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Of the non-natively Anglophone countries, it seems like (from my experience and those of other Americans) the Scandinavian countries - especially Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and to a lesser extent, the Netherlands (and perhaps the Flemish half of Belgium) have the best English, not only in grammar and fluency but also in accents. Although I think English is quite easy to speak to Anglo natives because there are so many dialects of it and nothing is really constant, therefore allowing judgment-free speaking, many natives of other languages will refuse this notion and impose harsh prescriptive rules on themselves. The Scandinavians and Dutch, however, do not have to do this, as many of them seem to speak perfectly in the first place. I suppose this is in large part because they have subtitles rather than dubbing for most English TV shows.
One thing I do notice, though, is that many speakers tend to either prefer a General American accent, or a sort of BBC English accent used by the presenters of British documentaries. Several kids I've met I cannot tell their voice apart from a Missourian, but others speak with a more "official" English accent. Do these reflect their media consumption, or the teachers they've had, or something else?
English has little to none dialects, it has accents ( many of them).
This thread reminds me the school exchange that my school organized with a school in Sweden. I remember that the Swedish students that we met during that program spoke English much better than us (even if they were a couple of years younger). We study English at school too, when I was at the high school English was a compulsory subject for all the secondary school (8 years, usually 3 hours every week) and a lot of us also studied some English at the elementary school. Now probably English is compulsory also at the elementary school. But evidently the results are not so good.
I also noticed that not only young people, but also adults speak English very well in Sweden. We were very surprised when we heard the parents of the Swedish student that were hosting us for the exchange speaking English, because the most of our parents don't know English at all (among all my classmates' parents only one father knew English).
I think that our main problem for us is the complete lack of exposition to English language outside school. About the accent we are probably disadvantaged because Italian pronunciation is completely different, but we could surely have better results with some more effort.
Spoiler
writing this I'm thinking about our Prime Minister astonishing English proficiency
The fact that it is very hard to see subtitled films does not help either.
My peers in Bologna are mostly students / educated people / left-wing / etc. and most of them are young, under 30 y.o.. The same type of people in France usually refuses to see dubbed foreign films at this point because we've gotten used to subtitled movies and maybe it's more "chic".
Most of my friends here are not used at all to see subtitled films, actually once we went to see a documentary about Gaza, which was in Arabic and subtitled in Italian. I've only spoken Italian for about a year, yet I could follow the movie ( I don't understand arabic at all aside from a few famous words). To me it was no big deal, but many of my friends said they had had difficulty even if it was their own native tongue written at the bottom of the screem. I found it very weird.
Here there is only one Theater that almost only plays subtitled movies. The other theaters do not offer it or only one evening in the week.
Actually when I wanted to see Interstellar in November, I went to the only evening where it was shown in English, and there was a big line, which goes to show that there's a growing audience for subtitled movies.
Also, I've already tried to look for subtitles on the internet for illegally downloaded films or series, and more than once, I could find any language in the world BUT Italian. It seems people here wait for the dubbed version to be available.
The fact that it is very hard to see subtitled films does not help either.
My peers in Bologna are mostly students / educated people / left-wing / etc. and most of them are young, under 30 y.o.. The same type of people in France usually refuses to see dubbed foreign films at this point because we've gotten used to subtitled movies and maybe it's more "chic".
Most of my friends here are not used at all to see subtitled films, actually once we went to see a documentary about Gaza, which was in Arabic and subtitled in Italian. I've only spoken Italian for about a year, yet I could follow the movie ( I don't understand arabic at all aside from a few famous words). To me it was no big deal, but many of my friends said they had had difficulty even if it was their own native tongue written at the bottom of the screem. I found it very weird.
Here there is only one Theater that almost only plays subtitled movies. The other theaters do not offer it or only one evening in the week.
Actually when I wanted to see Interstellar in November, I went to the only evening where it was shown in English, and there was a big line, which goes to show that there's a growing audience for subtitled movies.
Also, I've already tried to look for subtitles on the internet for illegally downloaded films or series, and more than once, I could find any language in the world BUT Italian. It seems people here wait for the dubbed version to be available.
Subtitles don't bother me so much, for example I often watch to Japanese anime with subtitles (English or Italian, it doesn't matter). But I also know people who don't like subtitles for the strangest reasons: because they don't want to admit that they would need glasses to read on the screen, because they want to follow a program without looking the screen and so on (they are quite funny people...)
However, the dubbing agencies are really active in Italy, and so the most of famous programs are dubbed quite quickly. It is quite true that for us would be strange to see subbed movies and programs on TV, we are not so used to them...
Quote:
Originally Posted by tarzan_taborda
In those countries where they dub the movies, does the same actor have different voices from movie to movie?
With famous actors we try to maintain the same voice in every movie, but in other cases the voice could also change a lot. When for some reason they have to change the voice of a famous actor (usually because the dubber died) we are never happy to hear the change. For example a couple of years ago they changed the dubber for Homer, Marge and Bart Simpson. I can no more watch the program as I did before...
I've met many Dutch, Swedish and Norwegians (not sure about Danish) who speak English very, very well with only a trace of a non-native accent. But that trace is definitely there; I can tell they were not born in an English-speaking country. Usually I find the Dutch easiest to pinpoint; there is something distinctive about their vowels. But as for speaking clearly and comprehensibly...give me a Scandinavian or Dutch person who learned English in school over a Singaporean whose native language is "English."
Dutch vowels are more pure vowels where as English is full of diphthongs.
The fact that it is very hard to see subtitled films does not help either.
My peers in Bologna are mostly students / educated people / left-wing / etc. and most of them are young, under 30 y.o.. The same type of people in France usually refuses to see dubbed foreign films at this point because we've gotten used to subtitled movies and maybe it's more "chic".
Most of my friends here are not used at all to see subtitled films, actually once we went to see a documentary about Gaza, which was in Arabic and subtitled in Italian. I've only spoken Italian for about a year, yet I could follow the movie ( I don't understand arabic at all aside from a few famous words). To me it was no big deal, but many of my friends said they had had difficulty even if it was their own native tongue written at the bottom of the screem. I found it very weird.
Here there is only one Theater that almost only plays subtitled movies. The other theaters do not offer it or only one evening in the week.
Actually when I wanted to see Interstellar in November, I went to the only evening where it was shown in English, and there was a big line, which goes to show that there's a growing audience for subtitled movies.
Also, I've already tried to look for subtitles on the internet for illegally downloaded films or series, and more than once, I could find any language in the world BUT Italian. It seems people here wait for the dubbed version to be available.
That's strange but possible.
Generally you'll find plenty of streaming websites streaming English-speaking movies/TV-series with Italian subtitles.
Yet, it's definitely possible that Italian subtitles might be less common than other languages (I curiously found out that Hungarian and Portuguese subtitles are very widespread).
That's strange but possible.
Generally you'll find plenty of streaming websites streaming English-speaking movies/TV-series with Italian subtitles.
Yet, it's definitely possible that Italian subtitles might be less common than other languages (I curiously found out that Hungarian and Portuguese subtitles are very widespread).
Also I have noticed that fewer people are into dl here and prefer streaming. Maybe that could be another explanation for the lack of subtitles.
And yes, and you can also add lithuanian or serbian to the list.
There is definitely a Norwegian accent of English that is neither strictly an American nor a British accent or intonation
It lacks the obvious and distinctive qualities of other European accents of English such as the German, French, Italian, and Russian which are somewhat notable, if not notorious, among both American and British English speakers and have qualities that lend themselves to (often farcical) imitations.
One thing is for certain, it lacks the sing-song intonation that Americans do when they (believe) they are imitating Norwegians and Swedes.
What does make the accent distinct is primarily the quality of the various permutations of the vowel 'o', the 'th' sound which depending on the speaker can be anywhere from a hard 'd' to a proper 'Þ' or 'ð', and the attack and sustain qualities (to borrow from sound editing terminology) of vowels and syllables largely due to the quantitative length of vowels modified by the quantitative quality especially in cognates. for example, 'kom inn' <-> 'come in' will sound intelligible, but the quality and length of the vowels differ.
Altogether, I think the standard Norwegian/Swedish accent of English is noticeable, but on the whole but comprised of a small group of subtle differences from American and British accents making it hard to place or imitate for English speakers.
Last edited by ABQConvict; 01-31-2015 at 03:29 PM..
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