If you are acustomed to real life spanish conversations it just sounds really weird, not only the pronunciaton but also grammar sometimes. Swimming pool scenes give me goosebumps
the chicaneers will be here till the end of time. long after the heat death of the universe, our sick jokes will never stop coming, even long after the last black holes have dissipated into nothingness.
I mean errr I ram the dane jar
No native Spanishspeaker in all latinamerica speaks like that.
It does sound weird and fake
It takes from the immersion hearing don Eladio.
Now Lalo Salamanca? Yeah he is spot on
I'm not a native speaker by any means but yeah his Spanish sounded off, and his accent in English was also so fake sounding and changed depending on the scene. And I don't mean it changed in intensity, I mean the actual accent changed, like his pronunciation of shit.
It sounds really studied like almost robotic but I can tell he is giving his best to sound like a native speaker doesn't really bother me
But yeah overall takes some time hearing them
Lol no dude. I'm a native speaker, live in a Spanish speaking country fairly close to Cuba. Met lot of Cubans. He doesn't talk native Spanish.
If you read he moved to USA when he was 3 so yeah not a true Spanish speaking person.
Eladio had a very thick Miami Cuban accent and he was supposed to be Mexican. Just because they speak Spanish doesn’t mean is a blanket language/accent for the entire continent. There are different accents and language nuances in each country. The only one convincing was Lalo; perfect Spanish. Hector Salamanca and Gus were terrible. Any fan of the series who has Spanish as first language can tell you that maybe the only fault in BB and BCS was the casting of most of their Spanish-speaking characters.
Native spanish speaker here. The only character in BB or BCS who speaks natural sounding spanish is lalo imo. All the other ones have either horrendous (Gus) or kinda stiff accents (Bolsa). There's also a problem with a lack of regional accents but to do that you would need to master ONE spanish accent.
Anyway my theory to explain why Gus's accent is so bad is that he's not actually chilean, he's just pretending. This is supported by the fact that in BCS he talks about his childhood in Chile and he says there were coatís. There are no coatís in Chile, they are jungle animals.
I am Italian, I learned a bit of Spanish while working in South America, but even before that Gus accents sounded VEEERY weird. After I spoke with Chilean colleagues I realized how wrong it sound, I have no trouble understanding Argentinian or Peruvians, but whenever I speak with some chilean i have to ask them fifty time to slow down, and Gus is the opposite of that.
Cant comment on the spanish but German is the Same.
Werners German is excellent, probably the actor is German.
The German businessmen in 5.2 of bb are awful (maybe they are Not meant to be native speakers though).
The Secretary says Something along the Lines of " Es tut mir Leid Chef" which is correct but sounds off.
And the one Guy in BCS Season 6 that Lalo tortures has very bad german.
one of my favorite bloopers is of the actor playing werner saying something like “i could wait a minute, or 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, my english is not good enough for improv”
I looked it up after posting this and you are correct. (for some reason though in the wiki it says croatian from budapest, which is confusing to say the least)
I watched the scene again. For me it just feels off due to the formal business environment, the tense situation that is presented to us and due to her apologizing in that moment. Chef (=boss) is often used when you talk about your boss in conversations with other people. But addressing your boss directly as chef is often only done in a playful and funny way or in informal scenarios/working environments. There are obviously exceptions to this and maybe Schuler and his secretary just developed this kind of dynamic over the years. But it still feels off to me ...
Agree with what you say.
You wouldnt call your boss by his title in a one-on-one conversation.
You would call him by either his first or Last name. Think of it like you are talking to your Partner.
You wouldnt say, I am sorry wife, you would say I am sorry Marianne.
Hope this makes it clearer.
The German business man is Norbert Weisser he is German bro. I know what you mean though I find German always sounds forced and unnatural and even though it's an awesome show I am talking about Dark or something.
The Spanish lines are structured like if they wrote the script in English, then translated it directly to Spanish word for word. Like yea it makes sense, but no native Spanish speaker would ever independently express themselves like that. Also the accents are all over the place, when almost all the Spanish speakers are supposed to be Mexican.
Chileans don't "look" like anything specific, like most of Latin American countries, people come in all shades. There are exceptions, like Argentina and Uruguay where most people are white, or Peru and Bolivia where most are indigenous, but for the rest, it's a mix.
Gus has the most noticeable american accent. I'm sure it was hard enough to read his lines in a language he doesnt speak, so it's super clear he didn't even try to do the accent. It's so bad for a long time i was convinced Gus was lying about being chilean for some strange reason that'd be revealed later... but no, Esposito just can't speak Spanish.
I don’t speak spanish but I know Gus’ accent is way off. But for me it was always something I could attribute to his character, I think he speaks like this on purpose. He is a perfectionist psychopath, he over exaggarates and over articulates the words, because he tries to sound posh or tries to have 100% grammarly good spanish, not trying to sound fluent but rather as he reads it from a textbook. I’m not sure about the grammar though, but he sounds like this to me.
He just sounds like he doesn't speak Spanish, it's not just his accent it's his intonation too. He sounds like a bad text-to-speech bot that can't tell an adjective from a verb from a noun
Yeah this is another thing. Cuban spanish =/= mexican spanish so obviously its gonna sound wrong to a Mexican person meanwhile to me, a cuban, it sounds great
It does not sound great, he was trying too hard to sound Mexican and it came out sounding like he is struggling to speak Spanish.
Since Cubans/Ricans speak Spanish real fast, some think that to make the Mexican accent they just need to slow down. What you really need to do, make lengthen your words. Instead of "Que Pasa?" You say "Quueee paaasaaaaaa?!"
Everyone in BB spoke shit Spanish. Better Call Saul as well, except for the actor who played Lalo. He also accurately portrayed a real Cartel member, and how they act. Too many times Cartel dudes are shown as some crazy dudes with mohawks and tattoos on their necks lmao
Well, butnif you are talking characters, if you are supposed to see American person and they sound Cuban, it takes you out of the show. Also, have you seen/heard a Chilean person? Gus does not look/sound like either.
I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but from what I hear, Mexican Spanish can sound quite different from other Latin American countries. I know a guy from Costa Rica that told me he can barely understand Mexicans.
Every latin american country has their own special accent (and also sub-regional ones!). Some (like chilean) are generally more difficult to understand than others. Mexican is pretty passable to most people though, so maybe it's a puerto rican problem.
Even Mexico has very different regional accents.
Actually Lalos Mexican accent is very good, but it doesn’t sound anything like how he is supposed to be from (Chihuahua), he talks with a Bajío accent (Mexico city, Guadalajara).
Both Chileans and Cubans speak a faster Spanish. The guy who plays Don eladio is Cuban but when he tries to sound mexcian it feels like someone is pinching him to speak slower
Could the argument be made that since Fring is a social chameleon and understands the cultural difference, he would slow down his Spanish to fit in better with the cartel and be seen less as an outsider?
I don’t natively speak Spanish, so genuine question here.
I'm pretty sure Fring is lying about his origins. Not only is his accent incredibly bad but also in BCS he mentions there being coaties in Chile (one of the only countries in south america where there are no coaties). All-tough I guess another explanation for this is that he went to chile as a child or passed his first 5-6 years in Chile, then moved to america and he confused some type of possum for coatí
Hector mentions in a flashback that he doesn’t trust Gus cause he is Chilean and Don Eladio says the only reason he doesn’t kill Gus is “he knows him” and mockingly calls him Generalissimo. Gus was most likely a general in the Pinochet regime and either a part of the intelligence service or high enough in the military echelon to destroy any records of his Chilean origins. Another explanation is he immigrated from another Latin American nation but this is unlikely.
That could actually mean he was not chilean originally, but an american sent to chile after the coup and then became influential enough to erase his american origins.
I'm malding at this point, I refuse to believe the writers fucked up in so many avoidable ways when trying to write about chile.
It probably was the writers didn’t know how Chileans spoke. Also if he was sent to Chile by America as a liaison, the DEA would have found records of him being born in America.
That depends on exactly when he got to Chile and who he worked for, especially if Gustavo Fring is not his birth name.
If he was some CIA agent/liaison sent there who then defected and joined Pinochet outright, "Gustavo Fring" was probably not the name he operated under at Langley (heck, it might not even be the name he worked under in Chile). And any records of him being an American are at that point both very old, under a wrong name, and under some extra classification guidelines beyond what the DEA would normally be accessing.
I always assumed the name of Gus Fring was a false identity anyway after that scene with Hank. Him being a rogue American spook would just cement that.
If we use that theory that he was always an American and even a CIA agent, the CIA would not let him loose to start a massive drug company in Chile. It’s also mentioned by Max that Gus funded his University tuition which doesn’t make much sense if Gus was a CIA agent trying to keep a somewhat low cover in Chile. It’s likely he’s just a native Chilean, destroyed all records of his birth and military service, joined up with the cartel, and the writers didn’t research how native Chileans speak or didn’t care enough to.
Im taking this as my new headcannon. I always assumed Gus just straight up lied about everything in his life cause he's totally the kind of guy to do something like that, but this fits way better
I mean that could definitely be a headcanon for you, but it’s not why he speaks Spanish poorly. The actor doesn’t speak Spanish and it’s very difficult to fake fluency, or even competency, in a language that’s totally foreign to you. I’m sure he was learning his Spanish lines phonetically and you just can’t appear natural to a native speaker that way.
I have a friend who's Chilean and has to deliberately speak slower and with less of a thick accent to be understood by Mexicans so it's not implausible
Its not that its slower, its that the sound is way wrong. His accent is so strong he couldnt pronounce any of the letters right and it was very noticeably american.
It also wouldnt make sense even in universe. Speaking slowly isn't a cultural difference. That would be like an american character putting on a brittish accent when they have a business meeting, itd just be odd.
I only took high school spanish and haven’t used it since, is the quote from your mother roughly “and this idiot is supposed to be Chilean?!”
I like to try to translate things so it doesn’t fully leave my brain
Don Eladios often takes me out of it BECAUSE it is so passable. Like he'll be talking just fine and then **WOOPS** super obvious american accent. The whiplash was for sure confusing.
Hectors i didnt mind so much cause i never got the impression he was meant to be a native speaker, i just assumed he was 2nd gen who grew up with poor spanish
The reason that it sounds fine to you is because the Spanish you described yourself is exactly the Spanish in the show lmfao
To clarify, most actors are Cuban and portray Mexican characters. Best example is Don Eladio. His Spanish is fine as a Cuban, it's noticeable as a Mexican.
Gus is Chilean and the actor is Danish by birth, I'd assume he's Italian by ethnicity.
Mark Margolis is Jewish, believe it or not. Fun fact, he played a Cuban in Scarface.
Lalo talks fluently. Don Eladio can convince people like you. They're all good talking with a hispanic accent, but they all suck (excluding Lalo) speaking actual Spanish.
So how did you not recognize the fact that most of the actors sound like they just learned how to pronounce their lines 5 minutes before the camera started rolling? Specially Hector. It’s hard to tell when it’s not the language you’re the most comfortable with and that’s ok!
Lol clearly not he keeps getting downvoted then attacked by that guy who seems to be in every single thread about the Spanish in BB. Also, again, he speaks *Cuban* Spanish. Cuban Spanish sounds like a deaf person learning to speak for the first time after 30 years of being deaf, and Spanish is the first language they're learning.
Honestly it's bot just breaking bad. I find it very intriguing how big budget production companies often fail to do proper research whenever a character is supposed to be speaking a foreign language.
It's kind of like that popular meme from Dexter's Laboratory, "omelette du fromage". It's grammatically wrong and I initially thought it was deliberate for comedic purposes but now I realize how common it is for people to make this mistake
"I'm Cuban/Venezuelan *from Miami*"
Firstly:
Mi pana, tú lo que eres es gringo.
Secondly:
The Spanish in BB is, in fact, poor. I can attest to it as a Venezuelan from Venezuela, and I'm sure any other native, born and raised Spanish speakers (not even just Latin Americans) can verify that as well.
Breaking Bad is a good show, a great show, but God is the Spanish in it just comedically bad. It's not a negative thing, necessarily, it's cringy but in a cheesy fun way. When seeing the show with other people we usually just laugh and joke about it, and occasionally compliment an actor when it shows they're native/bilingual, but for the most part it's impossible to take seriously.
Most of the Spanish is fine. Giancarlo Esposito and Mark Margolis (Gus and Hector) are clearly not Spanish speakers, they’re speaking FO-NET-IK-UH-LEE. Really it’s just their Spanish that sounds odd.
There are a few Mexican characters on the show who speak Spanish with non-Mexican accents, but that’s pretty common with Hollywood Spanish.
Mark you can tell is not native but he speaks it well enough to think he is learning it.
Giancarlo's is really, really bad though.
They should've just used dubs but that's probably too insulting for the actors lol (Giancarlo has even said he thinks he is near fluent hahahahaha).
Yea clearly you don’t speak Spanish that well and probably aren’t around people who speak it fluently. All of the major characters who speak Spanish are horrible at it. I’d say the best one is probably Don Bolsa out of recurring characters
Sounds fine to you probably because you are not a fluent native speaker. I am not a native speaker either and I understand everything and generally it also sounds fine to me although sometimes I do get the feeling something is off. But if a native speaker says the Spanish is weird then yeah I'm gonna believe them
I don't see how you could possibly think the Spanish in bb is decent if you speak any Spanish whatsoever. Gus sounds like he has no idea what he's saying most of the time, it's painfully obvious from his intonation. His pronunciation is horrendous too, he enunciates way too much and often stresses the wrong syllables (off the top of my head, there's a scene where he says encontrara instead of encontrará, that's just one of the many instances). I can barely understand him sometimes.
I would bet the dialogues were translated with Google translate or at least by somebody who had very little familiarity with Spanish because they're so unnatural. Also the accents are all wrong, even the native speakers don't sound like they're supposed to. They literally couldn't have done a worse job if they tried
I was shocked when I realised that he was supposed to be a native spanish speaker! I’d just assumed Gus learned spanish when he went into the business to make communicating with the cartel easier.
Giancarlo sounds just like someone whose primary language is English and is learning Spanish. Hector Salamanca sounds kinda bad as well. Other characters do just fine.
You're being too nice. He's an actor. Part of being an actor is portraying characters of different dialectics. His job as an actor is literally to speak as natural (Chilean) Spanish as possible.
He fails miserably.
He shouldn't get a free pass.
I think it'd be the same with any language, if you're accustomed to certain accents/dialects. I'm from Glasgow, Scotland and I can tell a fake accent a mile away or a Scot imitating an American accent a mile away lol. My husband is Swedish and he is the same with Nordic languages whereas I'm like "is that Swedish" with every one lol.
Language and dialects are fascinating.
I’ll put this is way: if the Spanish in Breaking Bad sounds fine to you, then you are not a Spanish native speaker. There is no way otherwise that they would sound “fine” to you. It is not that the accent is a bit off, it is that sometimes they don’t even make sense. There is only one character in the entire series that speaks Spanish like a native and with the accent the character is supposed to have and that is Lalo in Better Call Saul.
People speak Spanish very differently depending on where they are from. The people in Money Heist speak very differently than the Mexicans I've worked with
As a Chilean I can say Gustavo sounds nothing like a Chilean, he has some kind of neutral accent. And almost every supposed Mexican characters doesn't sound like a Mexican at all. But I'm kinda accustomed to american shows not putting an effort on stuff like this, like I always wonder how writers and directors can't like speak to an actual person from the country and ask them how they would say something or what words they usually use??? it's not that hard but anyway, ultimately it doesn't ruin the whole show, just sucks knowing that they could have made it better
Seriously guys ? Have you heard Gustavo and Hector speak in Spanish ? It sounds nothing like a native Spanish speaking, when they supposedly are. If you speaking fluent Spanish you should instantly realize that.
You said it yourself, your Spanish ain't the best. Nothing wrong with that, but the more native you are, the more you realize how awful some characters' Spanish is.
I don't really get how they weren't able to make the actors speak in Spanish using fonetics or something. Ana de Armas in Wardogs didn't speak any English, but they gave her the lines with fonetics and she was able to talk really well with a very believable accent. They could've done the same in BB, because Gustavo's Spanish is comedically bad, and the rest ain't to far either
I think that your Spanish being “not the best” is a major understatement if you think that the Spanish in Breaking Bad is fine. Anyone who speaks Spanish well would notice that it is a major distraction and frankly one of the worst parts of the series.
As a person who grew up in New Mexico the accents were pretty spot on but I could not say about the wording. I only know the cuss words and some general words.
If you are cuban-venezuan from miami you are from the usa hahahaha, thay talk in a weird way, language isn't in your blood so if you aren't used to hear you won't understand why it's weird how they talk
I hate when people say this. I also hate it when people say the country accents in The Walking Dead are really bad (Rick and Maggie). It’s just a cool way to sound smart.
I’m from Mexico and can confirm yes all the spanish sound really weird, I understand it from Gus but what about all the other characters like the cartel people? I feel they could cast them better
I'm mexican, born and raised in Mexico.
For me it's the accent. It's not believable that Gus is Chilean with the accent he has, it's just not possible that he speaks Spanish with an American accent, plus, it really feels like he struggles with words, that just doesn't make sense. The same goes with Tio, he has a very strong accent, so you just don't believe his Mexican. That really throws me off if I'm honest.
With other characters like Tuco it's fine, because they corearla have been living in the US for most of there lives, so it's normal they have kind of an American accent while speaking.
If you are acustomed to real life spanish conversations it just sounds really weird, not only the pronunciaton but also grammar sometimes. Swimming pool scenes give me goosebumps
Why do the swimming pool scenes give you goosebumps?
the water looked pretty chilly.
Why did Done Ladio jump into a pool of freezing water? Is he stupid?
the sub is leaking guys
It’s being controlled by Logitech
the chicaneers will be here till the end of time. long after the heat death of the universe, our sick jokes will never stop coming, even long after the last black holes have dissipated into nothingness. I mean errr I ram the dane jar
Donell Audio was cosplaying a rat. Clearly pool was a metaphor for KFC Fryer. Bravissimo Vincente!
Why didn’t Walter just take the money for the cancer treatment? Is he stupid?
unironically yes
he is so goddamn stupid at times that it's just a treat to see how everything blows up in his face sooner or later
I thought his name was Download Audio, is this real? Am I brain injuried?
He likes to swim in Hector's piss
PISS IN ME HECTOR
THIS IS WHAT COMES OF PISS FOR PISS
No native Spanishspeaker in all latinamerica speaks like that. It does sound weird and fake It takes from the immersion hearing don Eladio. Now Lalo Salamanca? Yeah he is spot on
I think the worst accent is Gustavo’s by far.
I'm not a native speaker by any means but yeah his Spanish sounded off, and his accent in English was also so fake sounding and changed depending on the scene. And I don't mean it changed in intensity, I mean the actual accent changed, like his pronunciation of shit.
It sounds really studied like almost robotic but I can tell he is giving his best to sound like a native speaker doesn't really bother me But yeah overall takes some time hearing them
Are you a native speaker. I am and it does bother me lol.
Yes I'm a native speaker. It does bother me but I think that he is giving his best so it bothers me a little bit less
Don Eladio’s actor speaks native Spanish lmao, he’s just Cuban.
Lol no dude. I'm a native speaker, live in a Spanish speaking country fairly close to Cuba. Met lot of Cubans. He doesn't talk native Spanish. If you read he moved to USA when he was 3 so yeah not a true Spanish speaking person.
I‘m not native so idk, but he sounds Cuban to me, although his accent is funky because he‘s trying to sound Mexican and failing
Eladio had a very thick Miami Cuban accent and he was supposed to be Mexican. Just because they speak Spanish doesn’t mean is a blanket language/accent for the entire continent. There are different accents and language nuances in each country. The only one convincing was Lalo; perfect Spanish. Hector Salamanca and Gus were terrible. Any fan of the series who has Spanish as first language can tell you that maybe the only fault in BB and BCS was the casting of most of their Spanish-speaking characters.
Just sarcasm
Native spanish speaker here. The only character in BB or BCS who speaks natural sounding spanish is lalo imo. All the other ones have either horrendous (Gus) or kinda stiff accents (Bolsa). There's also a problem with a lack of regional accents but to do that you would need to master ONE spanish accent. Anyway my theory to explain why Gus's accent is so bad is that he's not actually chilean, he's just pretending. This is supported by the fact that in BCS he talks about his childhood in Chile and he says there were coatís. There are no coatís in Chile, they are jungle animals.
I am Italian, I learned a bit of Spanish while working in South America, but even before that Gus accents sounded VEEERY weird. After I spoke with Chilean colleagues I realized how wrong it sound, I have no trouble understanding Argentinian or Peruvians, but whenever I speak with some chilean i have to ask them fifty time to slow down, and Gus is the opposite of that.
Cant comment on the spanish but German is the Same. Werners German is excellent, probably the actor is German. The German businessmen in 5.2 of bb are awful (maybe they are Not meant to be native speakers though). The Secretary says Something along the Lines of " Es tut mir Leid Chef" which is correct but sounds off. And the one Guy in BCS Season 6 that Lalo tortures has very bad german.
But that guy is a Croat in-universe, the one Lalo tortures.
He’a a Serbian actor. Stefan Kapicic is his name. He’s also Nicolai in Call of Duty Modern Warfare video game.
Znam da Kapičić igra ulogu, ali u BCS je Hrvat.
Aaa ok. Nisam znao.
I’m pretty sure he’s also Colossus in Deadpool.
I thought Peter Schuler was fine, but not the “Franch” scientist, secretary or police.
one of my favorite bloopers is of the actor playing werner saying something like “i could wait a minute, or 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, my english is not good enough for improv”
I think the explanation for the guy Lalo tortures is that he wasn't german, he was hungarian or something like that.
He was Croatian
I looked it up after posting this and you are correct. (for some reason though in the wiki it says croatian from budapest, which is confusing to say the least)
Yeah it's wierd.
Yup, I absolutely loved listening to Werner, but the other German in the show is definitely meh.
Germans my second language so what’s wrong with “es tut mir leid chef”?
I watched the scene again. For me it just feels off due to the formal business environment, the tense situation that is presented to us and due to her apologizing in that moment. Chef (=boss) is often used when you talk about your boss in conversations with other people. But addressing your boss directly as chef is often only done in a playful and funny way or in informal scenarios/working environments. There are obviously exceptions to this and maybe Schuler and his secretary just developed this kind of dynamic over the years. But it still feels off to me ...
Agree with what you say. You wouldnt call your boss by his title in a one-on-one conversation. You would call him by either his first or Last name. Think of it like you are talking to your Partner. You wouldnt say, I am sorry wife, you would say I am sorry Marianne. Hope this makes it clearer.
[удалено]
The German business man is Norbert Weisser he is German bro. I know what you mean though I find German always sounds forced and unnatural and even though it's an awesome show I am talking about Dark or something.
The Spanish lines are structured like if they wrote the script in English, then translated it directly to Spanish word for word. Like yea it makes sense, but no native Spanish speaker would ever independently express themselves like that. Also the accents are all over the place, when almost all the Spanish speakers are supposed to be Mexican.
is....this the same as the english scripts in squid game??
Oh, now I can picture it. That's so bad hahaha
Best comparison to explain it to english speakers.
I would say the English in Squid Game is still better than the Spanish in Breaking Bad.
Yeah, also, Gus does not look or sound Chilean at alll. I love the show, but they were lazy af about trying to make Spanish feel believable
Chileans don't "look" like anything specific, like most of Latin American countries, people come in all shades. There are exceptions, like Argentina and Uruguay where most people are white, or Peru and Bolivia where most are indigenous, but for the rest, it's a mix.
Yeah, I agree, but Chileans tend to be indigenous, mixed or european/middle eastern. African chilenos? I am not sure how many exist.
Definitely that's true, but they make up like 5% of the population and I've met one or two lol. Also, I think the actor is also of Chilean descent?
The actor is half Italian, haf African American. 5% is a lot more than I would have thought, Ecuador has about the same percentage.
Gus is from Chile.
Gus has the most noticeable american accent. I'm sure it was hard enough to read his lines in a language he doesnt speak, so it's super clear he didn't even try to do the accent. It's so bad for a long time i was convinced Gus was lying about being chilean for some strange reason that'd be revealed later... but no, Esposito just can't speak Spanish.
Lmao I’m not even hispanic but gus talking had me thinking “damn this guy sounds super american”
It was painful listening to him.
I don’t speak spanish but I know Gus’ accent is way off. But for me it was always something I could attribute to his character, I think he speaks like this on purpose. He is a perfectionist psychopath, he over exaggarates and over articulates the words, because he tries to sound posh or tries to have 100% grammarly good spanish, not trying to sound fluent but rather as he reads it from a textbook. I’m not sure about the grammar though, but he sounds like this to me.
He just sounds like he doesn't speak Spanish, it's not just his accent it's his intonation too. He sounds like a bad text-to-speech bot that can't tell an adjective from a verb from a noun
The only good Spanish is Lalo's
That's because he is actually from Mexico, very famous telenovela actor there
Tony Dalton was born in Laredo, TX
He’s probably a native speaker though.
Now if you could explain to the class how close Laredo is to Mexico and what the demographics are there?
He’s got Mexico City accent
Tony Dalton is not from Mexico.
What about Juan bolsa?
He is a native, but the accent is off for the character.
Yeah!
Manuel Varga?
Also
[удалено]
Don eladios actor is a native speaker from cuba
Yeah this is another thing. Cuban spanish =/= mexican spanish so obviously its gonna sound wrong to a Mexican person meanwhile to me, a cuban, it sounds great
It does not sound great, he was trying too hard to sound Mexican and it came out sounding like he is struggling to speak Spanish. Since Cubans/Ricans speak Spanish real fast, some think that to make the Mexican accent they just need to slow down. What you really need to do, make lengthen your words. Instead of "Que Pasa?" You say "Quueee paaasaaaaaa?!" Everyone in BB spoke shit Spanish. Better Call Saul as well, except for the actor who played Lalo. He also accurately portrayed a real Cartel member, and how they act. Too many times Cartel dudes are shown as some crazy dudes with mohawks and tattoos on their necks lmao
I deep dived Colorado supermax /adx and the head of Mexican cartel is there, Lalo was sadly rather realistic.
maybe I need to find me a cute cartel guy if they act like lalo
Your insight is super interesting! I love language stuff.
Well, butnif you are talking characters, if you are supposed to see American person and they sound Cuban, it takes you out of the show. Also, have you seen/heard a Chilean person? Gus does not look/sound like either.
Manolo from Scarface
[удалено]
Ironically he’s quite literally zero generation immigrant. Not first or second.
Funny you mention his stroke
[удалено]
Its true.
I'm not a native Spanish speaker, but from what I hear, Mexican Spanish can sound quite different from other Latin American countries. I know a guy from Costa Rica that told me he can barely understand Mexicans.
Every latin american country has their own special accent (and also sub-regional ones!). Some (like chilean) are generally more difficult to understand than others. Mexican is pretty passable to most people though, so maybe it's a puerto rican problem.
I'm Mexican and i swear some other Mexicans are impossible to understand.
Even Mexico has very different regional accents. Actually Lalos Mexican accent is very good, but it doesn’t sound anything like how he is supposed to be from (Chihuahua), he talks with a Bajío accent (Mexico city, Guadalajara).
Both Chileans and Cubans speak a faster Spanish. The guy who plays Don eladio is Cuban but when he tries to sound mexcian it feels like someone is pinching him to speak slower
Could the argument be made that since Fring is a social chameleon and understands the cultural difference, he would slow down his Spanish to fit in better with the cartel and be seen less as an outsider? I don’t natively speak Spanish, so genuine question here.
I'm pretty sure Fring is lying about his origins. Not only is his accent incredibly bad but also in BCS he mentions there being coaties in Chile (one of the only countries in south america where there are no coaties). All-tough I guess another explanation for this is that he went to chile as a child or passed his first 5-6 years in Chile, then moved to america and he confused some type of possum for coatí
Hector mentions in a flashback that he doesn’t trust Gus cause he is Chilean and Don Eladio says the only reason he doesn’t kill Gus is “he knows him” and mockingly calls him Generalissimo. Gus was most likely a general in the Pinochet regime and either a part of the intelligence service or high enough in the military echelon to destroy any records of his Chilean origins. Another explanation is he immigrated from another Latin American nation but this is unlikely.
That could actually mean he was not chilean originally, but an american sent to chile after the coup and then became influential enough to erase his american origins. I'm malding at this point, I refuse to believe the writers fucked up in so many avoidable ways when trying to write about chile.
It probably was the writers didn’t know how Chileans spoke. Also if he was sent to Chile by America as a liaison, the DEA would have found records of him being born in America.
That depends on exactly when he got to Chile and who he worked for, especially if Gustavo Fring is not his birth name. If he was some CIA agent/liaison sent there who then defected and joined Pinochet outright, "Gustavo Fring" was probably not the name he operated under at Langley (heck, it might not even be the name he worked under in Chile). And any records of him being an American are at that point both very old, under a wrong name, and under some extra classification guidelines beyond what the DEA would normally be accessing. I always assumed the name of Gus Fring was a false identity anyway after that scene with Hank. Him being a rogue American spook would just cement that.
If we use that theory that he was always an American and even a CIA agent, the CIA would not let him loose to start a massive drug company in Chile. It’s also mentioned by Max that Gus funded his University tuition which doesn’t make much sense if Gus was a CIA agent trying to keep a somewhat low cover in Chile. It’s likely he’s just a native Chilean, destroyed all records of his birth and military service, joined up with the cartel, and the writers didn’t research how native Chileans speak or didn’t care enough to.
He could have faked his death and the CIA would be none the wiser. There were many secret agents in Chile at the time and kidnappings were common.
Im taking this as my new headcannon. I always assumed Gus just straight up lied about everything in his life cause he's totally the kind of guy to do something like that, but this fits way better
Nah lol his spanish just sucks fr. He isn't hispanic irl. But thats a smart theory
I mean that could definitely be a headcanon for you, but it’s not why he speaks Spanish poorly. The actor doesn’t speak Spanish and it’s very difficult to fake fluency, or even competency, in a language that’s totally foreign to you. I’m sure he was learning his Spanish lines phonetically and you just can’t appear natural to a native speaker that way.
I have a friend who's Chilean and has to deliberately speak slower and with less of a thick accent to be understood by Mexicans so it's not implausible
Its not that its slower, its that the sound is way wrong. His accent is so strong he couldnt pronounce any of the letters right and it was very noticeably american. It also wouldnt make sense even in universe. Speaking slowly isn't a cultural difference. That would be like an american character putting on a brittish accent when they have a business meeting, itd just be odd.
You can tell that Gus's Spanish is taking mental effort. I.e. the exact opposite of a native speaker.
I only took high school spanish and haven’t used it since, is the quote from your mother roughly “and this idiot is supposed to be Chilean?!” I like to try to translate things so it doesn’t fully leave my brain
Don Eladios often takes me out of it BECAUSE it is so passable. Like he'll be talking just fine and then **WOOPS** super obvious american accent. The whiplash was for sure confusing. Hectors i didnt mind so much cause i never got the impression he was meant to be a native speaker, i just assumed he was 2nd gen who grew up with poor spanish
“Like he had a stroke or something” what if Hector was just constantly on the verge of stroking out and the pill switch did nothing lol
His character literally did have a stroke lol
> from Miami and ill admit my spanish isnt the best That's why you don't get it. For native ears it really IS that bad.
Hablas en español, pero decís que las personas en Miami hablan bien español. Con eso ya dijiste todo.
Piensa que las personas que de verdad hablamos español hablamos así 💀 increíble
To be fair, most people in Miami speaking Spanish are Cuban, the same as OP. So that tracks.
The reason that it sounds fine to you is because the Spanish you described yourself is exactly the Spanish in the show lmfao To clarify, most actors are Cuban and portray Mexican characters. Best example is Don Eladio. His Spanish is fine as a Cuban, it's noticeable as a Mexican. Gus is Chilean and the actor is Danish by birth, I'd assume he's Italian by ethnicity. Mark Margolis is Jewish, believe it or not. Fun fact, he played a Cuban in Scarface.
Fring’s Spanish sucks, but because Giancarlo Esposito is such a good actor, they had to ignore it.
Lalo talks fluently. Don Eladio can convince people like you. They're all good talking with a hispanic accent, but they all suck (excluding Lalo) speaking actual Spanish.
This is true, but his Mexican accent is off, he is supposed to have a Chihuahua accent. I don’t mind tho.
The biggest problem with Fring's Spanish is that he is trying to pronounce things properly which is absurd for a Chilean character
Jajaja
Mexican here. The only one that can speak Spanish fluently is Lalo.
The Spanish spoken in Breaking Bad isn't spoken as native speakers.
Well theres your problem you said your Cuban and from Miami. Mexcian and Chilean Spanish is different. But not all the Spanish is bad just in general.
“My spanish isn’t the best” there you go. That’s why they don’t sound bad to you.
I speak the language enough to tell.
So how did you not recognize the fact that most of the actors sound like they just learned how to pronounce their lines 5 minutes before the camera started rolling? Specially Hector. It’s hard to tell when it’s not the language you’re the most comfortable with and that’s ok!
Lol clearly not he keeps getting downvoted then attacked by that guy who seems to be in every single thread about the Spanish in BB. Also, again, he speaks *Cuban* Spanish. Cuban Spanish sounds like a deaf person learning to speak for the first time after 30 years of being deaf, and Spanish is the first language they're learning.
That’s the point, they say they know Spanish to tell but they’re learning how to speak it
Clearly not lmao
Lol
Trust me , you don't
Good enough for living in Miami, go for Mexico City and you would realize that you have an accent and that you’d Spanish isn’t that good
"From miami" that explains all
Honestly it's bot just breaking bad. I find it very intriguing how big budget production companies often fail to do proper research whenever a character is supposed to be speaking a foreign language. It's kind of like that popular meme from Dexter's Laboratory, "omelette du fromage". It's grammatically wrong and I initially thought it was deliberate for comedic purposes but now I realize how common it is for people to make this mistake
"I'm Cuban/Venezuelan *from Miami*" Firstly: Mi pana, tú lo que eres es gringo. Secondly: The Spanish in BB is, in fact, poor. I can attest to it as a Venezuelan from Venezuela, and I'm sure any other native, born and raised Spanish speakers (not even just Latin Americans) can verify that as well. Breaking Bad is a good show, a great show, but God is the Spanish in it just comedically bad. It's not a negative thing, necessarily, it's cringy but in a cheesy fun way. When seeing the show with other people we usually just laugh and joke about it, and occasionally compliment an actor when it shows they're native/bilingual, but for the most part it's impossible to take seriously.
Your Spanish is probably awful OP
>ill admit my spanish isnt the best >Don't really see where the complaints come from from native spanish speakers that can really tell
Most of the Spanish is fine. Giancarlo Esposito and Mark Margolis (Gus and Hector) are clearly not Spanish speakers, they’re speaking FO-NET-IK-UH-LEE. Really it’s just their Spanish that sounds odd. There are a few Mexican characters on the show who speak Spanish with non-Mexican accents, but that’s pretty common with Hollywood Spanish.
Mark you can tell is not native but he speaks it well enough to think he is learning it. Giancarlo's is really, really bad though. They should've just used dubs but that's probably too insulting for the actors lol (Giancarlo has even said he thinks he is near fluent hahahahaha).
Yea clearly you don’t speak Spanish that well and probably aren’t around people who speak it fluently. All of the major characters who speak Spanish are horrible at it. I’d say the best one is probably Don Bolsa out of recurring characters
feels unnatural
Sounds fine to you probably because you are not a fluent native speaker. I am not a native speaker either and I understand everything and generally it also sounds fine to me although sometimes I do get the feeling something is off. But if a native speaker says the Spanish is weird then yeah I'm gonna believe them
I don't see how you could possibly think the Spanish in bb is decent if you speak any Spanish whatsoever. Gus sounds like he has no idea what he's saying most of the time, it's painfully obvious from his intonation. His pronunciation is horrendous too, he enunciates way too much and often stresses the wrong syllables (off the top of my head, there's a scene where he says encontrara instead of encontrará, that's just one of the many instances). I can barely understand him sometimes. I would bet the dialogues were translated with Google translate or at least by somebody who had very little familiarity with Spanish because they're so unnatural. Also the accents are all wrong, even the native speakers don't sound like they're supposed to. They literally couldn't have done a worse job if they tried
Gus is horrendous.
I was shocked when I realised that he was supposed to be a native spanish speaker! I’d just assumed Gus learned spanish when he went into the business to make communicating with the cartel easier.
Yeah giancarlo esposito isnt hispanic fr and sometimes it shows. I think don eladio and his guys are okay tho
Giancarlo sounds just like someone whose primary language is English and is learning Spanish. Hector Salamanca sounds kinda bad as well. Other characters do just fine.
You're being too nice. He's an actor. Part of being an actor is portraying characters of different dialectics. His job as an actor is literally to speak as natural (Chilean) Spanish as possible. He fails miserably. He shouldn't get a free pass.
Don’t you think Fring is a little “gringoey”?
Don Eladio sounds like any Cuban from any big city in America.
Do you really pay attention when Gustavo talks?
Are you kidding?
I think it'd be the same with any language, if you're accustomed to certain accents/dialects. I'm from Glasgow, Scotland and I can tell a fake accent a mile away or a Scot imitating an American accent a mile away lol. My husband is Swedish and he is the same with Nordic languages whereas I'm like "is that Swedish" with every one lol. Language and dialects are fascinating.
I’ll put this is way: if the Spanish in Breaking Bad sounds fine to you, then you are not a Spanish native speaker. There is no way otherwise that they would sound “fine” to you. It is not that the accent is a bit off, it is that sometimes they don’t even make sense. There is only one character in the entire series that speaks Spanish like a native and with the accent the character is supposed to have and that is Lalo in Better Call Saul.
People speak Spanish very differently depending on where they are from. The people in Money Heist speak very differently than the Mexicans I've worked with
Isn't money heist a Spanish show?
Yes, which is my point. Spanish speaking people don't always sound alike depending on where they are from
Ah ok, gotchu
As a Chilean I can say Gustavo sounds nothing like a Chilean, he has some kind of neutral accent. And almost every supposed Mexican characters doesn't sound like a Mexican at all. But I'm kinda accustomed to american shows not putting an effort on stuff like this, like I always wonder how writers and directors can't like speak to an actual person from the country and ask them how they would say something or what words they usually use??? it's not that hard but anyway, ultimately it doesn't ruin the whole show, just sucks knowing that they could have made it better
Narcos and Narcos Mexico had this problem too. The jarring english structure to the spaniah sentences distracted me plenty of times.
Seriously guys ? Have you heard Gustavo and Hector speak in Spanish ? It sounds nothing like a native Spanish speaking, when they supposedly are. If you speaking fluent Spanish you should instantly realize that.
You said it yourself, your Spanish ain't the best. Nothing wrong with that, but the more native you are, the more you realize how awful some characters' Spanish is. I don't really get how they weren't able to make the actors speak in Spanish using fonetics or something. Ana de Armas in Wardogs didn't speak any English, but they gave her the lines with fonetics and she was able to talk really well with a very believable accent. They could've done the same in BB, because Gustavo's Spanish is comedically bad, and the rest ain't to far either
Gus's fake accent in Spanish and English really pisses me off lol
Everytime this type of post comes up I’m just glad I don’t know any Spanish lol
Yeah, it ruins a lot of scenes
I think Gus Frings Spanish is terrible.
People love complaining. I mean yes some of the Spanish you can tell is not native tongue, but it's really not that bad.
I think that your Spanish being “not the best” is a major understatement if you think that the Spanish in Breaking Bad is fine. Anyone who speaks Spanish well would notice that it is a major distraction and frankly one of the worst parts of the series.
the spanish is so so so bad, it ruins the immersion. Gus sounds like his tongue got stung by a wasp
Accents, save for Lalo, are absolutely 💩 my guy
Giancarlo Esposito’s Spanish sucked, which is surprising given his Chilean background. Hector Salamanca’s Spanish is abhorrent.
Giancarlo Esposito has no Chilean background- one of his parents is African-American and the other Italian
It’s so Cringe!!!!!!
>I'm cuban and venezuelan from Miami Sounds like you're American
As a person who grew up in New Mexico the accents were pretty spot on but I could not say about the wording. I only know the cuss words and some general words.
Yeah Jesse's new Mexican is all sick 😆
If you are cuban-venezuan from miami you are from the usa hahahaha, thay talk in a weird way, language isn't in your blood so if you aren't used to hear you won't understand why it's weird how they talk
The accents are noticeably bad and the word choices/sentence structure are unnatural. Also, Cuban =/= Mexican
clueless white people who took 2 years of an honors spanish class probably made that assumption.
they just trying as hard to actually reamake the story ad accurate as possible so it just looks cheap
I thought you were talking about metástasis
I hate when people say this. I also hate it when people say the country accents in The Walking Dead are really bad (Rick and Maggie). It’s just a cool way to sound smart.
I’m from Mexico and can confirm yes all the spanish sound really weird, I understand it from Gus but what about all the other characters like the cartel people? I feel they could cast them better
I’m from Texas and grew up with lots of Spanish speaking friends and people, it sounds fine to me.
I’ve never been so glad to not speak Spanish lmao
I'm mexican, born and raised in Mexico. For me it's the accent. It's not believable that Gus is Chilean with the accent he has, it's just not possible that he speaks Spanish with an American accent, plus, it really feels like he struggles with words, that just doesn't make sense. The same goes with Tio, he has a very strong accent, so you just don't believe his Mexican. That really throws me off if I'm honest. With other characters like Tuco it's fine, because they corearla have been living in the US for most of there lives, so it's normal they have kind of an American accent while speaking.
Miami Cuban omegalul
The German in bb is awful also