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Learning a language by watching TV? | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio |  | |
| tomasus Pentaglot Groupie Czech Republic Joined 7023 days ago 54 posts - 56 votes  Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, EnglishC1, German, Russian | Message 9 of 134 21 May 2006 at 3:45am | IP Logged | ||
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My friend learned Polish just from watching TV. He didn't have any other contact with Polish, no newspapers, no textbooks, no dictionaries, no conversations with natives. But Polish is very close to Czech, his native language.
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| winters Trilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 7035 days ago 199 posts - 218 votes Speaks: Croatian*, Serbian*, Russian*, English, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Greek, French, Hungarian | Message 10 of 134 21 May 2006 at 7:47am | IP Logged | ||
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From my experience, one cannot learn the language solely by watching TV in that language. If it were possible, I would know by now German & Hungarian, since I used to watch TV in German & Hungarian as a child. Of course, some of the language remains in your ear, and you even begin to understand some of it, but you cannot learn the language that way.
Watching TV in your target languages in order to improve them, though, seems to me like a great idea. I do think, however, that you must have some sort of "formal" training in a language or practice in order to profit from that TV-watching. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kynes Triglot Newbie Canada Joined 6767 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Czech*, English, French | Message 11 of 134 21 May 2006 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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You can get quite a bit just by watching TV. Start with cartoons.
As for learning the works, it may be possible but I doubt it. I think at some point you’ll have to open your mouth and hear how close your sound resembles the real thing. Talking quietly to self is but an intermediate step. It is deceptive and if you’ve nothing else to go on you may fancy yourself as being fluent when in reality you can’t muster a coherent sentence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| n0thingness Triglot Newbie Paraguay Joined 6836 days ago 29 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Portuguese, Spanish*, English Studies: German, Mandarin, Japanese, Finnish | Message 12 of 134 21 May 2006 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | ||
if your native language and the language you're watching in are related, it's possible. My niece and I learnt Portuguese that way 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| el topo Diglot Groupie Belgium Joined 6751 days ago 66 posts - 71 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Dutch | Message 13 of 134 24 May 2006 at 4:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I've known a few people who claimed that they'd learnt some language mainly by watching TV. However, they all had passive knowledge of the language. I do not think it is possible, I mean without combining it with actual studies. I myself greatly improved my listening comprehension by watching English TV shows and movies, so watching TV certainly helps. It's kind of obvious. But I do not think you can learn a language by simply sitting next to a tele.
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| Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6859 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language | Message 14 of 134 28 May 2006 at 1:40am | IP Logged | ||
Even though the question wasn't directed at me, I wanted to point out that when I was in Mexico, I noticed (at the time, a bit to my surprise) that many US programs are on TV down there. Mainly I recall Fox, the History Channel, and MTV, but there were others, such as Hallmark, and I forget whatever else. But for the news, I think in the case of CNN it was with Spanish anchors, a Latin American divison (or maybe it was BBC...I can't recall because I switched back and forth between English and Spanish channels. With discovery, it was often dubbed over, and with certain shows, like Smallville on the WB, or Fox programs: live action shows were subtitled, cartoons were dubbed (flawlessly dubbed, I'll add), or if you had this feature, you could switch between the Spanish dub-over or the English version. MTV was a Latin American branch: Mexican commercials, mostly Latin American music (not all, however; I first heard of Robbie Williams while I was in Mexico with the song "Feel"), and some subtitled American serieses, like "Jackass" or some goofy stuff like that. I'm sure that watching TV in another language helps. But when I was learning Spanish down there, listening to the shows in English and following along with the Spanish translated subtitles was completely priceless. That and chatting online via MSN Messenger; those two things and my dictionary more than anything else made me literate in Spanish...and MSN even helped with the "shorthand" way of writing that are used on those programs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| efrat120 Triglot Newbie Israel Joined 6743 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: Modern Hebrew*, English, Japanese | Message 15 of 134 04 June 2006 at 7:52am | IP Logged | ||
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I never tried this method myself, but I know someone who learned French through watching TV in his target language (combined with reading books WITHOUT using a dictionary... serious novels, not children books). He claims that this method gives the learner a deeper understanding of the language, just like a baby who learns his mother tongue. After trying this for a year, he says that his skills are much improved. He is not fluent but he can manage...
It's deffinitely not the quickest way to catch a language and probably the hardest, but maybe it"ll work for you, you never know 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7006 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 134 04 June 2006 at 10:15am | IP Logged | ||
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What was the native language of that person you know? That could have a bearing on the relative ease with which he/she could have learned French, although I agree that it's probably not the easiest way to learn.
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