Sorry, I don’t really know how to phrase my question. For example, we know that over here in the USA, a box set of dragon ball z contains the English dub and the original Japanese track. If someone from somewhere else wanted to watch, let’s say SpongeBob on DVD, could they expect the original English track or was it commonplace to only have the local dub? ETA: Of course I’m referring to the time period before streaming, and I mean any type of popular cartoon.
In Germany just about everything is dubbed. But generally the dubs are pretty good, sometimes even better than the original.
We used to be able to watch the British Cartoon Network. I loved it as a kid. So many awesome shows and it greatly helped me learning English. But at some point they started scrambling it. That was a very sad day for young me.
Nowadays you may be lucky to see Peppa Pig first shown in German and then the same episode in English to help children learn. Dora the Explorer also speaks English over here and not Spanish. And sometimes you get lucky and a broadcaster will send two soundtracks for you to choose from. But that is very rare and usually only done by public broadcasting channels.
On DVDs and on streaming services you usually get the choice of at least the German dub or the original version. I’m so used to it that I usually don’t even check to see if that is the case. Bit me in the ass the other day when I wanted to watch a movie in English but Amazon Streaming only had the German soundtrack. The DVDs of Hero and Trainspotting also did not contain the original tracks. Especially the latter really pissed me off.
I’m curious, if Dora spoke Spanish, do you know if it would’ve been Latin American or Spain Spanish?
Also German here. The lack of English(!) dubs on anime sold in Germany pisses me off more than it rightfully should, but if I want to watch Mononoke, Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle and the like, the DVDs always only have the options of German or Japanese audio with complimentary subtitles. I actually prefer the English dub in most of these.
It was also extremely weird to hear Phil Collins sing German lyrics for Disney’s Tarzan. I knew the (English!) soundtrack before I watched the movie and it completely caught me off guard.
In the Netherlands, we all basically knew (very basic) English BEFORE we could READ ( the subtitles)
Indeed. Infact every smaller country utilizes subtitles. Bigger countries dub their movies and shows. Dubbing is too expensive for smaller countries.
We have a shit ton of dubbed shows and films as well. Some were even way better than the English dub.
I traveled through the Netherlands briefly. It’s one of the few places where I’ve ever felt uncomfortable with my English. I’m American, an English is my first language.
The homeless people in Amsterdam have better diction than I do.
I think it says more about the role of English in the world today.
You can travel across a large part of the world only knowing English. It is a Lingua Franca for international trade, even between two countries that don’t speak English.
And along with that, there are local dialects of English that are different an international standard. It is a lot harder to correct the use of a language learned in a community than that you learn from media and education.
Cartoons for kids are usually dubbed though. I say for kids because stuff like the simpsons and rick and morty is still just subbed.
There are online arguments over whether it’s better to watch King of the Hill dubbed or with subs.
This feels very wrong considering “got dang” is very much not the Queen’s (or King’s, for better or worse) English.
Here, everything is dubbed, but in the neighboring countries, only children’s stuff is dubbed, and later stuff is English with subtitles.
On dvd yes, they all had the original language plus the dubbed one. Anything out of dvd no. Even when dvb-t came out (digital broadcasting) very few programmes had the original track. Now it’s a bit more common, but not the general rule.
