Hacker News Reader

Comment by spraak | Hacker News Reader

> Watching TV and movies with subtitles is a great way for intermediate language learners (B1 and above) to progress.

If they have patience, it's good for anyone. My children have been able to learn many languages this way from scratch to a very high level of fluency that I only minimally speak. I look for children's tv network apps for their iPad from countries with the target language.

View on HN

How do you do this? Target language audio with English subs?

Belgian here. Growing up, most of the stuff I watched on TV was either French or English (Belgian TV had little to offer at the time). There were no subtitles. I mamaged to pick up a good deal of French and a great deal of English in this way.

I think watching things in their original language is key. You pick up on things using context, some of which is lost in translation.

I've learned English the same way. A fair amount of people in my generation learned German the same way. It boiled down to which TV channels you had access to while you were a kid, and the lucky ones learned both.

As an adult, I have way less patience to stare at a screen and try picking up stuff that I don't understand. I've tried finding some Dutch shows with English subtitles, but it was shocking how little content I could find.

No subtitles, just lots of patience and repetition. The visual context is the key. It wouldn't work with audio only.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com