Discussion on Javier and Francisco accent

[InLove_with_Chloe]

OK, I just wanted to drop by and complain that Javier and Francisco, two Mexican teens held as slaves on an American farm were speaking English amongst each other, even when alone ...
I am slightly offended as a non-native speaker.

I mean, c'mon, would it have killed anyone to read 3-4 lines of sub-titles...?

Javier seemed like a very bright kid, so I believe them that he learned his English while watching TV, so I have absolutely no problem with them speaking perfect, accent-free English well in general, of course... But I still I felt like complaining...

[GabbieW]

well InLove_with_Chloe i don't see the complaining since i'm mexican and i learned english by myself and watching TV, and i do know a lot of people here in my city who does speak accent-free english. so that's why i didn't see any weird thing w/ Javier and Francisco speaking flowed english.

I think this is bc of the influence that we have for being located geographically near of USA. (I say this bc i live 20 minutes away from USA border and it's only my opinion of course).:)

[InLove_with_Chloe]

Originally posted by GabbieW
well InLove_with_Chloe i don't see the complaining since i'm mexican and i learned english by myself and watching TV, and i do know a lot of people here in my city who does speak accent-free english. so that's why i didn't see any weird thing w/ Javier and Francisco speaking flowed english.

I think this is bc of the influence that we have for being located geographically near of USA. (I say this bc i live 20 minutes away from USA border and it's only my opinion of course).:)
Sorry, I may not have made my point well:
What bothered me was thet they spoke English TO EACH OTHER... Why would they do that...?
I mean, when I meet one of my compatriotes, then we speak our language, that's what one does, no...?
I have absolutely no prob with them speaking English well in general, of course.
:)


---
I edited it, I hope it's clearer now...

[GabbieW]

oh yeah it is clear now... i see your point well maybe as you said
3 or 4 lines of subtitles wouldn't kill anybody!:D

But who knows w/ sv right? and i have to admit that i did like and enjoyed this epi... there was hints of chlark and Clark was the leader of the show once again yay!!!;)

[InLove_with_Chloe]

Originally posted by GabbieW
i did like and enjoyed this epi... there was hints of chlark and Clark was the leader of the show once again yay!!!;)
I agree. I never thought I'd say that, but I think the latter was even more important than the former...
;)

[aqgalaxy]

InLove_with_Chloe,

I agree with you....I'm Italian and my first language is Italian and when I am at home I speak with my family in Italian, despite being born in the United States, So, I know what you meant and I agree with you.

[Ketchup]

Umm I agree with you completely. This bugged me a lot thruout the show. I STILL speak only Russian to my parents, and it's been almost 8 years now. This episode was pathetic, no matter which angle u look at it from...

[Ketchup]

"I think I've lost at least 20 IQ points from watching Smallville"

tell me about it

[ERIC524892]

I'd say you need to lose about 30 more IQ points to be able to write for the show. 50 more to write the Lexana scenes. 70 more to write a scene involving Jimmy saving the day with a radio.

[Davlok]

Wait until Lana aborts! :lol:

[Nerial]

Thank you for pointing that out!

One of my best friends is from Mexico, he's been speaking English since he was eight, and had been here for six years, and believe me, when I was around him and his friends, the best I got was maybe a little Spanglish. And, that's only when he was trying really hard to help me understand.

I mean, do they think the fans are stupid? Are we unable to read a few lines of subtitles???

[bookworm1999]

Well, I agree with all you, but everyone is different, so let me point something out.

1. Its a TV show, it's commercial TV, the less subtitles the better, for them.

2. The only one that spoke decent spanish was the old man by the tree, when one of the teens asked for help for the guy that fainted, well, my ears hurt.

3. When I moved here from Mexico, as soon as my sisters and I started to learn english we would speak to each other in english, to practice, and up until this day we only speak spanish when my parents or someone who doesn't speak english is present.

4. And last but not least, hoping against hope that they actually did some research on the matter there are states and cities outlawing even speaking another language besides english in public places, not to mention some bosses at work, they feel we might be telling them off without them knowing, so it would be realistic if that applied to the rancher as well.

[InLove_with_Chloe]

Originally posted by bookworm1999
4. And last but not least, hoping against hope that they actually did some research on the matter there are states and cities outlawing even speaking another language besides english in public places, not to mention some bosses at work, they feel we might be telling them off without them knowing, so it would be realistic if that applied to the rancher as well.
WHAAAAAT? In thee US you mean...?!?
Now that's just cruel...
:mad:

[bookworm1999]

Yes in the US, LOL, I guess there's a reason these news are only available through spanish channels, maybe to warn us!

[Lightning Flash]

The Writers didn't want subtitles, simple as that... there should've been Spanish, but oh well. And mom too, I know she wouldn't speak English to her son...

[SteveS]

Well, in truth, this episode was truly stupid and if I were the writer, I would be embarrassed to have this on my resume'. It appears to be written on roughly the 5th to 6th grade level of comprehension.

This is how shows get cancelled. Worthless even for filler.

[MidgardDragon]

[Edited]

[s_q]

[Edited]

[Nerial]

I'm just hope my friend and his family in Guadalajara don't get the CW! He was an illegal for six years, everyone around him knew he was an illegal, and nobody gave a rat's a$$. I'm talking about his friends, his customers, his employers, and his employees. Oh, and he didn't get deported--he left to be with his family last spring.

During the whole scene with the kid running like he was a fugititve, I was debating on laughing my butt off, or rolling my eyes. Yeah, we have rapes, robberies, and murders on a daily basis in our country, but the whole world stops to hunt down one little Mexican kid.

Uh, there are 12 million illegals in our country. They didn't just pop in yesterday.

[dave73085]

If Javier were a real Spanish speaker who grew up with his friend in Mexico, he would call him (at least to his face) Frahn-see-sco, with a Spanish accent, not Fran-sis-co.

[Ketchup]

Originally posted by bookworm1999
4. And last but not least, hoping against hope that they actually did some research on the matter there are states and cities outlawing even speaking another language besides english in public places, not to mention some bosses at work, they feel we might be telling them off without them knowing, so it would be realistic if that applied to the rancher as well.

Umm sorry, that's just... not true? The United States have no official language, NONE. If someone wanted to register their business and turn in all documents in Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese, whatever other language they feel like, they could. It is just deemed appropriate to use English since it's the most common language. Outlawing other languages in public places is a ridiculous notion that violates waaay too many federal laws (in other words, states and cities can't do jack). If you still don't believe me, answer this... a tourist comes from Germany to one of these so called "English only" states and says Auf Wiedersehen on the way out of a convenience store... do u really think the FBI is gonna bother arresting him? Deporting him? Gimme a break.

Now what could be true is that some employers hire/make sure their workers speak English at the work place. That's more or less understandable if it's a job involving a lot of customer interaction. But then again at the rate of current immigration from Mexico, many companies try to hire biliguals who could best explain/understand more customers.

[Honey45]

It was pretty obvious that most, if not all of the other slaves couldn't speak English.

It makes sense that the two were talking about their escape in English - the slave owners weren't around to hear, and if the other slaves heard them talking about the escape in Spanish, they might spill the beans to the boss.

[boogiebear]

Originally posted by bookworm1999


4. And last but not least, hoping against hope that they actually did some research on the matter there are states and cities outlawing even speaking another language besides english in public places, not to mention some bosses at work, they feel we might be telling them off without them knowing, so it would be realistic if that applied to the rancher as well.

I am from NC, and we have a healthy growing population of legal immigrants. Tobbacco and apples are major crops, and many of the workers that used to move around to where the next field which had to be picked, have decided to stay here in NC. We have many other working now for other companies. I personally love it.
For every place that has hotheads that want to blame other people for their problems, there are more that know that the US constitution gives us the freedom of speech. If a company wants to perform their business in English, it is there right, especially when who they deal with also speaks English. If you don't want to work there, you don't have to work there. A city can propose a law to arrest anyone speaking any other language but English, but I promise you that a very happy lawyer will make sure they have enough money to buy and sell that city. No one has the right to stop someone from saying what they like (Except fire in a theater but that is another subject) on an American street corner. If a town actually did enact that within their charter, I will be there as soon as I can be so I can sue the crap out of them.

[98chase]

Weird. My roommate is on the phone as I type this with one of his Indian friends. They are speaking English. When he calls his mom or dad, I only hear Indian every now and then. He speaks English 99% of the time, regardless of who he is talking to.
By the way, he was born and raised in India.

I see nothing wrong with the two of them speaking English.

Did y'all notice that there were some inconsistencies with the lines in the cornfields? That pissed me off.


Also, LOL at losing IQ points. Edit: I removed the remainder of that comment. I'm not really trying to get a warning and/or banned. :)

[Ballawjordan23]

I think we are making too much out of this episode. if you did not like that they mixed politics in an episode then do not watch. Simple right? They right the script however they want, if you want a better episode then right one your self. You can't down Smallville because you didn't like one episode which was not even bad.

[InLove_with_Chloe]

As the one who started this thread I just wanted to point out that this thread is not about politics. It is about lazy writers and lazy TV producers who think their audience is also too lazy to read 3, or 4 lines of subtitles. I simply didn't think that's an impossible task, even for a regular couch potato like me...

[Ballawjordan23]

How do you know the TV producers are lazy? Do you actually know them? They do all these special effects which take much more time than subtitles and they are lazy? If they did not want to subtitles for some reason then they did not want to? It's there decision. Some people like it some may not? O'well.

[maryjanewatson]

no. nononononono. no. no. don't even think about it. no. stop it. no.

I don't care how much a mexican watches american tv, there is no way they could learn english so well as to not have a mexican accent and speak with a perfect american accent and sound like a total gringo when speaking spanish. as a mexican myself, i have grown up around half my family being from mexico, and even after 26 years of living in the US, my dad (who ironically is also named Javier. crazy world, huh) still has an accent. he learned most of his english from watching american tv also. but he still has an accent. all my aunts and uncles from mexico still have accents. my cousins. family friends. all still have accents.

so ya. that was the most unbelievable episode of smallville. if someone who had only been in the united states for 3 weeks and spoke english that well, they would not need to hide from immigration/police. people would just assume that they were born and raised in america, because that is the only way they could speak accent-fre english and not be able to pronounce their spanish correctly. the only other possible way for this to be would be if the parents were from america, and moved to mexico, and didn't know or learn spanish, and had their child in mexico and he lived there until he was 15, then illegally went into the united states. that would be the only other way.

I think i have made my point. smallville is such crap this season. i don't know why i keep watching, but i do. i mean COME ON!! at least get a mexican who can SPEAK SPANISH. geez.

[TampaVille]

Originally posted by bookworm1999
Yes in the US, LOL, I guess there's a reason these news are only available through spanish channels, maybe to warn us!

What states are these? Where did you learn this? If this is true, I'm very surprised I have not heard about it. Please direct me to a source of this information.


Originally posted by InLove_with_Chloe
As the one who started this thread I just wanted to point out that this thread is not about politics. It is about lazy writers and lazy TV producers who think their audience is also too lazy to read 3, or 4 lines of subtitles. I simply didn't think that's an impossible task, even for a regular couch potato like me...

Everybody's quick to jump to the subtitle issue. There is another very good consideration the producers may have had in their decision to have the boys speaking English. Casting for a role like that can sometimes be tricky for a show, seeing as it is aired on a week to week basis. Add to their other criteria for the Javier and Francisco characters the ability to speak Spanish. For all we know, that would have ruled their choices down to virtually nobody.

Do I know the producers thought of this, or that this would be a legitimate problem? No, of course not. But it seems very plausible and could have been a factor in their decision. They may have sat down and discussed extensively whether or not to have the boys speaking in English, and we would not know.

So I just ask that everybody please give the producers the benefit of the doubt on this and other issues. Though it may look like they were "lazy," all we really know are the results (in this case, the two boys were speaking English). That could have been because the producers were lazy and didn't want to think about the Spanish option, it could be because they didn't think the audience would want to read the subtitles, it could have been due to my theory that it would have made casting unnecessarily difficult, or it could have been some other reason entirely that nobody has thought of on this thread yet. The simple truth is that the only thing we know for sure is that NONE of us knows what the real reason is. So discuss it here if you want, but don't act as if you know something that you simply cannot know, and then cast accusations accordingly.

[TerraMan]

now. let's not forget, the general demographics that SV is being marketed to are the below 20 years old, (that's why the show is not on NBC, ABC or CBS stations) so there could be an assumption that THAT particular age group are too lazy to read subtitles, unfortunately, if this was the case, TPTB maybe also underestimating the real demographics that watches their show. In a way, if this underestimation by TPTB is true, they may as well also assume that everyone that watches SV are not as intelligent as we would hope we are.

The characters Javier and Francisco would have more believability if TPTB had them speaking in spanish, with subtitles, IMHO.

[InLove_with_Chloe]

Originally posted by Ballawjordan23
How do you know the TV producers are lazy? Do you actually know them? They do all these special effects which take much more time than subtitles and they are lazy? If they did not want to subtitles for some reason then they did not want to?
Well, because they're lazy, that's why. Of course it's just my theory, but at least it's better than nothing...

[TampaVille]

I'd still very much like to hear more from bookworm about the supposed outlawing of foreign languages going on in several states. I suspect s/he is confused; I believe employers may be requiring their employees to speak only English at the workplace. When the majority of the workers there speak English, it would be difficult for some members to interract with others if they didn't speak English also. The reason this is not a bigger issue is not because Spanish speaking channels are warning him/her... it's because it's simply not a problem. It's also not a problem when employers in Miami or other areas with large Spanish speaking populations REQUIRE that their employees speak Spanish. As long as it has to do with their ability to perform, no problem. If employers were discriminating based on nation of origin or preferred language and it DID NOT otherwise interfere with their ability on the job, that would violate several equal opportunity and anti-discrimination laws put in place to protect minorities. So again, I would very much like to see the sources of the information he proposed.


More on the topic of Javier/Francisco, I agree that this is getting blown way out of proportion. There are several good in-show reasons why they'd be speaking English. There are several good out-of-show reasons why they would have been cast as English speakers and the dialogue would be in English. There are also good reasons in the opposite direction. The show's producers believed the reasons for English outweighed the ones for Spanish. I tend to disagree, but I see where they're coming from.

[smallvillerocks45]

I didn't really mind that Javier and Fransisco spoke perfect English. I could buy that they learned it from watching tv (especially if they started out young), but what bothered me was that their Spanish was awful - okay, grammatically it was fine, but they didn't even sound like native speakers. I'm half Mexican, and I would hope that I sound a least semi-fluent when I speak Spanish; I even know non-native speakers who speak better Spanish than they did. Javier and Fransisco, on the other hand, sounded like they learned their Spanish from tv, IMO.

However, I will will say this, I do recognize that everyone is different, everyone learns differently, and there are myriad factors that could have lead to their accents or lack there of. I know it's just a tv show, and that at the end of the day, I really enjoyed this episode...in hindsight it's not such a big deal, but what's a discussion board if not to post our questions, suggetions, or comments, right? So, here's my two cents.

[bookworm1999]

Oh goodness, I did not think my post would cause a political discussion, this is smallville, not the forum for political issues as someone already said, but since I am being asked to back the information I put out there, here are two links. There are a lot more out there, and as to how they plan on enforcing it, I think its mainly public places, like school, work, etc. And like I said in my original post, this is something statewide and maybe citywide, not national.

http://www.us-english.org/inc/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement

Sorry for any inconveniences, didn't mean to sound political.

[Kat_Halliwell]

Originally posted by smallvillerocks45
I didn't really mind that Javier and Fransisco spoke perfect English. I could buy that they learned it from watching tv (especially if they started out young), but what bothered me was that their Spanish was awful - okay, grammatically it was fine, but they didn't even sound like native speakers.
Exactly. If you want, I'm a good example that you can learn english from watching tv.
But would it have killed them to speak spanish a bit better? To me, they sounded more like americans who also speak spanish rather than spanish people who speak english.

But bottom line, it's not that biggy :)

[Another-One]

Guys, you gotta look at it like a Comic Book.

In comic books, most the time people speak another language it's printed in English for the reader.

On this episode they were in fact speaking spanish, BUT we heard it in English. :D

[thedarknight]

Its not that at all. You do know majority of the population speak English as their first language? This by having foreigner's speak English allows the viewer to connect to the character. Its not being racist or anything its just a way to make the characters more appealing.

[smallvillerocks45]

LoL, that's funny Another-One! :D

...and Kat_Halliwell, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thought their Spanish sounded, (for lack of a better phrase), not so native... :)

[maryjanewatson]

Originally posted by smallvillerocks45
LoL, that's funny Another-One! :D

...and Kat_Halliwell, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who thought their Spanish sounded, (for lack of a better phrase), not so native... :)
I thought so too! my post on the previous page tell all my feelings about their gringo-spanish and perfect english.

[Kat_Halliwell]

Javier's mom was a different thing tho. She did have a spanish accent even tho she was speaking english.
I think she was a lot more beliavable than the boys.

[Muse25]

Originally posted by Kat_Halliwell
Javier's mom was a different thing tho. She did have a spanish accent even tho she was speaking english.
I think she was a lot more beliavable than the boys.

Exactly! It didn't bother me they spoke English but why not with an accent especially according to the show they'd only been here a week. I can't believe that Javier picked up the English accent as well from watching tv (of course I could be wrong and I don't mean to sound insensitive as my post sounds).

[kirbylink]

This episode was awesome, if you just ignore the little inconsistencies with the spanish, you see it as it was meant to be seen. IMO this was supposed to be Clark (finally) finding something to fight for not just defend. Although, the episode could have begun Clarks aptitude to languages. I mean, c'mon, Superman speaks all sorts of languages, we could at least see the beginnings of that here.

[Kat_Halliwell]

Oh, I know. Despite some details here and there, I liked this epi :) I liked the fact that Clark got more screentime this time, and the fact that he did a lot by himself. Not super-hacker Chloe needed. That was cool.


Originally posted by Muse25
I can't believe that Javier picked up the English accent as well from watching tv (of course I could be wrong and I don't mean to sound insensitive as my post sounds).
I don't think you sounded insensitive :)
Like I said before, you can learn english from watching tv, I know that's mostly how I learned it. But not in a week, I've been watching american shows since I was a kid and it took me 10 years to get a good accent.

[smallvillerocks45]

Certainly, all accents aside, I really enjoyed this episode too. kirbylink, you make an interesting point...I thought Superman spoke other languages too. Hopefully, he keeps in touch with Javier and learns some Spanish, so he can use it next time he happens to interact with a Spanish speaker.

[Muse25]

Originally posted by Kat_Halliwell
Oh, I know. Despite some details here and there, I liked this epi :) I liked the fact that Clark got more screentime this time, and the fact that he did a lot by himself. Not super-hacker Chloe needed. That was cool.


I don't think you sounded insensitive :)
Like I said before, you can learn english from watching tv, I know that's mostly how I learned it. But not in a week, I've been watching american shows since I was a kid and it took me 10 years to get a good accent.

Thank you. I do believe one can learn English by watching tv but the accent...

Overall the episode wasn't bad just that little accent thing.

[Simba_Muffy]

Javier has only been in America for two months, and he was working as a slave! There's no way in hell someone can learn and speak perfect english within two months! Hell, how was he able to watch television, period, if Jed McNally kept them in the field day and night?:confused:

Terrible episode.