What language was the grandma speaking?
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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.