There’s something about Sense8 that you will only notice if you are actually familiar with all/most of the original languages that should be used and that’s the way the narrative is written is completely based in the original language. I have seen a couple of post about how Lito or Sun’s dialogues were weird or too artificial and that’s because it’s a direct translation of their natural speech.
It’s probably less strong in Lito because he lives in a world of Soap Operas, he lives and breath dramatic characters so his character is overdramatic and fake (something he totally owns and accepts) but when you listen to Sun, especially pre-jail Sun, you can see that her English is a direct translation of her Korean. The way the sentences are constructed, the emphasis and tone… she is not a Korean woman living an American life, she is a Korean woman living a Korean life in Seoul with the not-so-uncommon problems in the Korean chaebol sector. If you know a lil bit of Korean you are able to translate every single one of her sentences to Korean and they look authentic, the same way Lito’s sentences half the time would work way better in Spanish that they do in English.
(Edit: several rebloggers have confirmed that, indeed, Wolfgang also talks a translated German, which only confirms the theory. All of this also explains the fact that every single actor comes with their original accent, they don’t try to mimic American/British accent but they have kept the accent they would have if they were talking in their original language and we were only listening to their English because we are connected with the Sensates. Sense8 tries to turn the viewer into another Sensate, in some sort of Jonas. I would very much appreciate if someone can shed some light about the Swahili and the Hindi, though)
(Edit2: Thanks to r-ed we have confirmation that Kala’s English is also a translation from the original Hindi. As it happens with Korean, and probably Swahili too, these languages’ structure are pretty different from English, while German and Spanish have more similarities structure-wise) so the translation has been enriched to be understandable, but the basis of the Hindi language as well the accent has been respected. As I commented on an earlier post, the writers have understood that language/accent is part of the characters, but adapting their language to English they would have erased this side of them that is as important as their cultural inheritance, so it’s important that they only translated the language into a more understandable language, considering they interact with each other in a mental wave length, making it possible for each one to understand the other without the need to use the same physical language).
Michael, Lana and Andy have done an amazing research work and even though I’d be forever happy to see them talk more in their own languages I am so satisfied with the way the have handled the language issue.
(via fireflyca)
