One of the 4 skills you must learn is another language. Another language is always nice and it sounds cool. And how do you learn another language? In college, of course, or e-courses or just from a listen-and-reply tape. But a fundamental support is watching television! I can hear you say: ‘What?!’
The best example: The Dutch people.
I’m from the Netherlands, so I know what I’m talking about 
. It is really strange to see that the Dutch speak English pretty well (almost everyone) and that the German (our neighbours) don’t speak english that well. This is strange, because we have the same amount of english in school. The big difference is on television. In the Netherlands we don’t do voice-overs, we use subtitles, everything is with English audio and Dutch subtitles. And in Germany, they never use subtitles. (Watch this funny SouthPark in Germany video; ‘Oh mein Got, sie haben Kenny getötet! Ihr Schweine!’) I think the subtitle is the main reason for the well-English-speaking Dutchmen.
Why should you watch shows to learn another language?
- Watching television in another language (with native language subtitles or upside down) helps. You get more familiair with the language and your vocabulary will grow!
- Shows are easy. Why is it so nice to watch a simple serie after a hard day of work? Because they are so simple! Just half an hour filled with humor or excitement. Most of the times not that hard to follow.
- You will notice that you learn. This is one of the best things, you won’t look at the subtitles all the time anymore, you will recognize words and it just feels great!
- Series are addicting. Watch Heroes, that show is so addicting that you want to see them all, so you can’t stop learning another language!
Some tips
I think that if you already speak English and you want to learn another language you should change the subtitles, as not all the episodes of a serie will be available in another language (and the subtitles are, if you search well.) I can recommend ‘How I met your mother’, cause that is just funny! Let me know your thoughts on this!
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“I’m from Holland, so I know what I’m talking about.”
Stefan, het is “The Netherlands” niet “Hallaaandh”.
All the same
I’ll try to pay attention on it!
Thanks!
I haven’t agreed a 100per cent with a thread in a while! :d
When people ask me how I learned english, I respond in one word: “Scrubs”!
I watched 7 seasons over and over, first with subtitles, and later without them!
Haha! Yeah scrubs is a good one too!
You are a great example of how it works. First with subtitles and later without, that is just fantastic!
Thanks for the comment!
That’s exactly how I re-learned french (in canada we have two official languages) I’d actually watch stargate with french voiceovers with english subtitles. Supposedly the radio and comic books are another good option but I never bothered with them.
sure that works fine for learning english, but how about other languages?
japanese could work with anime, there’s a million anime shows so there’s probably at least one that you’d like..
I think it’s ALOT harder to do with other languages which have fewer (lesser known) tv shows
@ Nizzle
I don’t think so, because you can also watch English shows with other language subtitles. That’s what we do in Holland, we watch English shows, with Dutch subtitles. And subtitles are available in almost every language!
Some sites with subtitles:
http://www.opensubtitles.org/
http://www.divxsubtitles.net/page_subtitles.php
@ VTAMethodman
Yes indeed, comic books has also a low treshold, so it must be easy to understand it, without knowing the language.
@Stefan
I too am a Dutchie
anyway, I meant it the other way around..
I think most tv shows are in English thus you can use those to learn English, but what if you’d like to learn Chinese? That would be alot harder since I don’t see anything on tv in Chinese..
I could find some stuff on the web, but I suppose not everybody has the ability to download Chinese martial arts or something
Ah, nice to see another Dutch in the blogosphere!
Hmm, you mean as you are Dutch and you don’t know English and you want to learn Chinese?
That would be a problem, I’ll will think about this problem.
No I do know English, I mean you’re advise is alot harder to use if you’d like to learn some other language than english
Good advice.
I took six semesters of Spanish in college and I used the caption button while watching Spanish channels to help solidify what I learned.
That is exactly what I mean. You won’t learn a new language by only watching tv, but it is good support!
Thanks for the comment Bakari!
I think you should go and watch some more shows
1) “speak pretty good english” English is English, it’s neither good nor bad. It’s the speaking that we are talking about, so I would chose to use an adverb to modify “to speak” instead of an adjective to modify “English”:
“speak English pretty well”
2) “familiar”, without the extra i.
3) “serie” is a Dutch word. It’s “TV series” or TV show”. In English, “series” can also be used in a singular form, to refer to a specific show.
4) Don’t overuse “that”. It is not common to use “that” like we do in Dutch, particularly when you want to emphasize something, you cannot phrase it like the Dutch “dat/die is zo goed”
5) Lastly, you pay attention TO something, not ON something
The advantage of watching TV shows is you will learn how native speakers talk. You’ll learn how to use the language. The most important things you learn from TV shows are words, common phrases, figures of speech and slang. (The latter two are hardly ever covered by traditional courses, but are crucial if you want to sound like a native speaker)
They will not teach you however, grammar, syntaxis or semantics. Basically, this means you will never really understand the language, but you’ll always be repeating what you’ve heard other people say, combining the things you’ve accumulated by watching.
Without proper grammar, chances are that you’ll start making mistakes when you’re trying to put thoughts into words, because you’re working with existing bits and pieces, instead of starting from scratch on your own.
From watching TV, it’s hard to get “taalgevoel”, a feeling of what sounds (and IS) correct and what doesn’t.
Long story short: I agree, but not unconditionally
Hey Job!
First of all, thanks for the feedback on my English! I need to look things over more I guess, check everything I’ve typed. And probably I need someone who checks it for me, who does is a native English speaker.
I agree with you, you shouldn’t use TV only to learn a new language, but it can be great support! Follow some sort of course in which you learn the grammar and all, but watch shows to learn how you should use it!
Ik ben ook bij lange na geen “native speaker” hoor
Ik ben gewoon een muggenzifter qua spelling en grammatica =P
Textbook English is af en toe wat houterig, maar leert je wel aanvoelen wat klopt. Vervolgens kun je de TV gebruiken om wat meer “colloquial” te leren spreken (meer spreektaal, minder formeel)
Okay, that was kind of superfluous, I just repeated my previous post in Dutch =D
I have traveled a lot and my life and I have always wondered why Dutch people speak English better than about any other people from Europe. When people are watching television, it is like listening to a full speed conversation in that other language. If you spend hours and hours listening to another language, of course that will dramatically improve your listening skills. I completely agree with the premise of your post!!
Sooooooooo true!
I can say the same about Portuguese and Spanish people… We have most of our television in english with subtitles. Even so, I can’t say that Portuguese people’s english is *that* good
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