Dubbed: Television and language

Come on now, admit it. How often do you ever watch a television programme in Spanish? If you don't live in Mallorca or Spain, you're forgiven, but if you do ... . There is one very good reason for not watching Spanish telly, apart from the language issue, and this is that, for the most part, it is unrelenting garbage. Better that you stick to "X Factor" or "I'm A Celebrity"; altogether more culturally enriching.

I'm not going to be holier than thou. I don't watch Spanish telly much. I used to, before I realised just how bad it was. What limited diet I have is largely confined to football. I should make more of an effort as there are some gems of the bizarre, such as the channel which seems to be devoted to a woman reading Tarot cards or human towers competitions replete with slow-mo action replays of a small child slipping and crashing onto the bodies below.

Foreign programmes are usually always dubbed, and there are an awful lot of them. Yes, you can view some in the original language as well, but for the Spaniard the voiceover (VO) is preferable. The Germans do it as well to films and telly programmes. It is so ridiculous that I once saw an interview with the boy who was the German "Harry Potter" and who had become a star in his own right. In Spanish I have watched "The Shawshank Redemption" with a Morgan Freeman who probably comes from Madrid and who almost certainly isn't black.

Dubbing, as opposed to showing programmes in the original language (almost always, therefore, English) with subtitles, may lead to the madness of an actor's personality being stripped away by a VO artist, but it can also have a serious aspect, in that it inhibits the learning of English.

However, the experience in Germany is quite telling. Though German TV dubs, the standard of English in Germany is high, far higher than it is in Mallorca or Spain. Television does have a role to play in teaching English, and no more so than in the Netherlands where, together with an educational system which promotes English from an early age, the watching of shows in English has been established practice for many years, given that the BBC has long been available. But television can't overcome an instinctive problem, one to do with the sounds of language.

There is an article by Nick Lyne about Spanish television, dubbing and language acquisition on the qorreo.com website. It's interesting, but what is even more interesting is a comment about the article. This makes the point that the Spanish language has a "particularly not-rich set of sounds in its register". This means that it can be difficult to pronounce, speak and therefore learn other languages, such as English.

The contrast is made with, for example, Dutch which is a much richer language in terms of sounds. I would guess that the same applies to German. The greater the range of sounds in a native tongue, the easier it is to acquire other languages; or so the theory seems to go. Without getting too technical, Spanish has comparatively few spoken sounds compared with English. A linguist at the Spanish equivalent of the Open University has made the point that Spanish pronunciation of English is poor because the greater number of English sounds are reduced to the few of Spanish. (Incidentally, Catalan has a few more sounds than Spanish which should, in theory, make things easier.)

The imbalance in sound recognition has major implications for the teaching of English in schools. The same linguist has said that no one seems to be bothering to make the acquisition of new sounds a key element of English. The extension of English use in teaching in Spanish and Mallorcan schools is all well and good, but how good are the teachers themselves at speaking it correctly? Despite the number of years of English instruction, the professor of language psychology at the University of Navarra is concerned that pupils leave school still not knowing how to speak English.

Earlier this year, a survey of students at the university in Palma discovered that 68% admitted to not understanding English. It may not be essential for all of them in their future careers that they do, but given the importance of English in international business and in local tourism the deficiency is somewhat startling. By a remarkable coincidence, a survey of foreign language use by students and adults in different European countries by the Eurostat research organisation at the European Commission revealed that 68% of secondary school pupils in Spain learn one foreign language - English. Learn, but can they use?

The same Eurostat survey placed Spain in the bottom three of countries in which adults speak no foreign language. And no, the UK was not behind Spain; in fact the UK does pretty well in this respect.

But to return to television. Much recent debate surrounding language and whether English originals should be shown on TV was kicked off by Fox's decision to broadcast "House" in English with subtitles. So, you'll be able to watch it in English if you want to. The question is: will the Spanish?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Girls On Film

I watched a film the other evening, a good film – by all accounts. I was about to say a good film in any language, but that’s the problem; it is no longer a good film because it is no longer THE film. Give it another language and a drama becomes a comedy of dodgy lip-sync and ill-cast linguistic impersonation. Dubbing. Mostly all international films and TV shows are dubbed here. In the case of “The Queen” – or “La Reina” to give it its Spanish title – the only subtitling was for documentary footage such as Earl Spencer’s oration. Otherwise, Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen and the rest became people other than themselves not just because they were acting but because someone else was acting them – after a fashion.

While I quite understand the desire to dub, it is utterly absurd. When I was in Germany, I was once listening to a radio show that previewed forthcoming films. Showcased was a film with Meryl Streep and Danny de Vito. What was truly surreal was to listen to two German “actors” and to then be told by the presenter that I had been listening to Streep and de Vito. I had not had been. I had in fact been listening to Waltraud and Kurt from Bielefeld and Chemnitz, one of them, for all I could have known, with a wooden leg. In Germany, there used to be a kid who was the German Daniel Radcliffe; probably still is. In all seriousness, this adolescent, the German voice of Harry Potter, used to get wheeled out on TV shows, masquerading as the boy wizard – Heinzi from Hogvorts. I know someone who couldn’t believe Eddie Murphy was Eddie Murphy when he finally heard him speaking without a Germano-Black American voiceover. God alone knows what they do with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But just think about it. What do these “actors” do? Are they living the roles? Are they using their facial expressions, their body actions? Are they on a set in front of a camera? Can Helen Mirren’s Spanish voice really appreciate the interpretation that Mirren brought to the role? Of course she can’t. Basically, a good piece of art is taken and thoroughly mangled by the dubbing.

This is not a plea for using subtitles simply because I can then hear a film in English. I no more want, say, the French families of François Truffaut’s charming “L’Argent de Poche” to be talking with home-counties accents than I want Helen Mirren to be inhabited by a Spanish bint who keeps on referring to some chaps called Felipe and Carlos.

And then there is advertising. “The Queen” appeared on one of the main national channels. Both take advertising. Fifteen minutes into the film there was an interlude that lasted … fifteen minutes. Adverts. They then have the gall to announce “estamos viendo” (we are watching) La Reina. No, we are not watching; we had been until a completely different programme comprising sketches for perfumes and kitchen units had been inserted. All was then fine until the end of the scene with Earl Spencer. Now, I had not seen the film. Had I, I would have switched off at that point. Some fifteen or twenty minutes more of advertising, and then – what – five minutes remaining with Mirren and Sheen walking in the gardens at Buck House. I only took note of the adverts so that I could remind myself never to buy a Volkswagen, to change my mobile account from Vodafone and to give Jane Fonda, and her Spanish voiceover, a good slap when I next see them with a L’Oreal cream.


QUIZ
Yesterday – “My Old Man Said Follow The Van”. Today’s title – which group? Easy.

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