What language was the grandma speaking?
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cgrill8 — 9 years ago(May 13, 2016 09:38 AM)
Funny thing was, she didn't care I barely understood her, she just felt good speaking her native tongue for a change on the phone so got over excited (I think), but yeah, Lich is our LY so the one word I remember is wirlich /veer-lich/ which simply means 'really'. Naturlich was fairly easy to understand too. Luckily the woman playing Omi had good diction direction from her acting classes. Diction is so important in any media. I was on the radio for a while, and you DO find yourself trying to speak clearer and less in your natural dialect when you're on the air. And some people over do it speaking clear while trying to keep their dialect. Oh my, and me in my Southern dialect trying to speak German my friend who IS fluent in German would just laugh at me trying to speak German! He was correcting me left and right
I didn't care. Though our dialect CAN change depending on who your circle of friends are and how long you spend time with them. We went to Missouri when I was like, 8? Prior to my surgery, and we were there for a good week one winter visiting cousins, and my dad said we came back, and I spoke with a very clean accent and my Southern accent actually was GONE for a while way back then. I had no idea. Yet I go to Canada and a cute girl I was talking with pin pointed where I live to the CITY! That was scary, and I didn't care, it was still a turn on! 
But I come from the 'older' era when we joked about people's dialect and how people talked. My grandfather did it all the time, and his dad would even joke how the Austrians would talk at the commissary it's just natural to make fun of how other people talk. We all do it. It's not 'politically correct' anymore, and I cannot stand that crap I mean, if you can make fun of someone's accent, you should also be able to take someone making fun of you. Simple as that and we did. It was all good. It was just for fun, and not meant to be hurtful or harmful. We all have different dialect and accents. And it should be FUN to speak like someone else. It used to be high compliment to speak in another accent. Now it's supposedly hurtful whatever. Everyone can mimic a fake German accent or Italian accent if they want, but we can't pretend to speak deep South dialect without nearly being handcuffed by the speech police. Whatever
3rd generation American from a long line of Gottscheers it was Drandul, dude! -
Arvin-G-Borkar — 10 years ago(December 22, 2015 07:13 AM)
You would be surprised that even people in Austria may know more English than Austrian German. By her age, it is plausible; however, they are actors too~
Better watch out, better start crying. Better hurry up, run and hide. Krampus is coming to town! >:) -
niosudigs — 9 years ago(October 23, 2016 04:33 AM)
i would be really surprised, because i am austrian and we're not nearly as good in english as the scandinavians.
and the accents are still quite strong in austrian german. strong enough to not be understodd by germans if we want to
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surject — 9 years ago(April 26, 2016 10:55 PM)
I'm not lying, that is never standard german. She had a strong accent
Standard German in the english version of the movie => Aunt Dorothy: "English, I knew it"
German with a very strong accent in the german version of the movie => Aunt Dorothy: "Akzentfrei, sie kann's ja doch" (accent-free, she can do it)
Long story short: She was dubbed in the german version of the movie to give a meaning to the scene when she told her tale in a language everyone understood. -
bastico — 10 years ago(March 03, 2016 04:30 PM)
She is an Austrian actress from Vienna and speaks that kind of Austrian dialect that they speak in Vienna. Trust me, I am from Austria.
It's like you'd say someone from New York speaks pretty much standard English. What defines the standard? -
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dankocerovac — 10 years ago(March 03, 2016 02:35 PM)
Max wasn't the only person that could understand grandma. The father (Adam Scotts character) also understood her obviously as well because he replied to his mother (Max's grandma) in german. Which was very brief and consisted of one line only. I think he said something like this"Ois wird in Ordnung sein. Ich wersprech's". (everything will be all right. I promise.) That is 100% austrian-german (german-german would be "Alles wird in Ordnung sein. Ich verspreche es.") except for the weird w in the verb "versprechen" which is most likely to be attributed to the fact that Adam Scott is an american actor and Americans do tend to pronounce it the wrong way. Now comes the interesting part which raised my attention. There seem to be different voiceovers circulating in different countries all concerning grandmas german.
For me it was really strange that grandma spoke perfect german with a thick austrian accent ,the kind you would learn in austrian schools as the son (Adam Scott) spoke in that single line with a thick, let's call it provincial austrian way of pronouncing german words. So it was a dead giveaway for me that in some version of the movie grandma talks just like the son does but was overdubbed for some reason. And after doing some research I found out that originally grandma spoke with a thick accent from Voralberg (which is the most western province of Austria bordering Switzerland) and the way people there speak german resembles very much (not completely) the way Swiss people speak their german. And the actress playing grandma really had a dialect coach who instructed her not to overdo it and switch into swiss-german. So grandma's original voralberg-austrian-german got overdubbed by her own voice speaking in a very clear school-like sounding austrian-german. Now comes the best part. When this movie was shown in cinemas around Germany and Austria, grandmas speaking lines were overdubbed AGAIN by some OTHER actress which spoke really generic german-german which is a shame beacause her very colorful voralberg-austrian-german got completely lost along the way.
I am a language buff myself so these things strike a cord with me and I hope, my interpretation of all things language related was somewhat helpful to you. -
cgrill8 — 10 years ago(March 21, 2016 12:22 PM)
And the only Gottscheerish word left known is a 4 letter word and not pronounced sheye-zuh, but Sheye-st. or at least that how my great-greandfather said it (see my sig!) He ended it with a hard T. My own GRANDFATHER said it many times in his own basement for YEARS! And while I was taking German in high school I told my grandfather (proud to say he never cursed EVER) what the word meant he never said it again! He'd say it when he got mad (but never with Grandmother around and only in his garage) because his DAD would say it when he got mad and to think, my grandfather's mother refused to kids to learn 'German' guess they did learn ONE word. And I hear the Gottscheerish accent is pretty much extinct. sad I hate we had the World Wars I may have never been born, but at least Drandul would have still been in Austria and not Travni Dol, Slovenia! (like anyone cares) shrugging back to my dark corner
3rd generation American from a long line of Gottscheers it was Drandul, dude! -
jannispetersen — 9 years ago(December 20, 2016 05:59 PM)
His dad could understand her. He talks to her in the same language before He and Howie go looking for Beth.
The dad talks to her in the 'same language' well, barely. What he does is talking gibberish. It's not German, not English, just random syllables put together. To the non-German viewer it probably would sound like German. Anyhow, this is the first time I actually heard a real German (Austrian) - speaking actor in a Hollywood movie instead of the usual Hollywood-gibberish that's supposed to sound like German - you see, it's not actually hard to hire a natively German speaking actor playing a German (or Austrian). That was very refreshing.