Portugal has a very high number of people who claim to have some facility in a second language. English and French being the two most popular. It seems that while they can understand spanish, very few claim to speak it. I suspect the actual number is higher. Is Bobby Pires the most famous french portuguese person?
There are a couple of dozen professional footballers who have some family connection to the Portuguese guest workers in France in the 60s-80s. There is even a club that has reached the third tier called Lusitanos.
I've yet to encounter a foreign language show/film where you couldn't choose the original audio and English subtitles (and there's often several options). I once had an issue with Battle Royale where I could only choose the original audio without subtitles, but that's about it, and it resolved itself after a while anyway.
Year of the Rabbit. Matt Berry does Victorian detective. Has its moments.
Am racing through this on catch up. It's very good. Good writing, good acting, very funny. It has led me to Toast of London which is also excellent. I was vaguely aware of it when it came out in 2014 (I think) but never bothered with it. A bit surreal at times but I quite like that.
Dumb question, but does Russia produce any TV series worth watching? If so, any on Netflix?
There's a series based around the early days of of the revolution from a couple of years back (I can't remember the name, but I mentioned it somewhere way back on this thread.) It was soapy but gorgeous to look at. There's also The Last Czar up recently, but I've no idea whether it's produced in Russia or not or whether it's any good.
Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 13-07-2019, 16:06.
Reason: wrong series title
I've caught up to the most recent episode of Big Little Lies season 2, and for the first time in a long time I'm enjoying something with Meryl Streep in. After all these years, who'd have thought that playing a super-plain mumsy character who's basically evil would be what she should have been doing her whole life.
Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!View Post
Portugal has a very high number of people who claim to have some facility in a second language. English and French being the two most popular. It seems that while they can understand spanish, very few claim to speak it. I suspect the actual number is higher. Is Bobby Pires the most famous french portuguese person?
In Portuguese speaking countries, the utterly terrible singer, Tony Carreira would undoubtedly be the most famous Luso-Francais:
There are loads of footballers, Petit is the one that immediately springs to mind. Fabio Coentrao's family moved to France but left him in an orphanage when he was a young child.
Oh, and subtitles in Portugal. It's commonly assumed amongst Portuguese people that the reason even an old granny in backwater rural Portugal can communicate a bit in English is due to all English speaking programs having subtitles rather than dubbing. They're quite proud of it, especially given the difficulties Spanish people have with second languages in comparison with the Portuguese.
I was slapped down in Lisbon for attempting Portuguese with Spanish words mixed in where I didn't know the Portuguese, and answered in English from folk in their twenties to sixties. Can't think of anywhere in Spain twenty years ago where sixty year olds could have said fuck all in English.
Oh, and subtitles in Portugal. It's commonly assumed amongst Portuguese people that the reason even an old granny in backwater rural Portugal can communicate a bit in English is due to all English speaking programs having subtitles rather than dubbing. They're quite proud of it, especially given the difficulties Spanish people have with second languages in comparison with the Portuguese.
Fair enough. This is a justified source of pride. Go Portugal!
Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!View Post
I am shocked to hear such sentiments from a Dutchman. BTW How many languages do you speak? It's got to be at least three.
It's three. Dutch, English, and German.
If I find myself in a French shop, I can make my order sound French. Deux croissants et un café, s'il vous plaît! But if they ask whether I want sugar or milk in my coffee, I'm toast. So my passive knowledge might span four languages, but my active knowledge spans three.
In many respects, Portugal is to Spain as the Netherlands is to Germany. The Dutch hate the Portuguese national football team, but beyond sports, we see the parallels.
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