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Post by bongo on Oct 18, 2016 18:02:43 GMT
Dear all,
could someone recommend a musical which is suitbale for non native speakers (preferably without much singing...)? I once went to Avenue Q and Book of Mormon and could understand nearly everything whereas in Wicked I barely understood anything (maybe because the whole story wasn't my cup of tea).
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 18, 2016 18:10:31 GMT
Welcome to the forum bongo. Seeing as you have an affinity with percussion, how about Stomp!  |
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Post by anthony40 on Oct 18, 2016 18:12:18 GMT
(Maybe) Little Shop of Horrors as it's vey visual
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Post by bongo on Oct 18, 2016 18:29:33 GMT
Welcome to the forum bongo. Seeing as you have an affinity with percussion, how about Stomp! Thanks. I saw Stomp already. Quite nice but I don't need to see it once more. IIRC there was hardly a story just stomping around.... As I'm in London next week Little Shop of Horrors isn't an option. What about Kinky Boots? |
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 18, 2016 18:34:23 GMT
Welcome to the forum bongo. Seeing as you have an affinity with percussion, how about Stomp! Thanks. I saw Stomp already... IIRC there was hardly a story just stomping around.... Um... Ok. |
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Post by couldileaveyou on Oct 18, 2016 19:23:05 GMT
Phantom of the Opera is great for non native english speakers, because the plot is very thin and the lyrics are very stupid, so there's not much you can miss. But since you don't want a sung-through musical what about Mamma Mia? Maybe you are already familiar with the story because of the movie.
Yeah, Kinky Boots is not a bad idea.
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Post by bongo on Oct 18, 2016 19:42:49 GMT
As I've already seen Mamma Mia (liked it very much) I'll head for Kinky Boots. Couldn't be worse than Wicked...  |
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Post by couldileaveyou on Oct 18, 2016 19:53:36 GMT
Or maybe Matilda! The songs are pretty incidental, you would totally understand the show even without them.
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Post by Stasia on Oct 19, 2016 7:46:16 GMT
as a non-native English speaker myself I could recommend practically every musical. I don't see much difference between Wicked and Book of Mormon in terms of understanding the lyrics. So rely on your taste and your interest to composer/plot/actors/whatever.
I would probably recommend listening to the album before attending the show, as this may help with deciding whether you want to see it or not and also will help with understanding some song lyrics "in advance"
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 12:21:35 GMT
I'd say Stasia's English is WAY better than ours as natives, after all, she learned it properly.
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Post by kathryn on Oct 19, 2016 13:30:26 GMT
Hmm, my experience of (attempting) to learn a foreign language was that understanding actual speech was much harder than understanding the written word.
Accents could be a particular problem! Of course, it very much depends on the individual, but I would have thought the strong accents in Kinky Boots would be difficult for a non-native speaker.
Doesn't Wicked feature lots of strange, semi-made-up words? That might have contributed to the difficulty in understanding it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 14:35:34 GMT
Cats? Or Starlight Express? Both are pretty easy to follow IMHO
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Post by couldileaveyou on Oct 19, 2016 14:43:52 GMT
Cats? Or Starlight Express? Both are pretty easy to follow IMHO I think our friend is not asking a general question, but an advice for a show to see next week |
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Post by glasses on Oct 19, 2016 15:05:01 GMT
As a non-native English speaker myself I would recommend Matilda. When I went in July I could follow it very well. The lyrics are very fun and not very difficult to understand
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 16:12:34 GMT
Phantom of the Opera is great for non native english speakers, because the plot is very thin and the lyrics are very stupid, so there's not much you can miss. But since you don't want a sung-through musical what about Mamma Mia? Maybe you are already familiar with the story because of the movie. Yeah, Kinky Boots is not a bad idea. I'm not sure which bit or bits of this post has been "liked" by three different posters-perhaps it's the suggestion of Mamma Mia or Kinky Boots... I find it difficult to accept that Charles Hart's lyrics (or any added by Richard Stilgoe) for The Phantom of the Opera are "very stupid". |
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Post by viserys on Oct 19, 2016 17:03:31 GMT
Hmm, my experience of (attempting) to learn a foreign language was that understanding actual speech was much harder than understanding the written word. Accents could be a particular problem! Of course, it very much depends on the individual, but I would have thought the strong accents in Kinky Boots would be difficult for a non-native speaker. Doesn't Wicked feature lots of strange, semi-made-up words? That might have contributed to the difficulty in understanding it. As a foreigner I can confirm that accents are a nightmare - both on stage and when meeting "normal" people. I once spent two hours in the company of a Scottish person who chattered away at me and I didn't understand a single word. Same on stage, when I can't even ask people to speak slower. Personally I rather see a musical which much singing even if I don't understand a word than a musical with long spoken dialogues which I find hard to follow. I think the biggest problem is the lack of actual conversation training. I can read thick French books and understand stuff on television decently enough but I can't hold a simple conversation with a native speaker because I'm absolutely not used to it. It's even worse here in Germany where everything is dubbed to death into German and people have very little exposure to spoken foreign languages, which I've found ways to work around... |
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Post by viserys on Oct 19, 2016 17:41:05 GMT
everything is dubbed to death into German and people have very little exposure to spoken foreign languages, Dubbing drives me mad, too viserys. Give me subtitles every time. I particularly hate it on the news, as I want to hear the inflection used to help me understand how much the speaker cares about the topic. Don't get me started on that subject, it drives me nuts. For example cinema reviewers praising "Michael Fassbender doing Macbeth" (as a randon example) and I'm thinking "well, how can they even tell, they don't HEAR him, they hear a German speaker reciting Shakespeare, ffs" Or the godawful mish-mash of German and English in stuff like Moulin Rouge where spoken dialogue and song lyrics are blended together carefully. Foreign sitcoms rarely ever do well in Germany because all the puns fall flat on their face in a dubbed version. Luckily I live in driving distance to a Dutch cinema, so I can watch things un-ruined by dubbing there. The day they take the BBC iPlayer from me I'll be in deep mourning... or packing my bags to move over. (OK, I stop now) |
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Post by Anniek on Oct 20, 2016 9:48:04 GMT
If you could understand Avenue Q and Book of Mormon, I see no problem in seeing anything your interested in to see.
Yeah maybe Hamilton would be quite hard, but even native speakers don't get the full lyrics for the first time.
But, I would recommend The Bodyguard, beautiful or Motown for you
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Post by bongo on Oct 27, 2016 21:16:05 GMT
I eventually went to Kinky Boots. Hilarious and definitely a musical for non native speakers.
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Post by showgirl on Oct 28, 2016 3:44:30 GMT
Yesterday at This Little Life Of Mine at the Park Theatre 90 (a show which, btw, I wholeheartedly recommend to lovers of musicals and supporters of new work), there were 2 German ladies next to me. Their English must have been pretty good to understand the lyrics as some of those were imo quite subtle. On the other hand, even if that wasn't the case, maybe some people just enjoy shows even if they can't fully understand the dialogue/lyrics?
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