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Watching TV for language learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 17 of 28 05 October 2013 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Did you ever start out with material that had high information density and was relatively transparent in its structure and content, and then you got to know real people and suddenly had to realize you understood naught, not even the bits you knew you knew? I did, and I realized I had to learn certain parts of the language several times. TV/movies can be an aid for learning oral interaction because you also get to know a lot of gestures, communicative ones as well as cultural ones. Even when accounting for unnatural acting it's still helpful. And, of course, TV can be the closest you can get to the way people in real situations refer to their environment, which bits of information they drop. Of course, it does depend on the cinematic tradition of your target language culture or cultures. Whether your active skills benefit or not might depend on your learning style. I learn active skills by imitation. Even when I study a grammar point or vocabulary using other methods, I'll only be able to use it spontaneously when I have something a real person said or wrote to imitate, and that curse accompanies me right through my intermediate journey. Edited by Bao on 05 October 2013 at 4:41pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6127 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 18 of 28 05 October 2013 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hey, this happens all the time. Or I know most of the words, I know quite a bit of what people are saying, but I miss what's going on. I've always watched quite a bit of Japanese movies and things and really, quite often my mind is spinning a completely different story of what's going on. I'm not sure how other people figure into this, but I find what helps is to find some plot summaries and descriptions of the characters on the internet and read those first. This keeps me from going into random confabulation about the story. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5011 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 19 of 28 05 October 2013 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Well, you can always start with something dubbed that you already know (and like enough to watch again). Of course, you need to choose something with good quality dubbing, which is sometimes not easy.
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| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6127 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 20 of 28 05 October 2013 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Though for me, personally, I think my main interest is the 'Japanese-ness' of things, and not the language itself. So watching dubbed American movies is not really something I'm so interested in. Really, for me the whole point is to get away from all these American movies. Being confused doesn't bother me as much.
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| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5834 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 21 of 28 06 October 2013 at 12:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
So these semi-literate Brazilian and Mexican native speakers only have an A2 command of their native language do they? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5768 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 22 of 28 06 October 2013 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I wonder if those referring to lower information density, colloquial language and simplified code in audiovisual media as something negative are naturally good at picking up oral interaction styles, or if they don't really care about them.
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| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4446 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 23 of 28 06 October 2013 at 8:46pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Watching TV is effective for language learning. You get to see the action that goes with the dialogue than listening
to the radio. When you are out somewhere it is more common to listen to the radio. You are trying to catch the rest what was being said by paying attention to a few key words and phrases. 1 thing I don't like about watching TV shows is that I'm usually busy when a show is scheduled and tend to pick up reruns from the Internet or buy the whole series later from a video store. In parts of E Asia (places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, Korea, Singapore, etc.) there are drama series like soap operas in N. America that usually goes up to no more than 100 episodes. People get glued to the TV every night watching 1 episode after another. Some will buy drama series from a video shop later and watch it at their own convenience sometimes even 4 or 5 episodes a night. Once you get into the story, you can pick up a lot of words and phrases. Chinese like English has variations depending on your region. I usually have an computer dictionary around. Every time I come across an unfamiliar word or phrase, I can type in the closest sounding Pinyin or what I think the English meaning would be and see the equivalent Chinese characters with the English meaning. I wouldn't rely on are flash cards, books on grammar & vocabulary and phrase books alone. They give you the basics. Once you get into a conversation you don't usually hear standard greetings and replies like there are different ways of asking for the price of something you want to buy including "is an item on sale?". 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| sans-serif Tetraglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4561 days ago 298 posts - 470 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, German, Swedish Studies: Danish | Message 24 of 28 06 October 2013 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm not sure what you had in mind when referring to material with high information density, but if podcasts qualify, my answer is no. Just the opposite, actually: I've been pleasantly surprised with how well podcast listening has prepared me for real interactions, especially as far as the audio processing / decoding component of listening comprehension is concerned.
It's mainly the often low information density that I find frustrating. As jeff_lindqvist said in his original post, TV is great in most other respects—and it's not like I don't watch any at all. I have no problem with colloquial language. I actually go out of my way to find podcasts that feature lots of informal language and spontaneous interaction. Edited by sans-serif on 08 October 2013 at 3:04pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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