I remember when Blu-ray first came out. Being a language nerd the thing that thrilled me most was the fact that you were allegedly supposed to be able to watch it in any language you wanted. DVD was usually relegated to the boring French and Spanish options... yawn. Well, it turned out that Blu-ray, writ large, was more of the same, expect maybe with some Portuguese thrown in. Then there is Harry Potter. My 6-year old just started getting into Harry Potter so I bought the first one for 9 bucks on DVD. After she loved that I decided to get the Blu-ray versions of the sequels as it was only 4 dollars more. Lo and behold I look on the back to see what languages it would be in and much to my surprise I saw this beautiful list:
English, Spanish, French, Catalan, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Flemish, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish.
Now that is more like it! Dutch AND Flemish? No way. But sure enough... Now, that being said those are what is available for subtitles, but the audio option includes most of the aforementioned languages. So the lesson learned here is that ridiculous world-wide popularity can have its benefits, especially for language nerds who want to exercise their listening and/or reading skills. The only drawback is, of course, the fact that 10% of the dialogue consists of words like: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Muggle. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.
English, Spanish, French, Catalan, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Flemish, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Swedish.
Now that is more like it! Dutch AND Flemish? No way. But sure enough... Now, that being said those are what is available for subtitles, but the audio option includes most of the aforementioned languages. So the lesson learned here is that ridiculous world-wide popularity can have its benefits, especially for language nerds who want to exercise their listening and/or reading skills. The only drawback is, of course, the fact that 10% of the dialogue consists of words like: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, and Muggle. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.
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