I lived in Japan for a year and studied in China for a semester. Most people there watch English movies with subtitles, in fact those are the vast majority of movies, most folks don't watch dubbed movies, TV is similar. That was my first real experience abroad. So I felt this was normal. The Asians do this, I was told, to practice their English. Difference is, Asians tend to want to learn and speak English...unlike Italians, Swiss, French, etc. haha

However, here I was quite shocked that they dub almost everything.

In America, typically, most folks don't watch a lot of foreign movies, but I remember when movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon came to the theater in America, it was in subtitled. I have seen a few foreign movies on television in subtitles too. I thought this was normal. I hate watching dubbed movie, I rather have subtitles (I watch a lot of foreign movies from all over the world), mainly because it is just sounds stupid and "off" to have them speaking English and it not matching their lips.

My fiancee doesn't even know what a lot of movies stars like Samuel L. Jackson (with his very distinctive and funny voice) sound like; she was shocked by his accent and speech in a movie we just rented. [The Cleaner]. She didn't know certain actors were British either, because she never heard them speaking in English. Sometimes in a movie you can't tell the person is foreign, and it is important to the plot or just a part of the comedy (due to their accent). This does not come across when it is dubbed.

Anyway, that is my argument. I think dubbed movies are cheesy, and I would not pay to see a French or Chinese movie dubbed in English, forget it. If i want to watch bad acting, I can go back to America and watch some old Wu-Tang Hong Kong Kung-fu dubbed movies when the people keep speaking after the English stops.

Lido 2 in Biel then is doing what should (still) be the general standard. And as far as I remember not for the first time but again and again over years. All respect

The role or/and importance of English should NOT be the point. The point should be that to dub films done in another language inevitably robs the film of a certain part of it, and robs people understanding the "film language" to some extent of the chance to improve. Films should be shown in the original language also if this is Russian, Hindhi, Arabic, Greek of Spanish, in case of doubt with German, French and English subtitles.

By your arguing you apparently forget, just to take two examples, the heavy film industries of Bombay and Cairo. And in a way display an ugly way of supremacist emotions

Totally agree.

Why English? I undertand the two national languages, but the third one is Italian and the fourth one is Romansh. In the list of foreign languages, I listes the ones that comes before English based on resident numbers from Wikipedia. Better sources accepted for argument's sake, but the point is the same.

I might have missed some excellent arguments for English. Enlighten me.

The argument in favour of English in this is Marketing and Inbound Tourism. Inbound Tourism is, after the Export Industry, the second money earner of Switzerland

I can see that, however, does one know what kind of tourists will watch films thanks to English subtitles as a standard, given the following aspects of life:
- Not all tourists speak English (big groups are Chinese and Japanese tourists)
- Some tourists speak a Swiss national language and do not rely on English subtitles
- Some tourists just don't go to see films in public (the rich ones like the Russians and the Arabs in summer in Geneva)
- The places the tourists stay are rather difined by the offer depending on season (winter sports especiall) which makes it less relevant to offer such subtitles in the whole country even if there was a market for it among the tourists.

Would the rest of the tourists, needing English, be sufficient to sustain such a project compared with other languages like the national ones and the foreign mother tongue of residents as stated above?

Genuine question - I am a serious guy, you know that.

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Chinese and Japanese and Indian tourists have English as "traffic language"

Sorry, but Chinese and Japanese usually follow a set program for each minut of their time in CH and are definitly not generally able to follow a film with english subtitles and a spoken language totally foreign to them. Exceptions possible but improbable.

Indian yes, but they stay very short time in extreemly organized travel groups and do not go out for a movies in CH. Exceptions possible.

I remember in another thread about the movie "The Swiss Makers" (Die Schweizermacher) an expat was complaining that there wasn't an English version on DVD. I didn't understand since what I saw showed that the DVD had English subtitles, but it turned out the poster meant that the film wasn't DUBBED in English.

Personally, I prefer watching foreign films in the original language provided there are English subtitles which are easy to read. But apparently other people (not necessarily native Swiss-Germans) want to understand the dialogue as they hear it and aren't bothered if it doesn't match the lips of the actors, or if the acting of the voice artist isn't as good as the original actor. If you can't enjoy Swiss cinema in Swiss-German, I'd suggest waiting for the DVD when you can hear the dialogue in the original English.

Legible subtitles are important---otherwise, they can be just as much a distraction as bad dubbing. I like the way Criterion will use yellow subtitles on black and white films.

Nice to see another Marylander on this board. Which part of our "canton" do you come from?

Chances are anglophone tourists have seen the flicks already, movies come out earlier than here. Plus it costs cash here. I can't really see the fondue and snowboarding tourist crowd spending cash on films that they could have seen already back home and missing out on fun they can have here. I agree, though, films should be shown in original version, how else are people going to learn...

It is en vogue, until you gota do some work and actually become fluent enough to watch films. So, trendy, yes very much so, but it is more little video games terms, some corny rap words, etc but to really cram to be good enough actually sit through the entire Harry Potter series or that whatsit vampire series...Twilight in English, I don't think so. Teens like their fun and unfortunately movie industry here is going to feed them the least painful way, it's not a language school, they are after their cash.

I just were at home and I am also surprised how many flicks were dubbed, too bad. Only low budget films and art independent stuff stays in original version, others get dubbed. Giant multicinemas have enough cash to dub now, while before it was too expensive.

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Yes seems that only SF 1 & 2 give the option to watch in English.The rest have some inate fear of English. At least the others should offer the possibility to choose English. Thats what I call modern TV.

We have all local channels (the 2 French ones, 2 Italian ones and 2 German ones) switched to English for films and shows, might be part of the cable package, though, or TV model? I am not sure. It's not like we really watch much TV, anyways..

Save your money. I was dragged to that stinker by a friend. It was the German version. I am fluent in German and the film sucked.

I can't imagine it would be any better in English.

..yes certainly. I was however inclining, that Switzerland isn't all that civilized.

Well firstly who are we to say that the Swiss have to improve there English! Its like saying that the people in Australia have to improve their German.We are the ones living here as foreigners not the Swiss!

Secondly I think it probably costs more for the TV& channels to send in multi language ( technical costs etc)

Agree. There's a feeling of "because I speak English, more English should be available to me" throughout this thread.

...a vaild but arguable point. I believe that if you translate a movie it loses its context as wordings sometimes don't make any sense. For instance, when there is foul language involved..the words sometimes don't make any sense. Or take the movie "Black Snake Moan" which takes place in the southern part of the US...it is impossible to translate the southern drawl into German or any other language for that matter and therefore, the movie loses its artistic qualities.

Still I think that the option should be open to watch in original language-for ALL those who like to see in original.It sort of indicates the state of TV quality in general-which is really not keeping up with modern trends.( technical etc)