American Top Gear is garbage.

Why they make crappy American Versions of British shows no one knows. The American version of "The Office" is quite good actuall. I think it's an exception.

I've never heard of Fools and Horses, so I really can't say.

I read about this a while back in a rather resigned-sounding interview of an English author: it's based on the assumption amongst many American TV and film producers that their audience won't watch the programme or film in question unless it has American protagonists and is set in America. Of course most of the audience couldn't give a monkey's, but that's what the producers think so it's what the audience gets.

Same reason they put Tom Cruise in a movie about the last samurai of feudal Japan => cultural identification.

I could be mistaken about this, but I doubt it.

Vometia's hit it.

The US make remakes of british shows because their good, but they dont fit into the american mold when they try to remake them, and they turn out rubbish, they redub Australian films in the US, plus theyve made a few Australian shows that failed and were cancelled very quickly.

I'm not sure. I've entertained the idea, but it'd probably be for the best if I visited some before getting myself obsessed with moving away .

The wildlife isn't that bad, if you ignore most of what we say, and fires 'n floods are a matter of location and planning/not being stupid.

Censorship wise games technically aren't banned, they're just refused classification if they're inappropriate for the classifications available (which currently max out at 15+)... unfortunately, games cannot be legally sold or imported without classification . This is why the campaigns are to get an 18+ rating, rather than to remove censorship (since the latter isn't actually what's happening.

Regarding boobs, it comes down to laws we have to prevent people using child-like advlts to produce what would effectively be child porm -- when it comes to the end result, what's the difference between something made with children who look like children and something made with advlts who look exactly the same age? There is a complex debate to be found in there, but most people would say it's a good thing. Except that, according to something I read ages ago (looking at websites for political parties, believe it or not), the current application disallows small briasts regardless of context.

Assuming you're talking about Indigenous Australians, you're kinda wrong in referring to them as a whole (though the characteristic you're referring to may well be present in all of them... I know next to nothing of the langauges). While neighbouring langauges are usually mutually intelligible, the further you travel from the one you started with, the less you'll understand. Since there's a lot of Australia to travel, there is no standardised dialect. 'Cause, y'know, there pretty much can't be. It'd almost* be worse than trying to get Russians, Czechs, and Serbs to come up with one uniting language .

*The "almost" is only there 'cause Europeans probably have more grudges to dig up .

Yes, it is, when you're not from Northern Europe. Here in France everything is dubbed: movies, tv shows, cartoons, everything. The only contact I had with English when I was a child was through American (and British) pop music... now there's the internet and dvds with English soundtracks, so things are different.
Also, none of my English teachers actually mastered the language they were trying to teach me... you should've heard my highschool teacher speaking English, it was like she spoke another language.

What I find especially difficult:
- speaking with a good, neutral accent. Trying to tone down a French accent is not easy at all.
- prepositions
- British accents... North American accents are much easier to understand, at least for me.
- the number of words, especially verbs. There are so many more words than in French. English is a very accurate language, which is definitely not the case of French (in my opinion)

But English is a very beautiful language, and very rewarding to learn.

In a book I had to read in Composition II it said there were over 600,000 English words, with around 200,000 in French.

100,000 of those probably have French origins .

Makes sense, since English is German + French + Other.

I have a very high respect for bi-lingual people. I could not imagine trying to learn any other language...I still have trouble with the Queen's English.
I do enjoy learning certain words...but I have no practical need to learn anything else fluently.

So, my hat's off to all those who know more than one.

That's awesome. I've certainly never heard it called beautiful.

Ok so you avoid the fires and floods. You still have funnelwebs in your house.

Either way, its a stupid rule and stops eople getting harmless products.

Im not sure what the size requirement is, but it still seems like a stupid thing. You can see some people are advlts, despite briast size. By that logic they should also bn any woman who shaves. Its just illogical.

Speaking of porm (Im making this thread classy) what is it, with Asians censoring their porm ? Do they look at porm and think "well I enjoy this, aside from the nudity, that should be censored". I doubt they are watching for the plot.

I call shorts shorts, never heard them referred to as pants. Unless I'm missing a joke somewhere. Trousers is just an impractical word, why take all that extra 0.2 seconds to say trousers when we can just say pants?

Only in/around Sydney .

I didn't say I'm happy about it, I was pointing out that it isn't due to any real desire to censor things. The reasons behind the current situation are complicated and get into politics though, so I'll leave it at that.

Yes, it's a stupid situation that should be fixed. But at least the cause isn't petty .

I've always been curious about how do you guys down in the London area view us Geordies/Mackems?

I can't watch my childhoods favorite series because the DVDs require an American formatted player...

convert to .avi on computer => re-burn.

It's legal because you own the originals

Anime lovers can likleyanswer this, and I dont think this forums has any Japanese people.
But whatever. What is it with Japan and nazis ? I have seen quite a few images of nazis in anime, or people cosplaying as nazis (most likely from the anime).

I'm guessing it's such a huge part of the West's history and culture that they just associate Nazism and WWII with us, and like to play dress up to experience the exoticism. Kind of like how we think "ninja" and "samurai" when we think of the East.

Don't NTSC and PAL have different framerates? Or does that not matter when converting.

Can't say I've seen that many Nazis in anime, though from what I've seen it seems they are more lenient than in western nations where the swasitka is often censored. I'm guessing it's not as big of a deal there.

Because it's our heritage. We've had enough of Britain ruined, without losing one of the things that made us iconic. Andrew and those ugly ginger girls can go though, they're useless.

Double post.

I think i've heard its a law in Japan that requires that the naughty bits are censored.