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English spoken by Europeans

SDSpivey Author

Why it that whenever there is a person who is obviously of European descent (ie. a white person) that is speaking English, they sound like they have never heard English spoken before and have just taught to speak their lines phonetically, without knowing the meaning.

It is how I image I sound when I speak another language.

I understand that some may have grown up only speaking an Asian language, but surely some actors have to be from America or Europe.

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ThiSong

Is this ragebait?

To be honest, your post feels quite racist, or at least full of unreflected stereotypes.

  1. "white"-looking ≠ European
    There are "white"-looking people all over the world and not just descendants of colonizers. I once met a family from Armenia who wouldn't have looked out of place in a Nazi propaganda poster.

  2. European ≠ native speakers of English
    You are aware that Europe has many, many people who don't speak English as a first language and only learn it at school?

  3. descendants of immigrants who spoke English ≠ always native English speakers
    Depending on how the family chose to live, they might have dropped their native language in favour of trying to assimilate into the new culture

  4. [only if this is about C-Dramas] Dubbing everything in C-Dramas is common. I've watched C-Dramas where even the foreigner was obviously dubbed.

(I really hope this is ragebait)

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dramadaisies
ThiSong:
European ≠ native speakers of English

I second this.

I think what you're asking is "why are English line deliveries usually so bad in Asian dramas?"

If you ask me, it's basically a combination of bad actors with bad scripts.

Lines delivered in English are usually translated kind of weirdly, and casting directors usually aren't native English speakers, so you get unnatural actors saying really unnatural lines.

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SDSpivey Author

I didn't think of the fact they may need to cast an "American" or whatever, and just take whomever is available, even if they are German or Romanian or whatever. I should have specified "northern European" or "UK", instead of just "European".

In Shanghai, I shared a hostel room with a Polish man and a local Chinese man, both had better English than I do, an average American white guy.

Also, not attempting to enrage anyone, nor being racist, just that the dialogue from a character that is supposed to be from the US or UK should sound much better than William Shatner.

[only if this is about C-Dramas] Dubbing everything in C-Dramas is common. I've watched C-Dramas where even the foreigner was obviously dubbed.

I watch all in the original audio, if anything is dubbed, I haven't noticed.

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Journalist

Can you differentiate a European face from a "UK European" face?

I am currently watching a CDrama with more than one scene where lines are spoken in German / take place in Germany - quite bad (apart from pronunciation the grammar, syntax, meaning is also often incorrect)... so it's not just English.

I'm hoping, since dubbing is already common practice in Chinese anyway, they could maybe one day use it for portraying scenes/roles with foreign languages more authentically (they could scout foreign exchange students at Chinese universities, which would make communication with Chinese production teams easier, to do a final line check in post production or even send in audio snippets recorded remotely by Chinese living abroad)

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