Language Learning: To Dub or Not to Dub, That’s the Question

When working in the classroom with Nordic or Dutch students who are relatively young, under 25, it’s always a surprise to see how multi-lingual they are. It’s not unusual to meet an 18 year old Danish student that can talk to you in Danish (of course), English, German, French, and Spanish.

Meanwhile, here in Spain we see politicians from other countries getting by pretty well in English too, and it’s always disappointing to compare them with our own Spanish parliamentary representatives. I remember Zapatero trying to speak French without much success and I can still picture José María Aznar teaching in English in the US (I’m not even going to mention his wife’s performance when presenting Madrid’s candidacy to host the Olympics), or when the president of Spain asserted that we have to study English more…

Spanish Immersion

Okay, so we do have to study foreign languages (shouldn’t that be even more obvious to us teachers than to anyone?). Learning a language however isn’t so much about how intensely, or how academically you study, it’s about immersing yourself in it as much as possible. That’s why studying Spanish in Spain or in any Spanish speaking country is so important for Spanish teachers (and for students that decide to spend time fully immersed).

In today’s interconnected world, where social networks eliminate the distance barriers in human relationships, it’s getting easier and easier to immerse oneself in a language –or more and more difficult, depending on how you look at it.

Learning Languages

After working for years with Spanish as a foreign language students, and after repeatedly asking them about their high level of English despite their young ages, one response has become nearly universal: in my country English language TV shows aren’t dubbed into our language, they’re just subtitled, so we grow up learning with cartoons, series, and even commercials…

When I was a student in Granada I would desperately look for movie theaters that might show movies that weren’t dubbed into Spanish. I was not very successful. I remember the films they used to show on channel 2 (when it was called “el UHF”) that were subtitled, always in the middle of the night… I’m grateful to the gods of information technology and for the fact that my daughters can watch their favorite shows (not always my favorites of course) in English thanks to the magic of digital television. And I’m filled with great pride when I see that their English is already better than mine, and that instead of feeling embarrassed to speak other languages they find it the most natural thing in the world to do.

Can you imagine a Van Gogh exhibit, in which the back ground of the paintings have been modified to make them look more like Spanish landscapes? Would it make sense to put a Cordoba-style hat on Michelangelo’s David? Of course not!

So why would you hide the voices of the great (and minor) actors of the world behind a Spanish voice-over?  Dubbing has been taken so far in Spain, that Humphrey Bogart’s real voice even sounds ridiculous to me, because I’m so used to hearing his Spanish voice. I can imagine him turning over in his grave over such an insult.

So let’s take advantage of the technology that’s available and start getting used to watching movies and TV shows in their original versions… por el bien de todos.