The original post: /r/television by /u/circuitsandwires on 2026-04-10 15:59:21+00:00.
So people often criticise actors who do a terrible job of speaking another language in a TV show. A recent example being Frenchie in The Boys. However, being an English speaker and not knowing any other languages, it’s never really bothered me in the past. In fact I thought it was just pedants complaining about the accuracy of an actor trying to speak another language and that it doesn’t really matter.
Until now.
I’m watching Shinjuku Field Hospital on Netflix, a Japanese comedy/drama. It’s pretty good. but there’s one character whose whole thing is that she’s from Japanese parents but grew up in America and even served as a surgeon in the US Army. But her English… it’s terrible…and I don’t mean, bad accent or weird grammar, I mean her English is a garbled mess. The English subtitles stop when she speaks English and I genuinely can’t understand what she’s saying half the time. She clearly struggles with her Ls and Rs and every word sounds like she’s struggling to say it. Like physically struggling. It’s incredibly off-putting.
So I just want to say sorry for downplaying it in the past and I completely understand when other people complain about bad foreign language performances. I feel your pain.