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by zdragnar 1104 days ago
Watching international versions of Taskmaster - originally a British show, which has now been done in many countries in Europe and elsewhere- it's always been amusing to hear random English phrases get blurted out.

Brevity of phrase is part of it, but it doesn't seem to happen in conversational tones- usually either when someone is showing off or as an interjection of sorts.
2 comments
kadoban 1104 days ago
What's your favorite versions? I've watched the UK and NZ ones (and I know the US one isn't worth it), but I haven't gotten into the non-English ones yet.
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zdragnar 1104 days ago
Other than those two, the Australian and Norweigan (Kongen Befaller) are great, though early on in Norway's seasons there'll be a fair number of repeat tasks from the UK version. Same for Denmark (Stormester), perhaps more so.

Portugal's is pretty decent, though the format runs two hours per episode. I also thought the Croation version (Direktor Svemira) was decent, though the individual cast members lean hard into their own stereotypes (Lidija as the personification of the male gaze, for example).

Sweden's is really popular, but I personally didn't care for it at all.

As with the US version, it's probably best to pretend that Spain and Belgium's didn't happen.

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kadoban 1104 days ago
Thanks! I did not even realize there were so many! I imagine it's a popular format due to how well it can go for comparatively little budget and planning.

I'll have to track those down. Two hours per episode for Portugal's sounds _wild_, I'm interested to see how that goes.

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vintermann 1104 days ago
The Norwegian version has the Ylvis brothers and many from that circle of comedians.
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TRiG_Ireland 1104 days ago
One thing I love about the New Zealand one is the occasional bits of te reo Māori that get used. I know that the cultural context is very different, but the affect is similar to Ireland: most people are not truly bilingual, but almost everyone knows some of the language, and dropping a few words or phrases into your English is quite normal. Just as I might end a story with sin é (lit. translation: "that's it").
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inkyoto 1103 days ago
Yes, whenua and pākehā are just a few examples of the Māori words that are now frequently used in the daily speech in New Zealand.
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