What Do These Mean?

These phrases were written usually when I was either inebriated, intoxicated or just really nostalgic and thinking about my life. They don't mean anything, and they're not supposed too. My goal is to prove you can write something that seems deep without it actually having any real meaning behind it. If I start writing a sentence that makes sense, I immediately start over.

But hey, if they do hit home with you, great. If not, that's fine too. Most of the time they make people laugh, I always say that if these were written one hundred years ago, people would love them (Can't you just see Hemingway jot down his thoughts on the "eternal whisper"?). I have fun writing these, so let me know what you think :). I'll write more with time.

1. The spirit of the earth has yet to be achieved.
2. The eternal whisper transcends time.
3. A vida não é certa sem razão.
4. The meaning still wanders loosely.
5. Surfaces lie motionless when necessary.
6. The blue balloon is fading from my grasp.

PS - My personal favorite is #2, it was also the first one that popped into my mind. The whole sentence just came to me

out of nowhere.

To Dub or Not to Dub

One problem that most Canadians usually don’t have to deal with is an issue I’m all too familiar with: dubbed movies.

Growing up in Brazil, I remember always being skeptical about catching a flick with my friends because some of them insisted that reading subtitles was too much effort. Luckily, most of the time common sense prevailed and I didn’t have to watch a classic like Face Off in Portuguese.

Personally, I’ve grown accustomed to subtitles, so much so that I even turn on English subtitles to the Hollywood movies I watch, a habit many of my Canadian friends neither liked nor understood. However, since my return from Canada a few months back, I’ve noticed a trend that I’m not thrilled about. Slowly, but surely, dubbed movies are taking over subtitled English films. It used to be that only children’s films or big blockbusters were in Portuguese, but the demand for Portugese-dubbed films has increased in the last couple of years. According to Folha de São Paulo, a well respected newspaper in Brazil, 69 per cent of average moviegoers (who attend films once a month) prefer dubbed movies while 50 per cent of avid moviegoers (attending once a week) feel the same way.

This comes as a bit of a surprise to me, but the findings are understandable.

Looking at the movies that are currently showing at a nearby mall, almost half of them are in Portuguese. Movies which would rarely be dubbed in the past like Sherlock Holmes or Up in the Air, now are. Thankfully, both are available with subtitles as well. However, many great movies like Up and Wall-E are seldom offered in English, except for a couple of showings in an AMC-type theatre. It may not seem like a big deal, but after a while it becomes quite aggravating. People who want to see these movies end up resorting to piracy or downloading them off the Internet, which can always be tricky. I remember not being able to find any theatre in which Ratatouille was shown with subtitles, and ended up waiting for the DVD. With Up, as soon as I realized the pain it would be to find a showing of it in English, I just decided to download it off the Internet.

I’ve noticed that any time a movie comes out that isn’t a huge blockbuster or an indie movie, there won’t likely be any available screenings in English. With Avatar, I knew that 3D movies are never subtitled and figured that I was going to have to watch it dubbed. However, because James Cameron is the man and invented the technology that made it possible to insert subtitles in 3D, I was able to watch the epic movie the way it was intended to be watched.

Even though most of my friends prefer subtitles, I’ve come to realize that many people don’t because they’ve grown up with dubbed films. While talking with my girlfriend last week about teaching a friend how to swim, she used the mantra from Finding Nemo to “just keep swimming,” but in Portuguese. It sounded nothing like the original and it took me a couple of minutes to understand what she was talking about. Likewise, my cousin has complained numerous times that all of his friends growing up only knew Disney songs in Portuguese. Trust me, “Hakuna Matata” in Portuguese isn’t something you want to listen to.

That being said, I do understand the need for dubbed films. How can you expect a kid who is too young to read to understand something in a different language? You can’t. All I’m saying is offer both, always.

My brother never studied English in his life but speaks it fluently by emulating scenes from English movies. Watching films in their original language isn’t only better, it might teach you something.

http://www.theconcordian.com/to-dub-or-not-to-dub-a-film-language-debate-1.1110363