We just finished watching a show called Fortitude that is a British series set in Norway. The cast of characters is pan national and the various tortured accents so broad that we gave up after the 1st season and switched on the subtitles, in spite of the language being English or at least variations on the English language.

I've seen that done with a lot of the Swedish series like Wallander or The Bridge where they take the original Swedish series and redo it in English, it's good but rarely as good as the original Swedish version. The girl with the dragon tattoo is another that comes to mind which is much better in the original.

@Surfpirate It is the original versions I am talking about. I wouldn’t need to look at the English subtitles if they were the cover versions. Yes I know the BBC also made remakes in English but they are just pale imitations of the real thing.

@Marionville Exactly, we are on the same page. A lot of good series are coming out of the Scandinavian countries and the knock offs are never as good.

Japanese is a tough language, my father remarried to a lovely woman from Osaka and even though it is more than 25 years I can barely make out what she says most of the time.

@Surfpirate I must admit I do it just for the authentic sound and the rhythm of the speech, I don’t make a real effort to learn the language.

I find comprehension is relatively easy when I am listening to others speak a language I know but composing a proper sentence is much harder and I find myself thinking it in English and then translating in my head what I want to say before speaking it. My wife's first language is French but she is completely fluent in English with no accent, she forgets that I understand what she is saying (well 80% of it) even though I talk like a baby when I try to speak French, my Spanish is better but not by much as I am out of practice.

@Surfpirate Both of my parents were bilingual French-English.

It was survival mode to know what they were saying on subjects like the purchase of ice cream! lol

@RavenCT French Canadian roots?

@Surfpirate Yup - both families stopped through Canada on their way here.
I can even trace back to where they were in France.

Still have cousins in Canada somewhere.

@RavenCT My wife is a Montrealer, her family roots go way back to the original Seigneury of New France, before my people showed up in the 1700's and fought them at the Plains of Abraham. Canadian history is more interesting that most people realize.

@Surfpirate Does she make French Meat Pie? This is the important thing!

@RavenCT I'm the chef in the family so if someone were to make tourtiere it would be me but I am quite happy with St. Hubert version that comes on sale half price quite often here in Anglo Ontario. A trip to Montreal is not complete without a couple of Steamies and Poutine at La Fleurs or Steak Tartar at L'Express or maybe a bit of Poulets BBQ at Chalet Bar-B-Q on Sherbrooke. Dunns Montreal Smoked Meat is also delicious.

Wasn't that filmed in Mandarin? My son is a translator for Chinese trade and is fluent in Mandarin but I don't understand a lick of it, just a bit of Cantonese and mostly just really bad words.

@Surfpirate Mandarin sounds right. I don't understand the words either but the movie tells the story without words.

@sewchick57 True there was a lot of action that was broken up with a lot of intense staring and some limited dialogue, plus running on the tops of bamboo forests. It was a good movie.

I can only think of Ran and The 7 Samurai but he did so others I'm just not aware of them.

@Surfpirate Check out Yojimbo too. It's the basis for Fistful of Dollars.

@Paul4747 Growing up I watched all the Lone Wolf and Cub movies which were not done by Kurosawa but still very good. All of Bruce Lee's stuff of course and a lot of the Japanese animation which was way ahead of what we were doing in the West.

@Surfpirate That's right Speed! Haha! Father, the Mach 5 is not ready! Haha! But I must win the race! Haha! Haha, haha! Haha!