Chloe Glover (Reporter)
CARTOONS should be aired in their original language to improve language skills, according to the PSOE.
The centre-left party has asked the government to put pressure on state TV channel RTVE to stop dubbing foreign-made children’s programmes into Spanish.
Politicians argued in Congress that making the change and adding Spanish subtitles instead would help children learn additional languages more easily.
A spokesperson said it would have particular impact in Spain, as children here watch more hours of TV than the European average.
In Portugal many younger people and school children who learned English, German and French from TV a direct result of undubbed TV. When I moved to Spain I was shocked at how few knew languages other than their own regional take on Spanish.
The translations on dubbed TV are often silly. We would sometimes have parties watching dubbed versions of famous movies to guffaw at the ludicrous translations. Clearly, the dubbers were either unfamiliar with English or perverse in their twisted translations.
Of course it is a good way to learn pronuntiation or to improve your listening.
The thing is that the vast majority of kids under five do not know to read yet.
Chas, that’s news to me about Portugal, I know from experience that the Dutch do not dub, what with working with Dutchmen that spoke little or no English and watching TV,I quickly learned Dutch. As to dubbing, it is common to all Europeans countries that I know of that they deliberately change the dubbed language to their own way of thinking, so in effect they are not watching the original programme at all. A French MP tried to introduce a bill to stop dubbing, he was laughed at, sadly the French are the same as the Spanish, they do not like change, it has something to do with a sense of ‘loosing their identity’.
Pablo, I was reading by the time I was 4, I do not see that as exceptional. In the Netherlands most kids are pretty fluent in English by the age of 8. If you hav’nt got 3 languages in the Netherlands, the only jobs open to you are pushing a broom.
Stuart, actually the state owned educational channels were required to use original language. The main state owned mass audience channel dubbed. Private broadcasters varied.