English for runaways - the phantom menace

[abby]

Luckily my mother doesn't care about mothers day. So I was working at the Allianz Arena. 

I haven't seen this series yet, but it is on my watchlist  

At the moment, I'm bingewatching modern family for the 3rd time..xD But I don't really have the time for watching a new series. maybe when the season finales of my shows are over. (Grey's Anatomy, The Big Bang Theory and Modern Family)

[Grimlet]

*knock* *knock* Anybody here?

Hey@abby what were you working on at the Allianz Arena? 

So, last week I went to the cinema to watch Bladerunner 2049. And I'd like to recommend all of you to see it for yourself. It's a worthy sequel to the classic Blade Runner of 1982. Awesome soundtrack, wonderful cinematography. Unfortuneately I wasn't a big seller in the box office but a good film nonetheless.

 

 

What have you guys been up to lately? Feel free to rant and talk abour your days or past adventures, I'd love to read about it. And remember any spelling error are welcomed and will be corrected if found. 

[Carwyn]

While tumbleweed makes its way through the dark and gritty corners of this thread, footsteps can be heard in the distance. As the steps get louder, a person can be seen in the horizon, slowly moving towards the center of the English thread. Once in a while the person stops, blows the dust off of the old posts, examines them. There must be a reason why the citizens abandoned this thread. Moving closer, the person seems to be even more determined to find out what happened here. She knows it's a tough place to be in. Being the only English thread in a German Forum is no easy task. But it sustained for a while. There seems to have been a need. Then she finds out that the one person that started it all seemed to have been busy too much to look out for the thread and therefore played a keyrole in the abandonement of this thread.

Then the person remembered. It was she herself. She let the thread die down, linger in the depths of the Coffeehouse with questions unanswered, posts uncorrected. She cried when the revelation hit her. But then she stood up. Determination in her face. And though she was alone, she clenched her fists, looked up and said out loud: "I will fix this! This thread will live again!"

[abby]

Am 12.10.2017 um 17:43 schrieb Grimlet:

Hey@abby what were you working on at the Allianz Arena? 

I just did not see your answer last year...xD I was working as a security guard  

vor 17 Stunden schrieb Carwyn:

"I will fix this! This thread will live again!"

She heard the OPs battlecry in the early morning. It made the cold a little bit warmer and the sun began to shine through the fog of the forgotten. 

Soon, there will be joy and happiness again in the  dark realms of the english thread. It had come back to live and everyone hoped this time it would last a little bit longer. 

 

[RipperFox]

Am 9.2.2017 um 13:53 schrieb Carwyn:

try to improve his or her English skills.
 

Do we actually have a native English speaker around (not me)? While I think that most sentences in this thread are perfectly comprehensible, I'd find some or parts of them rather 'oddly constructed' at least.

Btw: Helpful link to improve English pronounciation - did you know how to say 'sieve' )  https://youglish.com/search/sieve

 

[Carwyn]

I guess we don't really have a native speaker around, but we could help one another because the levels of English vary vastly, I guess. And there may be those with a big vocabulary but lack a sense of grammar and the other way round. Then there are those who don't really feel like they're really good and who need an environment where it's okay to make mistakes and learn from them.

I would consider my English far from perfect, but at least good enough to point out some mistakes others may have made and to correct them to my abilities. Still I don't mind being corrected on my mistakes as well, because there is a lot of stuff that I do wrong out of habit and need to get out of my system. So yeah, I'm glad if someone calls me out on that as well.

So if I utttered some of those "oddly constructed" sentences in here: Give it a shot and tell me how to make it better.

[abby]

Am 7.9.2018 um 11:27 schrieb Carwyn:

And there may be those with a big vocabulary but lack a sense of grammar

This could be me  I read a lot of english novels and watch practically everything in the original version, so I know a lot of words. But I also have no clue about the right grammatical rules...xD So my sentences are sometimes quite odd...xD

[Carwyn]

vor 2 Stunden schrieb abby:

This could be me  I read a lot of english novels and watch practically everything in the original version, so I know a lot of words. But I also have no clue about the right grammatical rules...xD So my sentences are sometimes quite odd...xD

I don't really go by a real set of rules. It's rather a sense of "This is how it is supposed to be" or "That sounds off" when I read or hear a mistake being made. I sometimes have to look up what the grammar rule is that I go by. Because I don't go by it intentionally, rather than having a certain feeling for the "right way".

When I taught a girl the forms of comparison of adjectives I had to look up when to use "more" and "most" and when to stick to the -er and -est suffixes. I did it right. But I didn't know the exact rule when to use what. And in order to explain that to a student...you better know why you're doing the things the way you do.

[RubberDog]

Ohai Lads & Gents *tips non-existent fedora*

Would you mind if I join in? It's been a while since I really had to use the little bit of english I remember, talking to support on the phone yesterday (english, of course) has been a horrible mess. So this might be pretty nice to have some kind of training.

vor 17 Stunden schrieb Carwyn:

I don't really go by a real set of rules. It's rather a sense of "This is how it is supposed to be"

I totally know this! Not only for the english language, but also for german. I really couldn't tell the definition of a Verb, but often get everything right by accident.

[TooMuchCoffeeMan]

vor 57 Minuten schrieb RubberDog:

Would you mind if I join in? It's been a while since I really had to use the little bit of english I remember, talking to support on the phone yesterday (english, of course) has been a horrible mess. So this might be pretty nice to have some kind of training.

I think the best way to learn to speak english in a business environment is to just do it. Your are bound to make mistakes along the way but you will get more confident the longer you do it.

I have been watching television shows and movies exclusivly in english for the last decade. I also prefer reading books in english so I thought myself to be quite familliar with the language. Two years ago I was put on an international project where I had to interact with people from the UK and the United States on a daily basis. I was a little surprised how much my spoken english had degraded over the years since I didn't really need it since school. I realized that understanding the language and speaking the language were two different beasts entirely. My accent sounded awkward and I was sometimes struggling to find the correct words although I knew them. The added layer of work related stress didn't really help in that matter. But what I found out after a few weeks is that my peers didn't really mind. They were happy I was speaking their language and that they didn't have to try to speak german to me. So I became more confident in speaking english. The project went on for another year and now I feel quite comfortable when speaking english at work and elsewhere.

So in essence: Just do it. You can't really fail even if it is awkward at first. The people on the other side will be glad you're trying.

Bearbeitet 5. Oktober 2018 von TooMuchCoffeeMan

[Carwyn]

That's basically how I learned English. Got really confronted with the language at the age of 10 by being in an English speaking country for five weeks straight. So I basically went for it and began talking to people and making a TON of mistakes along the way. But you begin to get a feeling after a couple of days for what's right and what's not. You constantly hear people speaking English and you subliminial catch up on the grammar part. Not in an intentional "Ah, this is the correct way because place before time" way (or anything similar to that), but rather in a "I often hear the words in that particular order and this tense" kind of way. You learn by simply using it and being exposed to it.

The great thing is, that you also catch up on sayings and proverbs. When I visited Montana I came back with the expression "to go about something" for example. "This is a problem. How do we go about that?" I love learning that kind of stuff along the way.

[astero]

je ne parle pas français aber bitte red' weiter

i didn't know here's an english thread lol, thanks for telling me that.. i'm disappointed!

[TooMuchCoffeeMan]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Carwyn:

The great thing is, that you also catch up on sayings and proverbs. When I visited Montana I came back with the expression "to go about something" for example. "This is a problem. How do we go about that?" I love learning that kind of stuff along the way.

That's exactly why I don't like watching english movies and television shows in their german dubbed versions. So much gets lost in translation or doesn't even make sense anymore. That goes doubly for comedy stuff. Accents are also a thing that gets me more immersed into a setting or world. Good examples are Justified or True Blood, where thick accents just correspond very well with the world building.

[Carwyn]

It already begins with the sound of the voices. When they're in a bathroom, it sounds like in a bathroom. Dubbed versions with ADR don't really capture that feeling of immersion, though they try to mimic the sound by adding reverb for example. Still it sounds overlayered rather than something that is really spoken by that person. But I guess you'll only get that feeling once you start to watch shows and movies in their original language. That's when you really begin to hear the difference.
And yeah, accents are a really important thing. As well as different languages. I love when the German terrorists speak actual German.

[Carwyn]

vor 20 Minuten schrieb fasoso:

i didn't know here's an english thread lol, thanks for telling me that.. i'm disappointed!

You're disappointed because I told you about that or that you didn't know that such a thing exists?

[astero]

vor 1 Minute schrieb Carwyn:

You're disappointed because I told you about that or that you didn't know that such a thing exists?

noone has told me before

[RubberDog]

Well, it seems this thread didn't really get much attention recently, as the last post besides wednesday has been pretty much one year before.

[TooMuchCoffeeMan]

Am 5.10.2018 um 11:32 schrieb Carwyn:

It already begins with the sound of the voices. When they're in a bathroom, it sounds like in a bathroom. Dubbed versions with ADR don't really capture that feeling of immersion, though they try to mimic the sound by adding reverb for example. Still it sounds overlayered rather than something that is really spoken by that person. But I guess you'll only get that feeling once you start to watch shows and movies in their original language. That's when you really begin to hear the difference.
And yeah, accents are a really important thing. As well as different languages. I love when the German terrorists speak actual German.

Yes, you are completly right about the voices being affected by their surroundings. The german dubbed version always sounds a little off, almost too clean. The only advantage, at least in my opinion, is that the german voices are louder than the surroundings. Some english tv shows and movies have really quiet voices, where you have to concentrate hard to make out what anyone is saying. Battlestar Galactica comes to mind here. A friend of mine used to call it "Flüsterstern Galactica".

Another thing that really bugs me about the dubbed version is that voice actors often voice more than one foreign actor. Thats just confusing. And sometimes voice actors are changed from movie to movie for reasons unknown or because they died. That makes it really hard for me to get immersed in the world of that movie / tv show.

And sometimes the translator just completly changes parts of the story or background of a certain character. For example the german terrorists in Die Hard. That just annoys me to no end.

[äymm]

Am 5.10.2018 um 11:32 schrieb Carwyn:

It already begins with the sound of the voices. When they're in a bathroom, it sounds like in a bathroom. Dubbed versions with ADR don't really capture that feeling of immersion, though they try to mimic the sound by adding reverb for example. Still it sounds overlayered rather than something that is really spoken by that person.

Exactly, pretty much every German dub sounds like it was recorded in a studio. (In all faireness it was, but it still shouldn't sound like it was)

[Carwyn]

Still, German dubbing is one of the finest dubbing worldwide. They try to be in sync with the time the lips are moving, they try to find the best translation that also fits most of the lip movement (like trying to use a word with an "o" in it, when the person forms an "o" with their lips) and often times they also come up with brilliant ways to make a joke work that only works in English by finding an appropiate one in German.
Of course, there's still plenty of stuff to complain about but it's really nitpicky considering the quality we get over here.

And there's also some ADR in the original versions as well. It's not always that obvious, but it's there too.

Nevertheless, it's a different experience to hear the voices being part of the whole "sound system" of a movie rather than having this feeling of the voices being detached from the rest.
And yeah, volume levels and sometimes accents or mumbling can be a real challenge when watching shows and movies in English - or in the language the movie was produced in. There are German movies and shows where you don't really get everything because some actors are hardly audible or the dialects are so thick, that you can't understand what they're saying.

 

[äymm]

@Carwyn I absolutely agree!

[TooMuchCoffeeMan]

vor 7 Stunden schrieb Carwyn:

There are German movies and shows where you don't really get everything because some actors are hardly audible or the dialects are so thick, that you can't understand what they're saying.

*cough* Til Schweiger *cough*

[Carwyn]

Am 9.10.2018 um 15:33 schrieb TooMuchCoffeeMan:

*cough* Til Schweiger *cough*

Yeah, he has his moments. He's kinda okay to understand most of the time, though.

What I find even more interesting is translation of songs. Be it musical movies like the ones from Disney, fully blown musical movies like "The Greatest Showman" or "Les Miserables" or complete musicals on stage. I've listened to a German translation of "RENT" and it was...weird? Then there are musicals with not only a decent but a very good translation. The Disney songs are mostly translated pretty well. And then there are the musical movies where they don't bother translating the songs like "Les Miserables" or "Moulin Rouge".

Because often times, translating musical songs means finding a translation that is true to the original lyrics, that sounds good in German as well, fits the rhyme scheme and the time signature and in regards to movies resembles at least a bit the lip-movement of the singer. So it's way easier to remain the original lyrics in the movie and provide a translation via subtitles.

Fun fact: Sometimes the translation is harder than the original. For example when the high note is on an "ah"-vowel and the translation replaces it with an "e"-vowel. That can be harder to pull off as a singer.

[Carwyn]

Half a year has past - again - since anyone posted anything in here. Either attention is lost because the soap is in front and center or there aren't a lot of people who would like to write English posts. Or there's a lack of topics to talk about.

Soooooo...who watched "The Umbrella Academy" recently, liked it and has a favorite character?

[RubberDog]

vor 7 Minuten schrieb Carwyn:

Or there's a lack of topics to talk about.

I'd say this is the main problem here, since most topics are discussed in other threads.

 

vor 8 Minuten schrieb Carwyn:

"The Umbrella Academy"

I'm pretty sure it just appeared on my Netflix home screen yesterday.
Since you're asking about it, I also guest you'd recommend watching it?