How well do you understand English ???

[crz4u]

Being with English for many years and having no problems with understanding
conversations whatsoever, I always thought that there is no recently produced
Hollywood movie I can't understand. Well there is one: "Pirates of the
Caribbean". Try to watch this one in original language version for the very
first time. See how much dialogs do you understand, of course except
typical "Englishman" characters that appear in this movie. It is a very good
test for polish folks who think about taking an ESL test (English as Second
Language). Regards.

P.S. Can't wait to watch it again, this time on DVD with CC unfortunately ;-(

[chickenbaby]

Heven't seen this move yet.
IMO the best test 2 check up ones English are:
1."O Brother, Where Art Thou" Coen's brothers cult movie
and my favourties ones
Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

[enlightened]

> and my favourties ones
> Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

I agree - if you can understand Brad Pitt in "Snatch", you can understand
anything.

[crz4u]

> I agree - if you can understand Brad Pitt in "Snatch",
> you can understand anything.

I have to see this movie. No CC. I will let you know how I was doing!
Regards :-)

[agnieszkaroma]

I've been a teacher of English for two years now and when I couldn't understand
some of the bits and pieces found in the "Pirates...",I thought:"Is it me who
is not following or is it they who speak unclearly and too fast?":-)Perhaps my
hearing is getting impaired or something.I haven't got a clue!

Thanks for touching upon the issue!Thank God I'm not the only one who's baffled
by the beauty of English:-)

Kind regards

[enlightened]

I can almost guarantee you'll have problems. The majority of native speakers
did.

[enlightened]

Here's a small sample of Brad Pitt dialogs in Snatch:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpFRbJEBs9I&search=snatch%20brad

[zoskaanka]

wow, he's good:)

[abstrahuj]

> I agree - if you can understand Brad Pitt in "Snatch", you can understand
> anything.

ditto. his pikey talk is completely incomprehensible.

[j_sierp]

enlightened napisał:

> > and my favourties ones
> > Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
>
> I agree - if you can understand Brad Pitt in "Snatch", you can understand
> anything.
>

Albo super kwesitia mamy Brada/Mikeya wypowiedziana jednym potokiem słownym w
odpowiedzi na Tommiego że "zmorduje" jednego drinka (nawet ładnie sie tłumaczy
na polski "I can murder one"):
Be no murderin' done around here I don't mind tellin' ya..
:))))
j_s

[kronosx]

enlightened napisał:

> > and my favourties ones
> > Snatch and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
>
> I agree - if you can understand Brad Pitt in "Snatch", you can understand
> anything.
>
But Brad Pitt is playing a Pikey and therfore is not speaking English

[hanula]

I found the Naomie Harris character (Tia Dalma, the witch) the most difficult. I loved her accent and I understood it, but I did have to concentrate quite hard.

I don't always understand everything. I live in the UK and British accents are rarely a problem, but American slang (take any Hollywood drug-related movie for example) can be challenging.

I don't think, however, that you can ever expect to *always* understand *everything* and *everybody*. I recently saw a British language-related quiz show (I think it's called "Never Mind the Full Stops") in which native British celebrities were supposed to watch a piece of video and answer two questions: where is the speaker from and what is he talking about. In both cases they identified the speaker (one was Cornish, the other a British Gipsy); in both cases, however, they had absolutely no idea what the speaker had said.

[ampolion]

If you know language there should be no problem.
Nie z podręczników lecz ze słuchu.

[amused.to.death]

> If you know language there should be no problem.
> Nie z podręczników lecz ze słuchu.

ja sie nie przejmuje, bo zdaza sie ze nawet w polskich filmach czasami cos mi
ucieka z powodu belkotu (bo mowa tego nazwac nie mozna) aktorow.

[mudzyn7]

Roger Waters rules!

[amused.to.death]

he does:))
but still, he's pronunciation is also sometimes kind of not clear...

Snatch was not so "bad"...

[crz4u]

Well, I must admit that Snatch was not so bad as you described. Except just one
scene where our beloved Pitt "the pikey" tries to explain something to Turkish,
the rest of his monologues were pretty easy.
I still find "Pirates..." more challenging. Who knows, maybe I did not wash my
ears before going to the movies that night ;-)

[enlightened]

Maybe he's easier to understand for the English. The DVD here, in the US
actually had his dialogs subtitled...

[crz4u]

enlightened napisał:
> Maybe he's easier to understand for the English. The DVD here, in the US
> actually had his dialogs subtitled...

Yes it has, indeed. But understanding dialogs from subtitles is not an issue
here. And for that a reason I was watching this movie without them just to
compare its difficulty with "Pirates...". As I mentioned before, it was not
that hard.