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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| morphine Newbie United States Joined 4221 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 21 25 September 2014 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok, so I've come a fair distance in my Spanish journey (finished Pimsleur Level 1, I
am level 10 on Duolingo, and I remember a bit from high school/college courses), and I feel I am ready to start watching/listening to Spanish TV and movies. As a beginner/early intermediate learner, would it be better to: a) Spanish audio with Spanish subtitles b) Spanish audio with English subtitles c) Spanish audio with no subtitles d) English audio with Spanish subtitles e) A mixture of two or more of the above Thank you, Morphine 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| morphine Newbie United States Joined 4221 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 21 25 September 2014 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Also, can anybody suggest any interesting TV series that I can see on Youtube, with or
without subtitles as indicated above? Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6704 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 3 of 21 25 September 2014 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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If your understanding is good enough, Spanish subtitles can be helpful for reinforcing what you know - as long as they match the audio pretty well.
Ïf you need English subtitles to understand what's going on, then use them. Spanish audio without subtitles requires good listening skills. If you have them, that's fine. English audio with Spanish subtitles seems pretty pointless to me, unless the original audio is English and you want some other input, e.g. a program on National Geographic or Discovery Channel where you can change the subtitles. Any combination could be helpful at various stages and for various contents. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5057 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 21 25 September 2014 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||
¡Bienvenido al foro, morphine!
Based on completing Duolingo and level 1 of Pimsleur, I don't think that's a sufficient base to really get a lot out of Spanish TV yet. That doesn't mean you can't find something to watch or listen to though. You just have to make it comprehensible. At your level, I would recommend you start by watching Destinos. It is a learner-intended 52 episode course that follows a telenovela format. The first episodes will be way too easy for you- watch them anyway. The level will soon become challenging enough for you. If you want to try some real world listening, I recommend a couple of newscasts with transcripts: NHK World Spanish and Democracy Now. Open the audio in a separate tab and click on a story (individually) for NHK and the first story for Democracy Now to get the written transcript. Given your level of Spanish, I doubt if you'll get much out of this at first without more intensive study- FSI/Assimil, but it will be comprehensible because of the transcript and the original Democracy Now English transcript (click on first story). The Spanish audio is extremely fast. This can be a good way to introduce new vocabulary and constructions, especially and only if you know what the news is already or make your own bilingual text with Democracy Now. TV series are much better than films because of visual clues provided and continuity of characters. Many US series have a Spanish audio dub track and subtitles on DVD- with the subtitles not matching the audio though. Try to watch one you've seen before and know well. Dubs are better to start with for this reason. Bilingual texts can be made by searching for "name of TV series" + subs (.srt file) and opening the srt file in your word processor. Get Spanish and English sub files. Open a word document and insert a two column, one row table. Paste Spanish on the left and English on the right. You will have to make both fonts and font sizes the same and align the text yourself. It sounds hard but it isn't really once you've done it. It's just very, very tedious work- but it's useful and free. Subtitle reading can be any variation of your options, but subs won't help you much with listening unless they are exact. Telemundo's series broadcasts with closed captioning are exact (also on their website- try "Caso Cerrado") but not on their DVD's. I hope you will seriously consider taking my advice to try Destinos first along with a course like Assimil or FSI Spanish Basic Course at the same time. You'll get more out of it at this stage and when you finish Destinos you will be able to get more out of TV/films. Remember, you have to crawl before you walk and walk before you can run. Edited by iguanamon on 26 September 2014 at 4:46pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4804 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 21 26 September 2014 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd say reduce the options to two of them:
1.Spanish video and subtitles 2.Spanish video and no subtitles English in any form is likely to draw your attention too much. From my experience, the more of a challenge you offer to your brain, the more you progress. Every time you get one step further, such as dropping the subtitles, you are going to feel you don't understand much for an episode or two of a tv series or a similar amount of other content. However, you will get used to the change much faster than most people expect. Those who fail are usually those who are disappointed not to understand everything after 10 minutes and then quit. So, just don't fear it, don't get dependent on the crutches (English subtitles) too much. And English sound is the least helpful of the options, from my experience because even half-subconscious listening to Spanish while reading English subtitles is much more likely to have positive effect on your pronunciation and accent. However, you need to create a less steep learning curve and, from my experience, the best way to do that is proper choice of videos to watch. Destinos can be a nice option before you are ready for something real. Then something less difficult of the dubbed series (I really liked Erase una Vez but there are many options) and make your way to the originals with complicated language. And a good way to help yourself is to keep studying with other means as well instead of full switch from other methods to native sources. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4328 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 6 of 21 26 September 2014 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with Cavesa: avoid English.
Whether you use subtitles or not is partly a question of taste. If the subtitles don't match what is being said I would avoid them as I find them more distracting than they are worth. Also if I don't have subtitles on I really find I have to listen carefully to what is being said, which is why I watch TV/movies in the first place. When I first started seriously learning German a couple of years ago I immediately started watching movies and TV as an aid to hearing the language on a daily basis. However, I didn't necessarily take a lot away from each episode at first. I think it was useful in part because I was also doing daily drills with Anki to build vocabulary and would often "hear" words I had just learnt in the shows I was watching. Edited by patrickwilken on 26 September 2014 at 4:46pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AlexTG Diglot Senior Member Australia Joined 4433 days ago 178 posts - 354 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Latin, German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 7 of 21 26 September 2014 at 6:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Native language subtitles seem to work pretty dang well for Scandinavians and Dutch
learning English. At this early stage I think it's best to make the experience as enjoyable as possible, since you need to 1. Keep watching, 2. Watch as much as possible. How do you make a TV show or movie as enjoyable as possible? You understand it. Your listening skills will develop, even if it feels too easy, or too much like cheating. "No pain, no gain" is never true in language learning in my opinion. NL subtitles will improve your listening skills more than TL subtitles. With TL subs you read exactly what is being said, no listening needed. With NL subs you read the general gist of what is being said, but still have to listen closely to work out what words are being used to say it. Later on you're going to want to develop your ability to concentrate on what's being said and understand the bulk of it without any support. At that point you should remove subtitles completely in order to train yourself in unsupported listening. Once you're confident in your ability to watch a movie without subtitles you can then go back to using subtitles. But delay them by ~2 seconds. With subtitles delayed it won't take any willpower to avoid using them because reading out of sync subtitles at this point will be harder than just listening to the audio. But when you get to a part which you've heard, and tried to understand, but failed, you can flick your eyes down and check a translation of what was said. You'll learn new vocabulary, understand the film better, and enjoy yourself more using this technique. Edited by AlexTG on 28 September 2014 at 8:50am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| morphine Newbie United States Joined 4221 days ago 9 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 21 26 September 2014 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks everybody for your helpful responses. So, the consensus is Spanish audio with
either Spanish or no subtitles. I will look into some of the suggestions, particularly Destinos. I do, however, have limited internet access (satellite internet only) so streaming media is limited. I can download Youtube videos at work, so anything on Youtube would be idea. Any suggestions there? As far as "regular" lessons, I'm only doing Pimsleur (just finishing Level 1) and Duolingo. I love Pimsleur (as long as it's from the library and free!), but I realize it will only take me so far. I finished all 3 levels of Pimsleur Russian several years ago and it was a good start. I haven't read the reviews of Duolingo yet. I like it pretty well so far. I haven't really learned much, but it's been a good review of what I already knew. I know I need to start something else. I like the idea of FSI, since it's free. But it's tough for me to get started! Thanks again for your help. Morphine 1 person has voted this message useful |
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