{"id":998,"date":"2022-01-28T13:48:35","date_gmt":"2022-01-28T12:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radishthegreat.com\/blog\/?p=998"},"modified":"2026-01-10T12:22:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T11:22:18","slug":"radishflix-2021-the-language-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radishthegreat.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/28\/radishflix-2021-the-language-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"RadishFlix 2021: The language analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last year<\/a>, I failed to extract any language data out of my IMDB data dump, because LOOK AT THIS NONSENSE:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Ain’t nobody got time for all that.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This year, I have chosen to ignore all the scenes that include six words of additional language used to set a mood or develop a character, for example answering a phone call from Berlin in German to indicate the character once lived there: Every movie gets one language. I made exceptions for movies with strong Bavarian dialect, Nollywood (characters slip between English and Yoruba and Igbo within the same breath), and a Puerto Rican documentary film that Netflix told me was in English but mostly wasn’t. Bastards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The giant brown wedge is not a surprise, with over a hundred US and UK films<\/a> on the list. I am surprised that all the silent films except one are Swedish; I have an impression that I watch a lot of German and American silent films. The data doesn’t back me up.

In the next chart, “mU” means “mit Untertiteln<\/em>“, or “with subtitles”. At home I have the subtitles on as much as possible so I can eat chips without missing dialog. In the data I include them only when I don’t understand the original language. I also rolled the silent films into their title card language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Again, no surprises here. German television broadcasts foreign films (which includes American films) with German voice actors, instead of original versions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To Dub Or Not To Dub, that is a question
<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I see the majority of films with their original audio, whether it be English, German, or something else. Only about a fifth or the films were dubbed in German. But what’s that blue bit? Which films were dubbed in English?

This is so crazy, I can hardly believe it: Both of the English-dubbed films came from West Germany. Der Formel Eins Film<\/a> <\/em>and Erinnerungen an der Zukunft<\/a><\/em> both had US releases, and those were the versions I saw (in Amazon and YouTube, respectively).

Finally, a deeper dive into that green wedge:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Except for the Czech children’s fairy tales at Christmas time, I don’t appear to take much advantage of having a second language I can use to watch foreign films (the Japanese films are all from the Toho Godzilla<\/a> franchise).

OTOH, I kind of hated most of the French films I tried to watch in 2020.

The number I really wanted: 25 of the 175 films I saw last year were German dubs of US and UK films, which is not quite half of the 59 films I saw in German.

Will this analysis change how select movies to view in the future? Hard to say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

dive into that green wedge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1000,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[262],"tags":[59,58],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","tag-charts","tag-graphs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t