More Of The Worst Use Of Foreign Languages In Songs

A while ago we found five songs that deserved to be in the hall of shame for their atrocious use of a foreign language. We picked five songs that we felt merited the title of "The Worst Use of Foreign Languages in Songs" and felt we'd wrapped things up nicely.

Since then, we have had the misfortune of hearing even more horrendous examples and have had to extend our list to include a few more that get a big F grade for their use of foreign languages.

Samson and Delilah by Anthony Van Dyck

Muse - I Belong To You (Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix)

More attempts from the British rock trio to climb inside their own behinds with this one. If the French subtitle didn't do it for you, mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix, taken from the opera Samson and Delilah, features an over-Anglicised pronunciation of "réponds". Clearly, the singer didn't study how the acute accent over the letter e, (é) should be pronounced in French. He should just keep his falsetto in English.

Styx - Mr. Roboto

Though only featuring one line of Japanese, Mr. Roboto uses it just enough to get really annoying. The words dōmo arigatō misutā Robotto, meaning "thank you very much Mr. Roboto", almost kill the Japanese language and managed to spawn horrendous catchphrases. Styx should study their hiragana, katagana and kanji writing systems before they attempt to speak more Japanese.

Lady Gaga - Bad Romance

Though je veux ton amour et je veux ta revanche is used only briefly in the song, it's just to make Lady Gaga a tiny bit more pretentious, if that was even possible. The outspoken and often controversial singer adds this to a long list of things she shouldn't ever have done. Meat dress, anyone? Also, her song "Alejandro" has a few bits of Spanish and code-switching, but we felt nothing says unnecessary pretentious and cringe-worthy language usage like the French language.

A nice champagne...
now all we need is salmon.

Franz Ferdinand - Darts of Pleasure

The Scottish indie band Franz Ferdinand get a special mention for their use of German in this song. The lyrics in question, which go "Ich heiße Superphantastisch! Ich trinke Schampus mit Lachsfisch! Ich heiße Su-per-phan-tas-tisch", roughly mean "My name is Super-Fantastic! I drink Champagne with salmon! My name is Super-Fantastic!". Need we say more? Despite their German (technically Austrian) band name, they score a big 0 for their ability in the language.

Even now the list isn't exhaustive. If you have any more examples, tell us about them in the comments below.

Why The Book Is Better Than The Film

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that is the case, then a 90-minute film with 24 frames per second would be worth 129,000,000 words. Right? Wrong!

You need a lot less space to read a book...
Unless you have a lot of books.

Despite enabling us to see and hear a story, all whilst gorging down popcorn, hotdogs, nachos or even a beer if you're old enough, most adaptations of books into films are often touted as being inferior. Why is this the case?

There are a lot of boxes that need to be checked in order to gain financing for a film. You need the right actors, the right producers and directors and the right studio. The immense amount of permutations this could leave you with is immeasurable, meaning the odds are good that the film will never match up with how you saw it in your head. Books often contain a narrative, the thoughts and feelings of characters, especially the protagonist. This doesn't often work in film, and as a result we're watching the characters rather than sharing their experiences.

The expression "too many cooks spoil the broth" and "a camel is a horse designed by a committee" ring true here. With so many involved, many compromises are made. These compromises often cause films adapted from books to become a hollow shell of what they were in print.

When you read a book from the comfort of your own home, the floors aren't sticky and the food isn't ridiculously expensive! Don't even get us started on the process of dubbing and subtitling!

Are there any films which you think are better than the book? Tell us about them in the comments.

Get It Right: I And Me

One of the most common mistakes we hear is the almost interchangeable usage of the word I and me. As most people will know, they are not interchangeable and here's why.

I

I as the word, rather than the letter, is the subject personal pronoun for the first person. Lost? Put simply it refers to the speaker (the first person), is a replacement for their real name (personal pronoun), and indicates that they are carrying out the action or verb in the sentence.

John and I are going to the park.

If somebody says "I am", thanks to the use of "I", you know that they are not only referring to themselves as they are using "I" but also that they are the active participant in the sentence.

The real problem arises when paired with other people, places or things. We often hear "Me and John are going to the park", for example. Aside from making our ears twitch and our sphincters tighten, it's also wrong. Imagine the second person wasn't there and it was just you going to the park. You wouldn't say "me am going to the park" as it's stupid.

Me

Me, unlike I, is not the subject of a sentence. It is the object. Ensure that you use it only in cases when the word could be replaced by him, her, us or them.

I and me follow similar rules to who and whom since they also portray the difference between subject and object. If you still struggle with that difference, we're sorry to say that you get an F.

Star Wars Day: The Languages Of Star Wars

If you didn't know, today is Star Wars Day. As it's May 4th, (May the 4th be with you), we thought we'd look at some of the languages used in the world's best and worst Sci Fi trilogies. Obviously, the three original films are the best.

In a risky endeavour we'll be looking at the languages as they appear in just the first film, from memory. No doubt we'll end up with plenty of fans correcting us. Arguably the second-best film in the series (Empire is the best - fact), Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope introduces us to the series, in which we immediately hear our first language:

One of many Star Wars sets left in the Tunisian desert.

Galactic Standard

Whichever language you're watching the film in is effectively Galactic Standard. However, since the films were made in English, we can assume that Galactic Standard sounds exactly like English with a slightly altered lexicon and different idiomatic expressions. You scruffy nerfherders!

R2-D2's beeps and whistles

Not technically a language but more of a machine code, R2-D2's form of communication certainly warrants a mention given that despite having no lexicon or grammar, the entirety of R2's communication conveys emotion without words.

Jawaese

The language of the Jawas is nothing more than squeaky nonsense. It is lacking any degree of sophistication in terms of constructed languages.

Bocce

The language of merchants is referenced by Luke's uncle when looking for a protocol droid, effectively a robot translator. It is imperative that the droid, C-3PO, speaks this language.

Shyriiwook (Wookiespeak)

The almost impossible to emulate Shyriiwook is the language of roars, grunts and groans used by Han Solo's furry companion, Chewbacca.

If you can vocally replicate Shyriiwook, we take our hats off to you.

Some think that this rock formation in Arches
National Park looks quite like Jabba the Hutt...

Rodese

The language spoken by Greedo, the green guy who does not shoot first, is in fact a simplified version of the South American language Quechua. It should be noted that the indigenous speakers of Quechua bear no resemblance to Greedo.

Huttese

The language spoken by the infamous Jabba the Hutt was considered superior to Galactic Standard, and though the Hutts could actually speak the language, they preferred to use their own instead. It should be noted there exist no pleasantries such as "please" and "thank you" in this language. Typical!

There are clearly millions more languages in the Star Wars universe, but we'll leave them for now before we get too geeky. Tell us your favourites below in the comments. Bib Fortuna's language was a personal favourite of ours.

May 3: World Press Freedom Day

Today is indeed World Press Freedom Day, an international celebration of, you've guessed it, freedom of the press. Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are, in essence, the same thing. One refers to spoken language and the other to its written form.

What will we use for art projects when
all newspapers are replaced with websites?

Unsurprisingly, countries with little or no democracy tend to have a poor record when it comes to freedom of the press. Of course, non-democratic political systems, dictatorships and despots require a high level of control over the press and free expression as these interfere with propaganda and their efforts to maintain absolute power.

The fact that the freedom of the press is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of the UN is cause to celebrate. In fact, the UDHR is the world's most translated document. UNESCO's Index Translationum lists the most translated authors and most common language pairings.

It's one thing to feature an ideal and another thing to uphold or even enforce it. The phone-hacking scandal in the UK showed that freedom of the press can't be left unchecked, and that the term "freedom of the press" isn't an excuse for the media to do as they please.

The press, for all their foibles, do occasionally spread news. When they're doing things morally they should certainly be supported.

The Etymology Of Mayday And Voice Procedure

With yesterday being May Day, which annoyingly is not a holiday in the UK or the US, it got us thinking about the origins of the term mayday, as used in distress calls.

We had heard that mayday comes from the French expression venez m'aider (come help me), which when you think about the distress signal, makes a lot of sense. When using mayday, the actual distress signal is repeated three times as "mayday, mayday, mayday" to avoid confusion with someone merely discussing a mayday signal.

US Navy air traffic controllers aboard the USS Iwo Jima

Just like the NATO Alphabet, there are several key terms and phrases used in radio transmissions, in particular by the military, mariners, and those in aviation and emergency services due to how much they rely on radio communication. The protocol for using particular code words that are more intelligible by radio transmission is known as a voice procedure and today we'll be going through a few of their origins.

Just like mayday, there is pan-pan which also comes from French. It's an Anglicisation of the French word panne, which can mean broken. Again, this is repeated to avoid confusion with messages that are not the distress signal itself. Pan-pan signals are less severe than mayday.

Securite, which is pronounced like the French word sécurité, is used for safety information.

Most of the other terms used come from English. Common words like yes and no are replaced with affirmative and negative. In aviation, affirm is preferred as otherwise both words end with -tive, which could lead to confusion.

Portuguese Naval ship Sagres

In addition to affirmative, words and expressions such as ten four, copy, and roger all confirm that a message has been well received, and wilco, a portmanteau of "will comply", means not only that the message has been received, but that any new orders will also be followed. Contrary to popular belief, roger and wilco are never used together, unless that is your name.

The terms over and out are also never used together, since over means that the speaker is finished sending and will be expecting a reply, while out means the speaker is finished sending and will not be expecting a reply because communications are finished.

Aside from all their practical uses, radio procedures can also be useful if you're playing "cops and robbers" or pretending to be army soldiers in the park.

If you know any more voice procedure terminology or expressions, leave them in the comments below complete with a definition!

Queen's Day: The Languages Of The Netherlands

The Dutch are famous for tulips...
Not to mention another plant.

Yesterday the Netherlands crowned a new king, its first in over 100 years. It was also Queen's Day in the Netherlands, and the coronation of Willem-Alexander being held on this date was no coincidence. As of next year though, Queen's Day, or Koninginnedag in Dutch, will be moved a few days forward to Willem-Alexander's birthday, the 27th April, and appropriately renamed to Koningsdag, which of course means King's Day.

In honour of the Dutch, we thought we'd look at the languages of the Netherlands. We won't be looking at Dutch however, since we will have a language profile for it in the coming weeks. Instead, we'll take a look at some of the lesser-known "native" languages of the Netherlands.

Limburgish

With roughly 825,000 speakers, Limburgish is the second most-spoken minority language in the Netherlands. The language has no official status in Belgium or Germany, where it is also spoken, but does hold regional language status in the Netherlands.

Due to political reasons, Limburgish was not granted any official status in Belgium because it met with resistance from Flemish groups due to fears that it would weaken their political power. The Dutch were much more relaxed about the situation. Well done!

West Frisian

The language of Friesland is a Germanic language like German, English and Dutch. There are around 350,000 speakers in the Netherlands and the language holds official status in the region of Friesland.

There are also speakers of the language in Germany, where it also holds an official status. In the Netherlands the language is regulated by the Fryske Academy, whereas in Germany there is no official regulatory body.

Frisian and English were once closely related and still remain so. The only living language more closely related to English is Scots.

The Netherlands is also home to large numbers of speakers of other languages, but as we like to feature languages in their native settings, we'll save those for our language profiles or country-specific posts!