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Watchin American series with L2 subtitles | ||
Tags: Subtitles | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 9 of 23 31 October 2013 at 1:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, there is a world of difference between usual subtitles (which are often crap. And
those on your legally bought dvds are often worse than those by an enthusiast on the internet) and transcripts. Transcripts are rare to come by (and my project on making more is still on hold due to busy life) but they are the best thing you can ask for. An acurate transcript turns the whole thing into combination of listening and reading where you can print the transcript and use yor pencils,highlighters and anything that helps you retain things and to mark them for later studies. There are people (I posted a link to blog of one of them several months ago), who learn mostly by this. They take a not too hard tv series (often telenovela) and just learn everything there is in the episode they are watching. They mimic the actors, use the pause button a lot, learn vocabulary and grammar based on what they trully enocounter. You may want to google it under "the telenovela method". p.s. thanks, emk. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 10 of 23 31 October 2013 at 1:46am | IP Logged | ||
Ok, let's work from here. Here are some ideas: 1.Prison break may be too difficult. Too much slang or actors/characters that are more difficult to understand. Or too little visual support to most of the dialogues. In such a case, take something easier for start. Friends are quite popular. Emk watched dubbed Buffy. I found Once upon a Time and Grimm to not be too hard (Once... was my first in Spanish and Grimm my first in French, Doctor Who made me drop the English subtitles few years ago). There are so many options. In general, watching something you either know already or you know you will like helps. 2.How much time did you spend on the experiment? Of course your understanding will be horrible the first ten-twenty minutes of the first episode. And not great at the end of the episode. Some people choose to watch things twice or even more. I just continue even though I know only the gist of things and understand like 40-50% and get other 20-30 from the context. If you keep watching for several episodes (or rewatch, depends on your preference), you should get the first rise of your abilities. All you need is patience in my opinion. It is nothing unusual that the first episode in relatively new target language will be hard. Most of us have been there! I certainly was. Twice! And I am looking forward to the next time. 3.Do you trully enjoy Prison Break? It is very important to find things you enjoy. Series that catch your attention enough to get you thinking in the language because the plot doesn't give you time to translate or to panic: "I can understand so little,help!". Series you enjoy to watch again. A series you have already watched in English and which doesn't appeal to you again won't be a good choice in my opinion. edit:adding a question I forgot: What is your target language? Perhaps someone else learning it may have good tips on where to start watching. Edited by Cavesa on 31 October 2013 at 1:47am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sillygoose1 Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 4635 days ago 566 posts - 814 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French Studies: German, Latin | Message 11 of 23 31 October 2013 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't find that to be a particularly good method because you are basically just reading. You need to listen to the sounds of the words, intonation, and specific wordings. It's better to watch TL series with NL subs I'd say.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 23 31 October 2013 at 7:09am | IP Logged | ||
Edited by Serpent on 31 October 2013 at 7:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| i_forget Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5196 days ago 35 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Greek*, English, Spanish | Message 13 of 23 31 October 2013 at 8:20am | IP Logged | ||
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OK to answer your questions. I don't speak any other Romance languages and my target language is Spanish, the most difficult language I ever tried to learn ( the other one being English ). I'm not concerned with improving my listening comprehension yet, what I wont is to increase my vocabulary.
My level in speaking is beginner, i rarely speak at the moment. But that's fine. Probably my listening level as well, I don't listen the language that much. But my reading level is intermediate because at the moment I'm reading newspapers and I'm actually enjoying it. Of course I use the dictionary, but considering I'm reading articles by journalists I'm doing quite well. However because I actually resort to the dictionary (sometimes) a bit too much, so i really need more input. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| i_forget Triglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5196 days ago 35 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Greek*, English, Spanish | Message 14 of 23 31 October 2013 at 8:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I already made a plan :) I will watch season one of Prison Break in English with Spanish subtitles. Then I will watch season two dabbed in Spanish. I will update with my results. Hopefully my life circumstances will allow me to finish this experiment :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 15 of 23 31 October 2013 at 12:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck!
See also this article about reading strategies, btw. I think at your level something like GLOSS is a great idea, and they have audio lessons too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5765 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 16 of 23 31 October 2013 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wouldn't say that it can't help; I think there were some members here who reported they used similar approaches with acceptable results.
Personally, I can't imagine how it would be an efficient way of using your time. Subtitles are processed visually first, and then aurally by subvocalization. When you become very skilled at reading a language, you become better at recognizing a word as an entity, and not a string of letters, and that makes processing faster and less conscious. But when you are still learning a language, this will be slow. Often painfully slow. I remember a thread in which members compared the reading speed they had in different languages. If I remember correctly, most of us had noticeably slower reading speeds even in their 'fluent' second languages, let alone the intermediate ones.
Basically, when you watch a film with target language audio and subtitles in a language you are proficient in, you can use your higher reading speed to get a general idea of what should be going on, ideally in the gaps between speakers, and then focus on the spoken word. When you use base language audio and target language subtitles, the base language content takes more of your time and attention, and you have to use the little that remains to understand subtitles in a language in which your reading speed is most likely much slower than in your base language. As I said, I don't see the merits. When I want to improve my reading speed, I read more, or especially at lower levels I read with an accompanying audiobook or watch media with same language subtitles. That also means that I don't have to constantly suppress my better phonological model of the base language, which at least for me is quite exhausting. When I want to improve my comprehension, I'll work intensively with my material, using emk's techniques and repetition. Or: You won't get better at target language auditory comprehension when you don't practice auditory comprehension. You will get better at compensation strategies, like guessing from context which word was meant when you couldn't hear it properly. But such strategies fail when you are confronted with material you aren't familiar with. Edited by Bao on 31 October 2013 at 3:44pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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