis were saying, I thought it was on purpose, to make us feel alienated, like someone said, like invasors that are not even from this earth.
I don't speak german and I have no interest in learning it. There was a time where in my country, in high school, kids could choose foreign language between english, french and german. English was so easy to me, I've always pick it. I had french too, but I can't really remember anything but a few sentences. I know some italian by default and some japanese because I'm into it. Currently, public schools only teach english. A very basic and low level of it.
Please excuse my terrible redaction, english is not my native language.
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bonniehudson
11 years ago
I'm English but of German heritage, so can understand the language. When I first saw this movie it was in a room of about ten of my friends, we were all very moved by it. Buuuut for some really odd reason the version we watched had no subtitles, so during the pivotal scene with Szpilman and Hosenfeld my friends had to pause it every sentence to ask "What did he say?", which completely broke the tension.
We're not big on languages in England unfortunately. It's a downside of English being the lingua franca of the world, we don't have much motivation to learn other languages, people generally want to learn ours. It was always embarrassing when exchange students came to our school from Germany who spoke incredible English at age 14 and the English kids didn't even know how to introduce themselves in German :)
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BulmaPunkRocker
11 years ago
I think that's probably because english is the "world's language", like, for business. Here in my country, the government try to encourage english learning on adults, but still, the level is so basic... because in public school all you learn is "My name is", "this is the window", "open the door". I can't believe when foreign people say to me that my english is good, I learned all by myself, and my pronunciation is really bad. I even feel ashamed to write on this boards sometimes.
I wish "The Pianist" had subtitles, at least, for the main german dialogues.
Please excuse my terrible redaction, english is not my native language.
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MrBullo
11 years ago
I understand some German but I think that the movie has more impact when you cannot understand every word as it puts you in the shoes of the Jews. A little like in the also excellent movie "Midnight Express". Not understanding everything they say puts one (like the Polish Jews) in a weaker position.
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