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"I learned English from watching..." | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| vusalgustav Tetraglot Newbie Azerbaijan Joined 6277 days ago 23 posts - 56 votes  Speaks: Azerbaijani*, English, Russian, Turkish Studies: German, Spanish | Message 57 of 97 25 February 2010 at 10:45am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes I do. It might not be exactly regarding the subtitles but I would like to share another my experience. In the 90th the Latin American soap TV shoes were very popular in Russian TVs. As the TV channels did not have enough money to buy the license for those shows they showed the pirate versions of the movies with dreadful dubbing. Dubbing was so awful that you could hear Spanish speech half way the sentence before you Russian speaker starts dubbing. As a result, I can tell you the meanings of some Spanish words: (i will give you only transcription, as I don't know exactly how they are written) {te amo} I love you, {me amo} my love, {nunka and khamas}never, {mi ikho} my son, {mi iha} my daugther, {komo estas} how are you? {bien} good, {bamos abailar} let's dance, or dance, {o} or, {coche} car, {hermano}brother, {yo} I, {voy}to go, {beso} kiss, to kiss etc. I might be mistaken about their meanings but that is what my brain decided after long analyzing between the contexts and between the languages. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 59 of 97 25 February 2010 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Watching TV is a great method (it's my favorite), but to get good results, you need to use a different method to get to a point where you can get the gist of what's going on. The method is crap to get to intermediate level, but once you're there, it's a great way to get further. This is how I learned English, it's how I learned French and it's how I'm learning Mandarin. But in all of these cases, serious study using more traditional methods had to take place before I was in a position to use the TV method.
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| s_allard Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5431 days ago 2704 posts - 5425 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Polish | Message 60 of 97 25 February 2010 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Ari has put it simply and succinctly: television is an excellent medium for learning a language when used properly. I use it all the time. I think most participants here would agree by now that just sitting in front of the television is not enough, especially for a complete beginner.
The big problem is deriving meaning from the stream of sounds. Unless you can make sense of what you are hearing or seeing, you are basically wasting your time. Instead, there are various things to do that users have discussed right here that make the television into a wonderful learning tool. So I think the issue has been put to bed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 61 of 97 27 February 2010 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Watching lots of TV or listening to lots of audio are methods that work best when you
already have reasonable knowledge of the language - say, at intermediate level. It can help put you over the top towards advanced level. At earlier stages, you risk demoralising yourself by listening to lots of incomprehensible, or 95% incomprehensible noise. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| tacoface Newbie United States Joined 5384 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes Speaks: English* | Message 62 of 97 28 February 2010 at 1:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I have been acquiring mandarin chinese by only watching taiwanese tv shows. No subtitles,
just listening and watching. After 450 hours I am quite pleased at the progress I have made. I am estimating my understanding of the words is around 20%. Sometimes I watch 4-5 hours straight, sometimes I can miss weeks at a time due to being busy, but I never forget a word I acquire, and all that happens is I continue acquiring new words when I resume watching the shows. What I would like to understand is why people on here voice such strident opinions on this method when they have no idea how it works, and clearly have no intention of trying to understand how it works. Edited by tacoface on 28 February 2010 at 1:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| KTHN Diglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 5734 days ago 4 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 63 of 97 28 February 2010 at 1:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I have to disagree. I learned English through television, music etc. Yes, I took English classes in school, it was compulsory so everybody did. I did not learn much from those classes. After learning the aproximate spelling system of English I did not read the textbooks. As a matter of fact I failed at English at "Basisschool", I only started to learn English because of Dragonball Z, which was all the hype back then. I could follow entire episodes in English, but not understand a single word of English at school In high school I never studied vocabulary. Neither did my friends. I don't understand a single piece of grammar, I was always talking with my friends when they explained it. I always just guessed grammar. From my experience I can tell you that there are 2 kinds of students when it comes to English. The first type is the type I am. They just learned from television, music, games and after they got used to it their English improves itself. My friends are far better at English than I am, I know I suck, but I am much better at English than most of my fellow students of type 2. The second type is the type that learns in English class. They usually lack fluency, grammar and vocab. They learn the vocab assignments, get good grades on the tests, but forget everything soon after. I know various people that fall into this category, they cannot read books in English, they do not understand the simplest of films in English, the do not understand the lyrics of populair songs. So saying that you learned from television is not a lie. It really isn't. It could feasibly happen. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Pyx Diglot Senior Member China Joined 5736 days ago 670 posts - 892 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 64 of 97 28 February 2010 at 1:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
acquired as in "I can speak it now", acquired as in "I understand it now", acquired as in "I have sort of an idea what's going on", or how 'acquired'? 450 hours seems awfully short to me. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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