This weekend I traveled to France enjoyed the weekend shopping in open air markets, drinking fantastic wine, eating entirely too much french cheese, and getting to know my boyfriend's family from Belgium. All of the adults spoke English as well as Flemish and French. In fact, everyone from Belgium but the two youngest cousins (ages 2 and 5) spoke more than two languages fluently. As I mentioned in my previous post, my spanish is adequate, but getting off the plane in France, I realized the only thing that I know how to say in French is "do you speak English?" Well here I go about language again but what shocked me the most was the fact that the two oldest cousins from belgium (ages 8 and 11) spoke English fluently... without ever have taken an English class. They have learned to command the English language so well by watching American television shows and movies. I was astounded by this- learn a whole new language by watching movies? Where do I sign up?
Apparently, because of subtitles, and the majority of their programing in English, these kids have been able to pick up a whole other language. And today's discussion about the lack of foreign films watched in the U.S. got me thinking: would we all be better at learning foreign languages if the U.S. had more programing in other languages? And why do we, unlike most other countries in the world, dislike subtitles so much? Is it because we actually have to work a little bit? What does that say about us as a country?
Another interesting thing about this is dubbing. The mother of the two cousins with fluent English said that since programs are starting to be dubbed, the strength of their English has declined since they do not hear it as much. To me this was so interesting. Is it a good thing that now they don't have to "work" to watch our shows, or will a whole generation be effected?
I know I raised my hand in class the day Dr. A asked us who didn't like watching movies in subtitles. I knew it made me look like an ignorant American. But for me, I really feel like I miss the movie or at least some to the cinematography aspects when I am reading the subtitles. But I think you make an excellent point as to how many other cultures learn another language. I took Latin in high school and do not need to take anything in college, but I have long felt like I needed to speak another language to truly live in our world. I mean so many markets and businesses are becoming more and more global everyday.
ReplyDeleteI did want to point out how my little sister who is about to start first grade does know more spanish than I do from watching shows like Dora the Explorer and Baby Einstein, so I think our TV programming has picked up this fact but instead of importing more foreign shows we just make are own. I don't know if that means there isn't much of a foreign market making childrens programming that we have available to import.
But I do want to make more of an effort to watch foreign films even if they have subtitles because I really do love cinema. Plus I have a list of movies recommended by Dr. A's class lectures now that I really want to watch anywary!