Melusine,

if you want to see a movie in France, either you go to the cinema and watch it with dubbed voices, or you wait until it is available on TV or in video in original version (but it is not the same as on the big screen). And a few years ago, even on TV or in video, original versions were very hard to find. Today, a few cinemas start showing movies without dubbed voices, but only very late in the evening, which is not very kind to people having to go to work early the next morning. And when asked, a huge majority of French people prefer dubbed movies.

So we are used to dubbed voices in movies, but the general feeling we get from a movie depends greatly if it is goodly or badly dubbed. However, in rare occasions, dubbed voice can be better than the original one. I happen to watch Sylvester Stallone movies now and then mostly for his dubbed voice ! And I am very fond of "Dragon Heart" because of the French voices, who are remarkable. Above all, the dragon's voice, dubbed by a French actor called Philippe Noiret that I appreciate very much.

However, TV shows like Friends (US) or Absolutely Fabulous (UK) are generally very badly dubbed. So either I watch them in original version, or I don't watch them at all.

What I say will not raise the reputation of French people, I am afraid. I like your country !

This all happened right around election time so you can imagine how many people lost their jobs this year. It seems to be just So. Cal too. As far as my vehicles, yes they're the real thing. Are you ready for this? I have currently in my collection:

56' VW beetle (turbocharged of course) race it on the weekends when I'm not on the board. Love killing all those big american muscle cars with a puny little bug

61' 23 window VW microbus deluxe. Total beach machine. probably the crown jewel of my collection. Love cruising in this thing. gets all the beach bunnies, too bad I'm married

64' VW Karmann Ghia convertible. For those hot San Diego Days! It's 70 degrees F right now! Does it ever get cold in San Diego? God I love this city! (power bill excepted)

66' VW beetle. completely stock daily driver

80' VW rabbit pickup. All tricked out for the show and lots of horsepower.

Now you see why I said I need psychiatric treatment, HEE HEE

Turbovee,

good for you that you collect cars. My brother-in-law collects newspapers. Never been able to throw one away. Every day, he buys two copies of four different newspapers, one to read, the other to keep. 4 rooms of his house are actually unavailable, full of paper stuff. Methinks that it is HIM who needs psychiatric treatment ... your collection is much nicer. At least you have fun with what you collect !

Turbovee,

good for you that you collect cars. My brother-in-law collects newspapers. Never been able to throw one away. Every day, he buys two copies of four different newspapers, one to read, the other to keep. 4 rooms of his house are actually unavailable, full of paper stuff. Methinks that it is HIM who needs psychiatric treatment ... your collection is much nicer. At least you have fun with what you collect !

Moiraine, thank you so much for the information...I'm quite interested in subjects like this...might even consider doing research on it after graduating. One of the job prospects of my study is too become a translator, an option I'm definitely considering!

Everybody, this is really weird there are a couple of offtopic threads running through eachother and interweaving and I had to look thrice before I could make anything of it

Melusine, I could not answer you sooner, because I had to go to me and my son's piano lesson, so I 'interrupted' the recent posts. I have learned something new today, I thought that all countries were the same about dubbed movies. I am not very happy with my country for that topic.

I have to keep myself occupied somehow, that's why it takes me forever to get anything done. I've got eighty things going at once, However, I abhore messiness. I'm not a clean freak, but with all the things I've got going on I have to be organized. You could probably eat off my garage floor though not that you would want to.

Wow, I walk a way for a little while to make a pot of chili and come back and see all sorts of additional posts here! That's what I like about this board, it's never boring! Interesting collection Turbovee! Is your Microbus one of those that has the little sleeping area up top? Never even heard of a VW rabbit pickup! Always have liked the Karmann Ghia, but never see any on the road anymore. How do you get around emissions? Boy, you must have been working on these cars for quite a while now replacing many parts. You're lucky you can find parts for a lot of these older cars! Can you order them still from VW? I would imagine when rebuilding a car it would be better to get new parts rather than ones from a junkyard.

It takes a lot of searching, money and car shows to get all of these cars up and running. Parts for VWs have been easier to get since the aftermarket has a huge variety of high performance replacement parts and reproduction parts. My bus has windows and a slide back canvas top no room for a bed on top. Emissions are no problem since anything older than 73' is exempt and my pickup is registered as a diesel which makes it exempt also. In other words it was a diesel until I got a hold of it.

Oimfrum Straya. - "Strine" for I'm from Australia.
My English could be understood by you well enough though couldn't it Moiraine? "Educated English" is the term for my accent I believe. I think if you hear enough of an accent you can understand it well enough. In Oz we get to hear various English dialects all the time. But it's not a two way street it seems.

On the foriegn film topic I love watching subtitled foriegn language films. They rock. I saw Himalaya last month and it was terrific.

I speak some Italian and a little French, and when I was last there got around German to a degree. (Had to speak Deutsch when I was in Hungary as it was most Magyars second language, and I didn't speak a word of Magyar) My prob. is vocab. I get the accent down and then native speakers think I can speak it better than I can (Right Moiraine?) It's unecessary in Oz to learn another language unless we intend on travelling to the ends of the earth. (Which is what I intend to do)

I find hearing the language makes it come alive, inflection and context make words that on paper seem incomprehensible to me, come alive with meaning.

How's your chilli Winderszekketed?