Foreign Films

Last night, in another depressing bout of unable to sleep-edness I tuned the tv to the Sundance channel. The scene was somewhat dark and by the time I'd adjusted volume I noticed that there were english subtitles. I thought "GREAT! Subtitles! Yay!" as subtitles usually tire me out enough to make me sleepy. But, then I heard the dialogue and the characters were speaking english. The subtitles were in english, and the dialogue was in english. This confused me for a moment. Briefly, I thought this might be some sort of artistic statement. Then it hit me. The characters were speaking with a thick brogue. Ha! (This is the movie I watched for a bit last night.)

Amazing how your ear forgets that it once too could not easily understand a scottish accent. I remember the first time I saw Trainspotting in the theatre, I too had a hard time understanding the dialogue. A year later when I saw it on free to air TV in Australia, I understood everything they were saying perfectly. Sure, living in an environment where everyone thinks YOU have the accent (american vs. australian) helped, but I also worked in a company that was mostly scots. I even picked up a few (ok maybe like two) key phrases in Aberdonian.

So, this little experience got me thinking back to when I was a wee bairn (lassie) (sorry, I had to), when we first moved to the US I remember sitting in front of the telly unable to understand the dialogue on sesame street. Those where the days when spanish was my primary language. Now I can't imagine not being able to understand english. And, that includes all accents of english.