Can somebody explain me...
...since when danish and italian people speaks the same language and talk to each other so easily?
shareHi!
Well, I guess they adopted English as lingua franca...
MovieChat Forums > Den skaldede frisør (2012) Discussion > Can somebody explain me...
The use of languages in the movie is entirely realistic. The Danish and Italian people talk English together, which is credible (as few Danish people speak Italian).
The scenes where Pierce Brosnan speaks English and is answered in Danish are also realistic. Pirece Brosnan's character has supposedly lived in Denmark for a number of years and probably understands Danish very well, but is perhaps more confident in speaking his own language, which again is understood by most Danes.
You should come to Italy dear, very very few people here speak a decent english...
shareHi Nini. What nationality are you and have you seen a version dubbed in English?
I disagree with you (not that people in Italy speak bad English but as to what is realistic). There are only two real Italian parts in the movie, Alessandro and Marco. They are both young men in a town with many tourists. It is absolutely probable that they speak English decent or not. All the other characters, apart from Pierce Brosnan's, of course, are Danish.
Yeah, u'r right, i've seen the italian dubbed version so that was probably a little misleading...
shareThe part of the language was a little strange it is true. If Pierce´s character has been living in denmark for such a long time he should speak danish or if he doesn´t then his employees should speak English to him (in denmark everybody speaks English) I didn´t get that thing that they talked to him in danish and he answers in English.
The other thing is with the italian. I´v also been to italy and overthere very few people speak english. We stayed in A hotel in Rome and not even the employees of the hotel spoke english. It was a little difficult to communicate.
I loved the movie though, it was warm, honest and beautiful. I don´t think it should be called comedy, because I didn´t see many funny parts I see it more like a romantic drama.
It's completely normal for (native) English speakers living in Denmark to understand Danish, but not speak it. I used to have a British neighbour, he's married to a Dane, been living here the last 20+ years, he doesn't speak a word of Danish unless he has to. But he understands everything.
I have colleagues now (in Copenhagen) who want me to speak Danish to them and they will reply in English. They are all Indian nationals with very strong English language skills, and it works well.
I've known Scandinavian people with one English parent and they really do just switch between languages constantly, and the English parent will talk to them in English but understand every word said back to them - though in that example it was Norwegian and Swedish.
shareI assumed that either he was not comfortable speaking Danish, or that as a business executive with a lot of power he was exercising his prerogative not to bother to make the effort. This also set the stage for an important point in the movie when he did choose to speak Danish, namely when he told Ida that she was beautiful. The very fact that he made that statement to her in Danish rather than in English lent that scene more poignancy.
shareI'm Danish, and I also had a professor who had worked in Denmark for a long time – he understood Danish perfectly, wrote his slides in Danish, but his speaking skills were not as developed. It was alright, but with a terrible accent, so it was just easier for him to speak English, since everyone understood it as well.
And it really is no wonder that many Italians cannot speak English, considering foreign film are dubbed into Italian. How can you enjoy a film like that? In my opinion, it ruins it completely.
As said here and in another thread, many native English speakers living in Scandinavia never bother to learn the local language. They count on everybody learning theirs. Imperialism sort of. So P ierce B's character just acts like many other lazy people do.
shareI think it is a little complicated. I have studied Danish so I speak a little of it, but when I have traveled to Denmark I have found it nearly impossible to practice the language in public places because 98% of the population will simply start speaking English to you as soon as they detect your accent. Most Danes don't expect foreigners to speak their language, and always got a surprised reaction when I spoke any Danish to Danes. And Danes know that their English is most likely better than a visitor's Danish anyway, so they just find it more efficient to speak English to you. The few exceptions to that is when I have run across immigrants to Denmark who didn't learn English, or the occasional random native Dane in the hinterlands who for whatever reason forgot all the Danish they learned in school. As a general rule, everything just conspires to make non-Scandinavians take the lazy route and to continue to use English when they are in Scandinavia, even if they want to practice using the Scandinavian language.
shareI have had two Danish "experiences" in my life that could explain this. The first was training with a Danish Army battalion in Germany. I was very young but I remember being amazed at how well they spoke English. Some of them sounded so well they could have been native speakers. When I commented on this, they told me it was because they were taught it at such a young age and they had been using it all of their lives. The next one was during a trip to Copenhagen. Everyone spoke English, I do not remember running in to a single person who did not speak English. When we went to an American movie showing at a theater next to the pension where we were staying it wasn't dubbed in Danish nor were there Danish subtitles. The place was crowded too so it wasn't like it was a tourist place.
shareOnce while in Egypt, I met a Dane who had hired an Egyptian, Arabic-speaking guide. How did they communicate? In English.
Tout homme a deux pays, le sien et puis la France.
English is regarded as the language most people speak. I spent a month travelling through Europe, and everywhere I went, people spoke English (aside from their native language). Actually, a lot of times I tried speaking in the native language and they (noticing I was a foreigner) started speaking in English like it was a reflex.
shareThe two Italian boys speak English.
I haven't understood whether their job is to arrange weddings in this beautiful place, in which case their job involve tourists coming there to get married, in which case they'd have to speak English.
Or whether they worked for Pierce Brosnan's lemon company, in which case their boss is an Englsh-speaker, who would likely hire people who speak English rather than people who don't.
Makes sense to me.
- A point in every direction is the same as no point at all.