The first movie my wife ever saw in the original English version was The Bridges of Madison County. She was quite taken with the experience of hearing Clint Eastwood's real voice for the first time; until that point, she'd only heard Clint dubbed into Spanish, by a Spanish actor who probably also dubbed Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Hanks.
More movies would bring her more revelations: Jack Nicholson's real voice, Robert De Niro's real voice, and the real voices of a host of other Americans, right on down to Steve Urkel (American TV shows were dubbed into Spanish, too). For her, there was no comparing the English voice to the Spanish dubbing: The real English was far superior and far more satisfying.
(This preference extended to me; at the time, my Spanish must have sounded like a dub-job gone wrong, particularly when I made attempts at humor. She urged me to stick to my native English until further notice).
But not all countries in Europe dub their foreign-language movies; many countries keep the original English (or French or Chinese, or whatever the original language is) and merely put subtitles in their language at the bottom of the screen.
My wife and I would later meet many friends and colleagues from all over Europe, whose mastery of English seemed to follow a reliable pattern: Those who hailed from countries where American movies and TV shows were in "OV" (Euro-notation for "original version") would have near-native English pronunciation. Those whose American movies and TV shows were dubbed into the local language fared less well at English pronunciation. Our unofficial conclusion: Constantly hearing English on your TVs and movie screens will affect your English for the better.
Check out this fantastic color-coded map of Europe showing who dubs and who doesn't. Scandinavians and the Dutch are famous for their perfect English, and the map bears this out. France, Spain and Italy are big dubbers, and perfect American accents from natives of these countries are much harder to come across.
And lest you think crisp English perfection is geographical (i.e., a northern European phenomenon) and not the result of dubbing, witness the English of young Portuguese and Greeks, which is markedly better than that of their fellow Romance-language southern neighbors. Greece and Portugal don't dub their American movies and TV shows.
Germany is something of a special case: Germans are the most dedicated dubbers, but their English is usually quite good. But the Scandinavians and the Dutch are better. When your native tongue is Germanic (the case for said Germans, Scandinavians and Dutch), you have an advantage in pronouncing English because it's not such a departure from your own accent. So there's no reason (other than rampant dubbing) why Germans wouldn't sound as effortlessly and dashingly authentic in English as their neighbors to the north.
My wife's verdict: Spain better ditch the dubbing, pronto.
What's your verdict? Send over your thoughts and comments. C'mon.
