Watching TV for language learning (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Watching TV for language learning
Tags: TV
Share with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon
Language Learning Forum : General discussion

28 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago
3277 posts - 6779 votes

Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 25 of 28

06 October 2013 at 9:33pm | IP Logged

cathrynm wrote:

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.

Well, I thought many fans of japanese drama or anime or anything else already watch such things with English subtitles and therefore know them well before learning Japanese. No need for American movies then :-)

2 persons have voted this message useful

cathrynm
Senior Member
United States
junglevision.co
Joined 6123 days ago
910 posts - 1232 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Finnish

Message 26 of 28

06 October 2013 at 11:07pm | IP Logged

I've done the English subtitles thing, but eventually I figured out that I learn absolutely nothing this way. I think for every word I've picked up from TV/ANime/Movies, there are about 600 that I've memorized from Flash cards.
1 person has voted this message useful

g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5980 days ago
1485 posts - 2002 votes

Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

Message 27 of 28

06 October 2013 at 11:42pm | IP Logged

I would say the main aim of watching TV is to improve your listening comprehension skills, not your vocabulary. This includes being able to keep hold of the thread of the dialogue despite gaps in your knowledge. No matter how much vocabulary you memorise, there will always be times when you come across things you don't understand (or simply couldn't hear properly), and the ability to not let this distract you, or even better to piece together what you've missed from other contextual clues in real time, is invaluable.

And I think the point Cavesa was trying to make regarding subtitles, is that you already have a back catalogue of shows you know the storyline of because you've already watched them with subtitles. A useful bridging technique would be to put on an old favourite, but this time switch off the subtitles. I've done it myself, and I found it helpful.

Edited by g-bod on 06 October 2013 at 11:43pm
1 person has voted this message useful

hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 5128 days ago
1871 posts - 3642 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish^C2, Italian^C2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

Message 28 of 28

07 October 2013 at 12:20am | IP Logged

g-bod wrote:

I would say the main aim of watching TV is to improve your listening
comprehension skills, not your vocabulary.

In my case, watching *some* TV shows improved my vocabulary immensely.

About a year into learning Turkish, I started watching cooking shows specifically to
learn food, kitchen appliance and technique vocabulary. I would imagine it would be this
way for any topic-specific show.

R.
==

1 person has voted this message useful

This discussion contains 28 messages over 4 pages: << Prev 1 2 3 4

If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register

Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum

This page was generated in 0.4688 seconds.