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Yeah, what you noticed is correct, but the reason is completely wrong. edit: see the map on wiki[0] The reason it might be true that people from smaller countr

by xixixao 11y ago

Yeah, what you noticed is correct, but the reason is completely wrong. edit: see the map on wiki[0] The reason it might be true that people from smaller countries speak better English is emphasis - in a small country, people are fully aware that knowing foreign language (English, German, French in Europe) is super important. People in big countries (Spain, Italy, France) don't think it's that necessary, because they have a big country of their own, their own language should be the important one (and it partially is, although English has seemed to win as the international communication platform). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_%28filmmaking%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubbing_%28filmmaking%29

angry-hacker 11y ago
I'm fairly certain Spain dubs almost everything, at least when I lived there for 2 years, everything seemed to dubbed.
- RBerenguel 11y ago
  On TV everything is dubbed (although you can watch the original audio tracks). Worth noting too that usually the dubbers are incredibly good, in following the flow of the movie/show and the way they talk. I've watched other's countries dubbing and it's cringeworthy. But I'd have loved original versions as the default since I was a kid: my English is decent, but that would have helped a lot and probably make it much better.
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
It's not just emphasis, it's necessity. Smaller countries have to deal with other countries more, and so too do their citizens.
Vomzor 11y ago
I think you're wrong. Dubbing or subtitles make a big difference. In Flanders (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) we have 8 years of French in school and only 5 years of English. Even though France is our neighbor and 40 % of Belgium's speaks French, most young people their English is still much better than their French. It's because we grew up surrounded by English; English songs, English tv shows and movies with subtitles. Older generations speak better French because the media used to be more focussed on France. Young Flemish or Walloon people even speak English to each other..
- andreasvc 11y ago
  You don't supply an argument why that's because of dubbing/subtitling. I think the real reason for the change is that English has become more important as a cultural language, at the expense of French, in this case.
  - Vomzor 11y ago
    Because we don't use dubbing, English is way more prevalent. Most kids have a somewhat basic grasp of English before being taught in school. Years of hearing English also made it easier to learn in school. You already know how to pronounce many words, it's also less foreign because you grew up with it. With French, you learn it in school and when you go home.. That's it, no more French influences. With English, you turn on the tv or radio and you're passively learning. Personally, French was always a chore, something solely associated with school. English was fun, something you actively used.
    - andreasvc 11y ago
      So I agree with all your points, except that the subtitling/dubbing issue is the cause of all this. The subtitling/dubbing is an effect, not a cause. Mere exposure does not make you learn/enjoy a language. The status/prestige/coolness is a cultural thing, and this is what explains the difference in motivation to learn languages.
      - noamyoungerm 11y ago
        > Mere exposure does not make you learn/enjoy a language Then how do babies ever learn to speak? The most fluent speakers of foreign languages are almost always immigrants, because exposure is the key to learning to speak.
        andreasvc 11y ago
        > Then how do babies ever learn to speak? How exactly that works is still a hotly debated topic, but there is a clear difference between mere exposure to TV versus interacting linguistically in an environment. > The most fluent speakers of foreign languages are almost always immigrants, because exposure is the key to learning to speak. In my experience it's hit and miss. Some people simply have a knack for it (or interest), others not so much. So you can just as well have a very fluent second language learner who hasn't spend significant time immersed in the language, as well as the opposite of an immigrant who still has a thick accent after 20 years.
raverbashing 11y ago
A bit of anecdotal evidence that hopefully can be confirmed with more certainty The number of subtitled movies in France (or at least in Paris), what they call VO/VOST, in the last 10 years in cinemas has increased considerably
- song 11y ago
  That's pretty specific to Paris. In the smaller cities there's been a small increase of VO/VOST movies but it's still not that popular outside of the arthouse kind of cinemas. For example in Rennes, only one of the two main cinemas in the city ever offers VOST movies...
perakojotgenije 11y ago
Nope, I think the reason that user "petke" has mentioned is correct. I know this is only anecdotal evidence, but here it is: I live in a small town near the serbian-hungarian border and we can watch both Hungarian and Serbian TV stations. In Serbia movies are subtitled (so you can hear English language all the time) while in Hungary movies are dubbed (so you can't hear anything other than hungarian language on TV). Serbian families who live here watch mostly serbian TV and hungarian families watch mostly hungarian TV stations. Ask any English teacher here and they will all tell you that there is very clear distinction between level of knowledge in serbian vs hungarian kids. They all live in the same town, go to the same school, the only difference is that those kids who watched serbian TV stations had much bigger exposure to english language as opposed to those who watched hungarian TV stations. Your reasoning that the size of the country matters doesn't hold water because both countries are small.
- scarmig 11y ago
  Wow, that's an awesome natural experiment. Can you share the name of the town? Or would any town near the border do?
  - dragandj 11y ago
    That is probably Subotica.
  - perakojotgenije 11y ago
    The name of the town is Senta, although I guess that any nearby town which has bilingual population would do.
- bad_user 11y ago
  In Romania, my country, we are also not dubbing movies, although there is a trend for that when it comes to cartoons for little kids. In Bulgaria on the other hand, our neighbors, they've been dubbing movies at least since I was little. Not sure what the deal is there, but Romania has almost 3 times the population of Bulgaria, so I don't buy that it's about size. Anyway, in Romania we are speaking far better English than any of our neighbors, which includes Hungary and Ukraine. I used to think that happens because Romanian is a romance language, but that doesn't fully explain it. Oh, and people here learn Italian and Spanish as well, almost effortlessly, just by watching soap opera :-) And many of us have learned French in school, though I was not lucky to have good teachers. BTW, English has some nice features for learners. For example it doesn't assign gender to objects, like all romance languages are doing. Those of us that speak in such languages forgot how hard it was to learn those genders when we were kids.
baby 11y ago
> but the reason is completely wrong Or not. I know people who learned spanish just by watching TV (in Romania). Here in France people have no idea how english sounds because everything is dubbed, from the news on TV to series and movies...
camillomiller 11y ago
It is correct. First and foremost, in Italy we dub our movies so well, the dubbing itself could be considered a mastered art. We really like our dub actors. George Clooney, in Italy, has a very specific voice, for example, and that's the voice of Francesco Pannofino. That's so bad that when you hear the same actor dubbed by someone else, you feel like something's out of place in the movie. Italy has a very strong history of good Cinema, we're still quite proud of that. On top of it all, English in school is definitively not taught enough. My English, for example, comes from American songs and videogames.
- micampe 11y ago
  > First and foremost, in Italy we dub our movies so well, the dubbing itself could be considered a mastered art. I think that's just what we tell ourselves to feel better and for national pride. I started watching movies in English many years ago and, even when my English was not yet very good and I had to use subtitles, I preferred watching the original version, the real actor is just much better. Now, after living in the US for a few years, when I hear dubbed movies they sound just ridiculous: everyone speaks with the same flat intonation, there is no emotion in the words, it all sounds fake and, funny detail, I'm now much more aware that the voice is out of sync with the lips. It's both hilarious and painful to endure.
tripzilch 11y ago
Pretty sure I knew (a little) English even before learning it in school. My theory for that has always been subtitles as well. When we learned German in school (which is much more similar to my mother tongue Dutch), I found it very hard. German shows were also subtitled, but there were a lot fewer of them on TV. Side-note: A few years ago, I read about a project for "same language subtitling" (of soap TV series, nonetheless) to improve literacy in India. Don't have a link for that, unfortunately. Your reasoning makes sense, and probably plays a role, but I believe subtitling of English TV plays at least as much of a role. A lot of German TV is dubbed, and the effect of this also carries over to smaller German-speaking countries, like Austria. Now one could argue that this is, according to your reasoning, because they are part of the larger German-speaking community. But that really isn't the case, ask any Austrian, most of them will tell you their mother tongue is Austrian (which is not a written language, but also quite a bit more unique than merely German-with-a-dialect), and "high German" is definitely something they had to learn separately.

by xixixao 11y ago

angry-hacker 11y ago

I'm fairly certain Spain dubs almost everything, at least when I lived there for 2 years, everything seemed to dubbed.

RBerenguel 11y ago
On TV everything is dubbed (although you can watch the original audio tracks). Worth noting too that usually the dubbers are incredibly good, in following the flow of the movie/show and the way they talk. I've watched other's countries dubbing and it's cringeworthy. But I'd have loved original versions as the default since I was a kid: my English is decent, but that would have helped a lot and probably make it much better.

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

It's not just emphasis, it's necessity. Smaller countries have to deal with other countries more, and so too do their citizens.

Vomzor 11y ago

I think you're wrong. Dubbing or subtitles make a big difference. In Flanders (Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) we have 8 years of French in school and only 5 years of English. Even though France is our neighbor and 40 % of Belgium's speaks French, most young people their English is still much better than their French. It's because we grew up surrounded by English; English songs, English tv shows and movies with subtitles. Older generations speak better French because the media used to be more focussed on France. Young Flemish or Walloon people even speak English to each other..

andreasvc 11y ago
You don't supply an argument why that's because of dubbing/subtitling. I think the real reason for the change is that English has become more important as a cultural language, at the expense of French, in this case.
- Vomzor 11y ago
  Because we don't use dubbing, English is way more prevalent. Most kids have a somewhat basic grasp of English before being taught in school. Years of hearing English also made it easier to learn in school. You already know how to pronounce many words, it's also less foreign because you grew up with it. With French, you learn it in school and when you go home.. That's it, no more French influences. With English, you turn on the tv or radio and you're passively learning. Personally, French was always a chore, something solely associated with school. English was fun, something you actively used.
  - andreasvc 11y ago
    So I agree with all your points, except that the subtitling/dubbing issue is the cause of all this. The subtitling/dubbing is an effect, not a cause. Mere exposure does not make you learn/enjoy a language. The status/prestige/coolness is a cultural thing, and this is what explains the difference in motivation to learn languages.
    - noamyoungerm 11y ago
      > Mere exposure does not make you learn/enjoy a language Then how do babies ever learn to speak? The most fluent speakers of foreign languages are almost always immigrants, because exposure is the key to learning to speak.
      - andreasvc 11y ago
        > Then how do babies ever learn to speak? How exactly that works is still a hotly debated topic, but there is a clear difference between mere exposure to TV versus interacting linguistically in an environment. > The most fluent speakers of foreign languages are almost always immigrants, because exposure is the key to learning to speak. In my experience it's hit and miss. Some people simply have a knack for it (or interest), others not so much. So you can just as well have a very fluent second language learner who hasn't spend significant time immersed in the language, as well as the opposite of an immigrant who still has a thick accent after 20 years.

raverbashing 11y ago

A bit of anecdotal evidence that hopefully can be confirmed with more certainty The number of subtitled movies in France (or at least in Paris), what they call VO/VOST, in the last 10 years in cinemas has increased considerably

song 11y ago
That's pretty specific to Paris. In the smaller cities there's been a small increase of VO/VOST movies but it's still not that popular outside of the arthouse kind of cinemas. For example in Rennes, only one of the two main cinemas in the city ever offers VOST movies...

perakojotgenije 11y ago

Nope, I think the reason that user "petke" has mentioned is correct. I know this is only anecdotal evidence, but here it is: I live in a small town near the serbian-hungarian border and we can watch both Hungarian and Serbian TV stations. In Serbia movies are subtitled (so you can hear English language all the time) while in Hungary movies are dubbed (so you can't hear anything other than hungarian language on TV). Serbian families who live here watch mostly serbian TV and hungarian families watch mostly hungarian TV stations. Ask any English teacher here and they will all tell you that there is very clear distinction between level of knowledge in serbian vs hungarian kids. They all live in the same town, go to the same school, the only difference is that those kids who watched serbian TV stations had much bigger exposure to english language as opposed to those who watched hungarian TV stations. Your reasoning that the size of the country matters doesn't hold water because both countries are small.

scarmig 11y ago
Wow, that's an awesome natural experiment. Can you share the name of the town? Or would any town near the border do?
- dragandj 11y ago
  That is probably Subotica.
- perakojotgenije 11y ago
  The name of the town is Senta, although I guess that any nearby town which has bilingual population would do.
bad_user 11y ago
In Romania, my country, we are also not dubbing movies, although there is a trend for that when it comes to cartoons for little kids. In Bulgaria on the other hand, our neighbors, they've been dubbing movies at least since I was little. Not sure what the deal is there, but Romania has almost 3 times the population of Bulgaria, so I don't buy that it's about size. Anyway, in Romania we are speaking far better English than any of our neighbors, which includes Hungary and Ukraine. I used to think that happens because Romanian is a romance language, but that doesn't fully explain it. Oh, and people here learn Italian and Spanish as well, almost effortlessly, just by watching soap opera :-) And many of us have learned French in school, though I was not lucky to have good teachers. BTW, English has some nice features for learners. For example it doesn't assign gender to objects, like all romance languages are doing. Those of us that speak in such languages forgot how hard it was to learn those genders when we were kids.

baby 11y ago

> but the reason is completely wrong Or not. I know people who learned spanish just by watching TV (in Romania). Here in France people have no idea how english sounds because everything is dubbed, from the news on TV to series and movies...

camillomiller 11y ago

It is correct. First and foremost, in Italy we dub our movies so well, the dubbing itself could be considered a mastered art. We really like our dub actors. George Clooney, in Italy, has a very specific voice, for example, and that's the voice of Francesco Pannofino. That's so bad that when you hear the same actor dubbed by someone else, you feel like something's out of place in the movie. Italy has a very strong history of good Cinema, we're still quite proud of that. On top of it all, English in school is definitively not taught enough. My English, for example, comes from American songs and videogames.

micampe 11y ago
> First and foremost, in Italy we dub our movies so well, the dubbing itself could be considered a mastered art. I think that's just what we tell ourselves to feel better and for national pride. I started watching movies in English many years ago and, even when my English was not yet very good and I had to use subtitles, I preferred watching the original version, the real actor is just much better. Now, after living in the US for a few years, when I hear dubbed movies they sound just ridiculous: everyone speaks with the same flat intonation, there is no emotion in the words, it all sounds fake and, funny detail, I'm now much more aware that the voice is out of sync with the lips. It's both hilarious and painful to endure.

tripzilch 11y ago

Pretty sure I knew (a little) English even before learning it in school. My theory for that has always been subtitles as well. When we learned German in school (which is much more similar to my mother tongue Dutch), I found it very hard. German shows were also subtitled, but there were a lot fewer of them on TV. Side-note: A few years ago, I read about a project for "same language subtitling" (of soap TV series, nonetheless) to improve literacy in India. Don't have a link for that, unfortunately. Your reasoning makes sense, and probably plays a role, but I believe subtitling of English TV plays at least as much of a role. A lot of German TV is dubbed, and the effect of this also carries over to smaller German-speaking countries, like Austria. Now one could argue that this is, according to your reasoning, because they are part of the larger German-speaking community. But that really isn't the case, ask any Austrian, most of them will tell you their mother tongue is Austrian (which is not a written language, but also quite a bit more unique than merely German-with-a-dialect), and "high German" is definitely something they had to learn separately.