MovieChat Forums > Undercovers (2010) Discussion > German

German

posted 14 years ago by sammy-fischer
24 replies | jump to latest

Just watched Eps.3, and, for someone who understands and speaks german, it was pretty much ridiculous. If you're doing an episode in which non-american protagonists are supposed to speak their own language, try to get actors who can actually speak it, or use some fantasy language. Some just had a frightfully strong accent, and some were obviously just reciting stuff they had learned phonetically. It was just painfull.
Funnily enough Boris Kodjoe (Steven) was the only one who spoke german without fluently without noticeable accent... oh .. and try at least to match the subtitles with what's being said. "Sehr Gut! Ganz Toll! " (when Steven takes the gun from the schizophrenic nerd) doesn't translate to "Stay Calm".

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] sammy-fischer 14 years ago

ah. that explains it. I meant "funny" in the context that he plays an american. By the way he was talking I guessed that he was, if not a native speaker, then at least fluent in german :)

[–] joli1921 14 years ago

He is a native speaker! Born in Vienna, grew up in Freiburg/Breisgau.
And yes, I agree with you completely. It can't be that hard to find real Germans for small roles like Karl's helper or so. Karl (Philippe Brenninkmayer) is a native speaker and the difference could be clearly heard. It was also funny when he checked the truck and Gugu spoke her strongly accented German. How's that supposed to work? Why didn't she meet the guy in the bar and then Boris would have been free to drive the van. There is no way that any German bad guy would let two people who so obviously aren't German onto their compound!
And again they made a mistake in translating signs: an "Attention" sign is not translated as "Aufmerksamkeit", but rather "Achtung" or "Vorsicht". I'm wondering why they don't just ask Boris about stuff like that. He obviously really speaks the two foreign languages, German and Spanish, he is supposed to speak in the show.
I do like the fact, though, that they at least try and use subtitles and foreign cities -even if only supposedly (they were neither in Berlin nor Dresden)- for a spy show!

So... oysters and beer? Until we puke! (The Good Guys)

[–] sheepyie 14 years ago

I'm a nativ german speaker and I laughed hard seeing the sign "Aufmerksamkeit". As you mentioned, it should mean "Achtung" or "Vorsicht".

But there was another bad error. They show some license plates of the german cars and they were totally wrong. I'm sure it easy to find on the internet, that our license had one to three letters for the region, a space and then one or two letters followed by three or four numbers. The mix of letters and numbers made me think of an english license plate.
So I'm quite sure nothing was filmed in Germany. They only show a dia or a photo of Berlin and Dresden.

[–] lalez88 14 years ago

there was another thing that botherd me about the episode
when they were pretending to be with the electric company the
city code on the license plate was from southern germany but they were supossedly in dresden

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] joli1921 14 years ago

His Spanish is pretty good. One can tell that he is not a native speaker, but he's got very little accent. He obviously grew up speaking several languages and that always helps later when learning new ones.

So... oysters and beer? Until we puke! (The Good Guys)

[–] backwards_pi 14 years ago

Yeah he fluently speaks German, English, Spanish, and French.

[–] joli1921 14 years ago

Well then, I can't wait to hear him speak French!
If the show makes it that far. *fingers crossed*

So... oysters and beer? Until we puke! (The Good Guys)

[–] ManuPF26 14 years ago

im a german native speaker and actually thought it was pulled off pretty good. i understood every word they said and the grammer was accurate. for once i didnt need to read the english subs. usually in ameri an shows it sounds nothing like german with grammer all over the place

[–] joli1921 14 years ago

Of course you understood every word - it was in your language! There were several who spoke German with a very wooden accent, though and who were clearly non-natives. The actor of Matthias Faber, for example. And that's just not necessary, there are enough German native speakers in Hollywood.

So... oysters and beer? Until we puke! (The Good Guys)

[–] ambrosia-apples 14 years ago

I know a little German, although not enough to analyze their accents and stuff. But even with my little German, I was laughing a bit at how different the subtitles were to what they were saying sometimes. Not enough to affect the story line, but enough to give me a chuckle. :-p

[–] ManuPF26 14 years ago

thats pretty common tho. many things cant be translated bc it wouldnt make any sense in german. boris has german heritage btw his german is PERFECT i loved how he could simply switch between german and english, i wish i could do that

[–] dwacon-2 14 years ago

I caught that too, and my German is limited to what I learned during military tours of duty.

I figured it was either an inside joke or some ploy to piss off native German speakers.

Dwacon
http://blog.dwacon.com/
http://www.twitter.com/dwacon

[–] joli1921 14 years ago

I care to think it was the ploy. Conspiracy theories are so much more fun than boring inside jokes! ;-)
btw: Tours? as in plural? How many times were you stationed in Germany? And where?

So... oysters and beer? Until we puke! (The Good Guys)

[–] dwacon-2 14 years ago

In the words of Mr. Reagan: Well... I can't recall...

Dwacon
http://blog.dwacon.com/
http://www.twitter.com/dwacon

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] flex197 14 years ago

I was rather impressed by the german in this episode. I've heard a lot worse on other shows. Initially I came her to get to know why Boris could speak so good german, but i have to say that the other ones were not that bad either. Off the top of my head I can only recall Gugu to speak completely wooden German ( oh wait, Carter was the worst, you can hear that really does not speak German at all), but for the average viewer i think it's ok and you can't expect from the entire cast to speak all kinds of languages perfect. And the gust actors were quite good. My brother just heard me watching the first minutes of the episode where they speak german only and thought i would watch some german tv, so it caan't be that bad. At leat i did not have to read the subtitles when they were speaking german as I have to do quite often when some actors try to speak my native language. So to summarize my thoughts, it was not bad at all, at least compared to other shows, and whoever says otherwise has not seen the other shows;)

[–] Streen-1 14 years ago

I came here expecting praise.
This is only the first time in my life that I see am american shwo or movie where the german actually sounds like german.
I was incredibly impressed by the language in this episode, and in general in this show, their spanish was excellent and the frensh was ... kinda understandable.

But I got a question mate, If you know german, erm, why on earth are you reading subtitles???

Versteh ich nicht...

--------------------------------
Who goes around, comes around!

[–] sammy-fischer 14 years ago

To clarify : I lived in Germany from 10th birthday till I was 32. My German, as far as I've been told, is pretty much spotless and accentfree (as is my understanding of it as far as *I* can tell). Some of the german was brillant (obviously :), but some of it was like listening to a scratched tape of Hitler with a bad fit of asthma, especially the part where the sidekick dood (don't remember his name) had to prove that he was german. The lesser bad ones (the characters supposed to be german) were so heavily accented that nobody in his right mind would have believed they were.
As I said earlier : the big exception was Boris.

As for why I read the subs : well, when there are subs I actually can't keep my eyes from wandering to them. It takes quite a lot of effort NOT to read them, no matter how much I understand the audio :/
Watching a movie spoken in english with french subtitles, for example, is pure torture for me, as I speak both languages fluently but they are semantically so far apart that there is no way french subs for an english dialogue will ever be very good, and my guess is that I'm not the only one with that problem.

[–] Magic_313 14 years ago

I lived in Germany from 10th birthday till I was 32. My German, as far as I've been told, is pretty much spotless and accentfree (as is my understanding of it as far as *I* can tell).

That is amazing. Do Germans ask you where you are from all the time? That's always happening to me when I meet people for the first time.
I am German, lived in the same region since birth, and speak without any discernible accent, because my mom bothered to suppress hers and speak proper text book German when I was small.

[–] sammy-fischer 14 years ago

try telling germans that you're really seriously completely french (and actually from the south of France) when you are accentfree and are called "Fischer" ;)

[–] joli1921 14 years ago

Unfortunately that is something nearly everyone does: we look at the subtitles because it is a visual stimulation and we read them automatically. I usually catch myself checking the translation instead of following the movie. Hate subtitles!
Have you ever seen The O.C. 4.10 "The French Connection", though? That's the one time subtitles would have been useful when Autumn Reeser "speaks" French as it is so horrible that I did not understand more than a few words. ;-)

So... oysters and beer? Until we puke! (The Good Guys)

[–] flex197 14 years ago

Well with the subtuitles: Sometimes the german is so heavily accented you don't understand a thing. So you are better off with reading the subtitles. And because I had not to read subtitles I thought the german was quite good, at least better than in a lot of other shows