Was talking about classic films with some people a while back, and I found myself recommending the classic "Der blaue Engel". In this film, Emil Jannings plays a teacher who ruins his life and career by falling for a singer (played by Marlene Dietrich) at a local speakeasy. A problem arose when I tried to describe his profession.
He teaches English, so he's an English teacher.
Only he's actually German. So he's a German teacher who happens to be an English teacher.
He teaches at a high school. So he's a high-school teacher.
But the place he teaches isn't a "Hochschule" (which would translate literally as "high school" in English), because a Hochschule is closer to what we'd call a "junior college". So he's not a "Hochschullehrer".
Actually, the German dialogue (yes, I was watching this with subtitles) calls it a "Gymnasium". But if I say he's a Gymnasium teacher, you'll think he organizes dodgeball games and makes the boys run laps and climb ropes.
So I'm stuck trying to tell people that he's an English teacher who isn't English, teaching high school in a Gymnasium that isn't a high-school Gymnasium.
And in the midst of all this, during the classroom scenes, the subtitles cut out on me. Nothing wrong with the film. It's just that, this being an English class, he and the students are speaking English in those scenes.
Magnificent, Ron. Thanks.
Peter
That's fantastic! A secondary school language-arts teacher?
Reminds me of the Wallander television program starring Kenneth Branagh (just brilliant--some of the best television I've ever seen). It's set and filmed largely in Sweden and all the actors are playing Swedish characters, but they're British, speaking British dialects. So British actors in Sweden pretending to be Swedish but speaking British English. It's not dubbed. In a few scenes they show Swedish text on a computer, note, or newspaper and one of the characters reads it aloud--in English!