I hate movies with subtitles. The subtitle thing perpetuates the idea that we are all of one speech and culture. This isn’t true.
In the real world, when someone says something in a foreign language and it doesn’t make sense, you have two choices…you can pretend to understand and then try to make a gesture or small statement to allow them to continue speaking (in hopes you will catch on soon) or you can just say you didn’t understand.
(I was partial to the “pretending to understand nod” to get them to continue speaking)
The “what? I don’t understand” option means they will probably repeat themselves, which usually doesn’t help. The first option is a bit dangerous, but good for laughs as the gardener drives away in your car that you generously (and erroneously) gave to him.
I love the movies where everyone just speaks the language they speak and we just try to follow along the best we can. This movie is a perfect example of where that should have been done. What they did didn’t make any sense, so why should what they were saying?
It has been said to me (many, many, many times by people I paid money to speak to) that tone of voice and body language are 93% of communication. And it may be.
Actually, I think the 93% is the part that ruins (miscommunicates) the (7%) message I’m trying to convey.
In the real world, you just hope you can figure out what people are saying in YOUR language and hope that they understand what you say, not what they think you mean.
Understand?
