her german is almost accent free
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ykickamoocow — 18 years ago(January 09, 2008 06:34 AM)
I would love to learn German (its a great language) but i just dont have the time. I can however say a16d0few phrases but they wouldnt be at all useful in conversation. All i can say in German is "I am a" then i drop in another random German word.
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kugayama — 18 years ago(February 13, 2008 02:06 AM)
Yep, "Alias" is a good example - I had the feeling that Jennifer Garner put a lot of effort in her German (and French) lines but it was far from fluent or accent free (which it was supposed to be according to the plot - a CIA agent posing as a German person in front of "real" b68Germans). However, the "real" Germans in Alias usually spoke German a lot worse than Jennifer, sometimes not understandable at all.
Same in Scrubs: Sarah's German is definitely not accent free but the two "Germans" speak a lot worse.
"i'm looking for the magic"
Tobias Fncke -
definitely_maybe-1 — 18 years ago(March 17, 2008 08:32 AM)
hello there everybody.
first of all, i am german. second of all, i have studied lunguistics. so: english is not at all similar to german. the two languages are related, but there is no direct connection, really.
sarah's german is amazingly good, my boyfriend is british and his is amazing as well, but when she speaks you can tell that shes been taught the language since she was little.
i checked out the supposedly german guy from that episode (season 2?) and fou16d0nd out that hes danish, not german. so hes just imitating, it would sound just the same if i tried to talk danish!
wow, my first post ever. -
inblooom-1 — 18 years ago(March 26, 2008 09:13 PM)
i hate it when imdb board turn into 'blah blah look how much i know' competitions. i heard that english isn't derived from one language but many european languages, many of which are derived from latin. now i'm not proclaiming this to be correct, just what i heard.
in any case, who cares how good her german was on scrubs, she made a good effort and it was for comedic effect, not to prove her knowledge of the language. so i congratulate her for having a go
Sweets, you couldn't ignore me if you tried. -
Algemar — 17 years ago(August 08, 2008 05:14 PM)
You know what bugs me? When people think that Polish and German are "like the same language."
I'm Polish myself, and while I'm not fluent I know quite a bit of the language. And I took a lot of German in high school.
Yeah, definitely not the same.
Anyways, I know enough German to have gotten a general understanding of what she was saying. And like someone else, it's a comedy sitcom. You can't expect 100% accuracy. -
emagdnima — 17 years ago(October 27, 2008 08:13 AM)
There are many people in Hollywood with a German background.
Bruce Willis has a German mother and was born in Germany.
Charlize Theron has a German mother, she even tried to get the citizenship two years ago. Allison Mac from Smallville was born in Germany.
And so on.
Funny thing about the Germans, when we move to a new country we tend to assimilate pretty fast to our new home. While Russians for example keep stay russians over generations, just in a new country.
And remember it is said that they where only one vote short to vote German as the official language in the US. Because one German guy said that day he wants the Germans to forget their old home and become Americans as fast as possible and for that they should not speak German. -
schmelzer_c — 15 years ago(June 16, 2010 11:22 AM)
No, that so utterly not true, it's not even funny.
Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg_legend
und das ganze auch auf deutsch:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhlenberg-Legende -
debiler — 15 years ago(July 13, 2010 01:24 AM)
My two cents:
When Sarah did her "Hausfrau" line in Scrubs, she said:
"Ess dein Schnitzel, sonst kriegst du kein Nachtisch!"
Correction:
"Iss dein Schnitzel, sonst kriegst du keinen Nachtisch!"
I know, it's not much. And it was hilarious, too. Still, she's one of the better german speakers in America. Her accent is noticeable, but not thick.
What really bothered me was the supposed german guy in that episode. Even for me, it was hard to figure out what he was trying to say. His brother was just as bad. Oh, and the translation of JD's diagnosis was totally screwed up.
I didn't like the Godfather, so what?
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lolaphilologist — 17 years ago(November 19, 2008 09:24 PM)
You're somewhat correct. English is a Germanic language, but after the Normans conquered England in 1066 the influence from French was substantial. Because of this influence, English dropped some characteristics from both languages, becoming simpler in grammar (in getting rid of gendered articles and simplifying verb conjugations) but more complicated in vocabulary (because English absorbs foreign words readily instead of relying on existing redundant vocabulary).
"Similar" does not mean "pretty much the same as"
look how much I know! (kidding) -
CULTEGUY — 17 years ago(January 13, 2009 12:58 AM)
I just watched a web interview behind the scenes of "Scrubs" where she said she would generally have to loop over a Canadian accent. I don't know how similar they are. My daughter speaks fluent Japanese and has been to Japan about ten times, but when she speaks English her accent is Mid-Western.
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evil_henchman — 17 years ago(January 20, 2009 11:11 AM)
She isn't accent free at all. You must have never heard a german talking to say that. Even the way she pronounces all words is pure satire. I guess the reason for this is, that almost always, when "germans" are speaking in US shows and movies, they all are americans, who just memorized a few words for the role. And americans have usually a very similar accent when speaking german (the same way germans, who aren't used to speak in english sound horrible).
Not that this is supposed to be a negative critic of any kind, I love what she does on scrubs and she's doing a very good job in general. -
P-K-One — 12 years ago(April 19, 2013 01:19 PM)
why would anyone learn german ????
You know, outside of the USA people have the general notion that knowledge is something good.
I speak 3 languages fluently and another one with problems. It generally helps to communicate with people. I have never found the time I invested into better understanding other to be wasted.
And to tell you the truth, the question why somebody would learn a language, any language, immediately places you on my "ignorant morons" list. -
velcronewsletter — 11 years ago(July 07, 2014 01:26 PM)
in england, we learn french and german at school. german isn't quite the remote language a lot of americans think it is, especially as a huge percentage of white americans come from german heritage anyway
let's not go to camelot, it is a silly place -
fraggle40 — 11 years ago(July 28, 2014 02:07 PM)
minne-my, I agree with you. I certainly learned both French and German at school, though I did leave some 27 years ago! My 6 year old daughter has picked up some French phrases from school too, which I will encourage her with. I personally feel it's really arrogant of Brits and Americans to go to other countries, and automatically expect them to speak English!
I was gonna let you beep me, but I got my rag, and I know how you hate a mess