[2003.08.09 0117h]

i just watched a few minutes of a chinese movie.  usually, when watching a
chinese movie, i first try to figure out if they're speaking in cantonese,
mandarin, or another dialect that i am not as familar with.  figuring this
out usually takes only one or two seconds of dialogue.

however, this time, as i was listening to the soundtrack, the first second
or two of dialogue had me confused.  it somehow sounded like cantonese and
mandarin at the same time.  for the next second or two, i tried reading
the english subtitles and seeing if they matched what i thought was being
said in chinese.  from what i could tell, they did, so my assumption was
that at least they are speaking in a dialect that i understand somehow.

it took me a couple more seconds to realize that the soundtrack had both
cantonese and mandarin dialogue running at the same time.  as since i was
wearing earphones, cantonese was going into my right ear, and mandarin
into my left.  i believe at least one of the actors did both the cantonese
and mandarin tracks, which may have resulted in prolonging my confusion.

anyhow, after realizing this, i noticed that, while listening to both
dialects simultaneously, i can actually understand the movie a lot better
than if only one dialect was present.  my assumption is that this is
because if i didn't fully understand what was said in one of the dialects,
there's a chance that what was said in the other dialect would make my
understanding clearer.

surprisingly, the dual soundtrack seemed to slightly improve my
understanding of both dialects.  the effect was noticeable even after only
a few minutes.  i wonder how much my fluency in both dialects would have
improved had i watched the whole movie.  maybe i should.

i vaguely remember watching something with a dual soundtrack in german and
english some time ago.  although i have studied both languages, hearing
them both at the same time didn't seem to improve my fluency in either.  
perhaps this is because english and german are too different from each
other for me to process simultaneously.  in addition, since english is a
native language for me, while german isn't, i may have simply attempted to
understand the english track, and filter out the german.