Xmmm's Log ...

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lingua
Blue Belt
Posts: 951
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2016 11:23 pm
Languages: English (N)
Maintaining: italiano (B2/C1ish)
Studying: português, Latina
Dabbling: siciliano, Deutsch, français, piemontèis
Abandoned: ไทย, español
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12257
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby lingua » Sat Apr 07, 2018 10:31 pm

Xmmm, what source(s) are you using to watch Italian film or shows?
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Super Challenge 2022-23:
DE: books: 0 / 2500 film: 1654 / 4500
IT: books: 3065 / 5000 film: 5031 / 9000
PT: books: 2921 / 5000 film: 5010 / 9000

Output Challenge 2023:
IT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 84 / 3000
PT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 0 / 3000

PT: Read 100 books: 28 / 100

Xmmm
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby Xmmm » Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:00 pm

lingua wrote:Xmmm, what source(s) are you using to watch Italian film or shows?


Well, the best source I have found is Netflix, where I can watch many non-Italian things dubbed into Italian. I've probably watched 300 hours of dubbed stuff and 100 hours of native Italian stuff.

For native Italian content, I find that I'm mostly geo-blocked by RAI Tv. And the stuff that is not geo-blocked is either not very good (bad fiction series), or not very interesting (for example, a documentary about a sailing school in the northwest corner of Italy -- the subject matter just didn't appeal to me).

I have also used Amazon Video, which has a lot of good native Italian content ... but for some reason hard codes English subtitles onto it with very large letters. That is frustrating because I have to cover almost half the screen not to see them. Having said that, Amazon Video does have a lot of relatively good stuff -- Montalbano and Young Montalbano, Fog and Crimes, Inspector De Luca, Inspector Nardone, etc. They're all watchable. I think I saw "Song of Naples" there too, which was a fun movie.

My top choices of native stuff:

1. Il segreto dell'acqua on Amazon Video (but called 'Palermo Connection' for some reason). I watched this show 5 times. I feel like like I lived in Palermo for six months. Great acting, great story, great characters, lots of local color.
2. Suburra on Netflix. Really shows you the dark underbelly of Rome and can get gross at times, but as one reviewer said approvingly: "pop-Shakespearean". It does have a big dramatic feel to it.
3. Fog and Crimes on Amazon Video. A fairly run of the mill cop show, but less annoying than Montalbano.
4. Inspector Nardone on Amazon Video. Another run of the mill cop show, but set in Italy in the 1950s so at least there's some ambience.
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Ещё раз сунешь голову туда — окажешься внутри. Поняла, Фемида? -- аигел

Xmmm
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby Xmmm » Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:10 pm

Glossy wrote:
Whereas the omitted subjects, random word order, general laconic style, and blurriness of Russian still throws me after all this time.


Perhaps you already know this, but word order isn't random in Russian. It's just largely used for different purposes than in English. You can use it to emphasize some words at the expense of others. Or to give sentences an archaic or folksy feeling.


Actually random that it is not well aware am I ...


Edit to add something:

You yourself, Glossy, are new to the board and presumably very unfamiliar with my learning history. So for you, no harm no foul. Carry on.

But I'm astonished at the people recommending your post. Either they think that I think that Russian word order is actually random (in which case I must sound even more stupid than I actually am) or they know I'm whining and exaggerating but want to see me pedantically corrected on my own 'chaos and failure' board ... I guess out of fear than new learners would think word order was actually random.

For what it's worth and in case anyone has forgotten, I have read (i.e. deciphered) several Russian novels on LingQ adding up to over one million words ... and I'm currently L-Ring a 400000 word novel on another thread. I even translated a poem by Esenin on this board a while back. So I'm very very very very familiar with the Russian language even if I'm not particularly talented in it.

So yes, I have ongoing difficulty understanding spoken Russian in TV shows (only 30-40% comprehension) and yes the flexible word order amongst other things doesn't make my life easier, but no ... I am not a complete imbecile (although I gather my old friend neofight78 thinks so?).

But if people can't understand my tone and feel the need to correct me on A1 type issues, then it really begs the question of why I'm contributing here. I mean, either I'm incomprehensible to my target audience or I'm considered a dangerous spreader of false information.

Can't we save the pedantry for the general topic threads? Do I really have to censor myself and say "Oh my God, what if people think that I think Russian word order actually is random" on my own language log?

Anyway -- I guess it's my problem if I'm not understood. On the other hand, if I'm not going to be understood ... why bother ...
Last edited by Xmmm on Sun Apr 08, 2018 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ещё раз сунешь голову туда — окажешься внутри. Поняла, Фемида? -- аигел

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lingua
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Languages: English (N)
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Studying: português, Latina
Dabbling: siciliano, Deutsch, français, piemontèis
Abandoned: ไทย, español
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12257
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby lingua » Sat Apr 07, 2018 11:32 pm

Xmmm wrote:
lingua wrote:Xmmm, what source(s) are you using to watch Italian film or shows?

I have also used Amazon Video, which has a lot of good native Italian content ... but for some reason hard codes English subtitles onto it with very large letters. That is frustrating because I have to cover almost half the screen not to see them. Having said that, Amazon Video does have a lot of relatively good stuff -- Montalbano and Young Montalbano, Fog and Crimes, Inspector De Luca, Inspector Nardone, etc. They're all watchable. I think I saw "Song of Naples" there too, which was a fun movie.

My top choices of native stuff:

1. Il segreto dell'acqua on Amazon Video (but called 'Palermo Connection' for some reason). I watched this show 5 times. I feel like like I lived in Palermo for six months. Great acting, great story, great characters, lots of local color.
2. Suburra on Netflix. Really shows you the dark underbelly of Rome and can get gross at times, but as one reviewer said approvingly: "pop-Shakespearean". It does have a big dramatic feel to it.
3. Fog and Crimes on Amazon Video. A fairly run of the mill cop show, but less annoying than Montalbano.
4. Inspector Nardone on Amazon Video. Another run of the mill cop show, but set in Italy in the 1950s so at least there's some ambience.


I use MHz Choice ($7.99 per month). It seems Amazon has a lot of the same shows. Of the four you listed MHz Choice has all but Suburra. I'll check Netflix which I also have but their search is lame so I can never find what I'm looking for. I think I've watched the first 2-3 episodes of Nardone and all of Palermo Connection & Fog and Crimes. I asked MHz Choice why I couldn't turn subtitles off and they said it's part of their contract. I would assume Amazon & Netflix have the same issue.

I was more curious about Inside the World's Toughest Prisons., Dirty Money, La casa di carta and Rotton. I've not seen those in the states. RAI is always a pain. It allows you to watch some things but not others. I had hoped by now that countries would offer some kind of reasonably priced subscription to their film/show offerings. My vision has always been that we could watch or read anything at any time. I think we'll eventually get there.
0 x
Super Challenge 2022-23:
DE: books: 0 / 2500 film: 1654 / 4500
IT: books: 3065 / 5000 film: 5031 / 9000
PT: books: 2921 / 5000 film: 5010 / 9000

Output Challenge 2023:
IT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 84 / 3000
PT: write: 0 / 50000 record: 0 / 3000

PT: Read 100 books: 28 / 100

Xmmm
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Languages: ru it tr
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby Xmmm » Sun Apr 08, 2018 12:07 am

lingua wrote: I asked MHz Choice why I couldn't turn subtitles off and they said it's part of their contract. I would assume Amazon & Netflix have the same issue.


That is where you would assume wrong. :lol:

Netflix has hundreds of shows where you can flip a switch and change the audio to Italian, turn on Italian subtitles, customize the appearance of the subtitles, turn off the subtitles, etc. It is a wonder to behold and worth 5 times what they charge.

lingua wrote:
I was more curious about Inside the World's Toughest Prisons., Dirty Money, La casa di carta and Rotton. I've not seen those in the states.


I watched all those shows on Netflix with Italian audio, plus ... a lot more. Godless, House of Cards, Hitler's Circle of Evil, Altered Carbon (blech!), Marseille, Marcella ... many many more I forget ....

On Netflix there's a search link way down at the bottom of the page that will let you search by language for audio or subtitles. It's not 100% accurate. Sometimes I get real excited and find out no, they lied. But it's like 75% accurate.

I actually still have to watch Rotten, haven't seen it yet. On my todo list!

Edit: list of shows I know are available in Italian on Netflix. I didn't like all of them! Sometimes I only watched 10 minutes and gave up. But I know they're available:

Dirty Money, Inside the World's Toughest Prisons, Hitler's Circle of Evil, The Frankenstein Chronicles, Marseille, Adventures of Puss n Boots, Huntik, La Mante, White Gold, Miraculous, Look Who's Back, Iron Fist, Godless, Dragons Race to the Edge, Bojack Horseman, La casa di carta, Altered Carbon, War Machine, Luke Cage, Marcella, Daredevil, House of Cards, Bloodline, Wild Wild Country, Roman Empire Reign of Blood, Black Mirror, The Punisher, The Crown, Gomorrah, Marco Polo, Mindhunter, Jessica Jones, Frontier, Suburra
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Ещё раз сунешь голову туда — окажешься внутри. Поняла, Фемида? -- аигел

Lawyer&Mom
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7786
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sun Apr 08, 2018 2:22 am

Amazon Video is so frustrating. I tried watching Un Village Francais, but found the subtitles impossible to ignore. They have all the money on earth, make it work!
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby Xmmm » Sun Apr 08, 2018 9:41 pm

Morgana wrote:
Xmmm wrote:On Netflix there's a search link way down at the bottom of the page that will let you search by language for audio or subtitles. It's not 100% accurate. Sometimes I get real excited and find out no, they lied. But it's like 75% accurate.


Just in case you (or others) didn't know about it: Unofficial Netflix Online Global Search
Blue button in "Search 0/0 countries For" - choose your country
Then choose what language audio you want, and/or subtitles.

(I had never tried the link on Netflix you mentioned, until just now, and it doesn't have either of my target languages listed for audio, despite having stuff in those languages. The uNoGS site will serve you better.)


The uNoGS site seems at least as inaccurate as Netflix itself, at least for the US. It seems to be saying I can watch Star Trek the animated series with Russian or Turkish audio. That is definitely not the case (English only).

The pattern of errors suggests that it's somehow pulling the existing incorrect information off the US Netflix site, then making it even more incorrect ...

In the US, the best approach seems to be search "audio in Italian", "audio in Russian", "audio in Turkish" (mostly accurate, but misses some shows) and occasionally check with the audio and subtitle link (more shows but it has false positives, and the Turkish language is not even in the dropdown).
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Ещё раз сунешь голову туда — окажешься внутри. Поняла, Фемида? -- аигел

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Glossy
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Languages: Russian (native), English (almost native), French (reading: fluent, listening: intermediate, speaking: none), Spanish (reading: fluent, listening: upper intermediate, speaking: none), Mandarin (reading characters: intermediate, actively learning, listening: intermediate, actively learning, speaking: none), German (reading: upper intermediate, listening: none, speaking: none)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7920
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby Glossy » Sun Apr 08, 2018 11:43 pm

I guess I was being too pedantic with the word order thing. Didn't mean any offense.
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garyb
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby garyb » Mon Apr 09, 2018 9:25 am

I had never heard of "Il segreto dell'acqua", I'll need to check it out, thanks for mentioning it!

I struggle with finding Italian series. I tried the Amazon Prime one-month trial a few months ago and hardly found anything in any of my target languages, so I dismissed it as inferior to Netflix. My feeling is that the content existed but there was just no easy way to search for it. Netflix is great for Spanish series and good for French ones, but unfortunately only has a small handful of native Italian content and I'm not really interested in dubbed series. There's a bit more on Italian Netflix, but using it with a VPN is much harder than it used to be. MHz Choice is only available in North America I believe. Of course part of the problem is that there aren't many good series in the first place! I've had much better luck with film, but series do have their advantages.
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Xmmm
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Re: Xmmm's Chaos and Failure Log

Postby Xmmm » Mon Apr 09, 2018 2:51 pm

Glossy wrote:I guess I was being too pedantic with the word order thing. Didn't mean any offense.


I took no offense at your original comment. I communicate my frustration with learning Russian through the use of hyperbole. There's no reason why you as a newcomer should have known that. I was, however, under the impression that old-timers knew it ...
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