After watching Star Trek in French, I can now say important phrases like “shields up” “red alert” and “evasive manoeuvres”. I’m ready for those francophone Romulans.
In Japan, I met a girl in the donut shop who spoke perfect American English. I asked her where she learned it so well. Her answer blew me away: the children’s show Sesame Street!
Hahaha, I can relate. An American couple went up to me where i used to work and asked for directions. After that they asked me where I learned English, told them I grew up on Sesame Street. Figuratively of course. 😀😀😀
One thing not mentioned here -- home shopping channels. I don't know who told me this tip but it's great for basic vocabulary and lots of repetition. Something about QVC Italia amuses me, but I couldn't watch 2 min of these channels in English
I'm learning Thai and your comment about the news was spot on. In Thailand they have formal speech (which the news uses) and informal which is how you talk with your friends. If you learn from the news your vocabulary is going to be overly formal for most situations.
That's an issue I faced with Thai language schools too... Which shows have you found? (I watched the one about the students trapped in the cave on Netflix but would prefer sitcoms/ or sci Fi)
The problem with most subtitles on (especially dubbed) Netflix content is that it doesn’t match the audio. So you’re listening to one thing in a foreign language and reading another 😝
That's true. I guess that the subtitle writers and the dubbers do their translations separately. However there are a few that are the same. For example, I'm learning Russian and both Chaos and Monsters use the same Russian version for dubbing and subtitles. It's worth checking each series.
They really only work well when watching in the native language. I wouldn't trust Netflix's subtitles to non-native languages anyway. In recent years, especially, they've made some wild choices, drastically changing character personalities in both sub and dub.
I watched Red One in Frence, one character said Chef for Chief and the subtitle said Patron which is Boss. The voice actor is given a script to allow their words to match the screen actors lip movements, but the subtitlers have to fit words into a single line at the bottom of the screen to often just give the essence of what is being said so it can be read before we go to the next lines. This is why when I watched a Korean movie where one character was getting excited and speaking fast, the subtitle just said Yes!
I noticed in K Dramas that someone will shake their head “yes” but say “no”. My guess is that the question was what was different causing that to happen.
Disney+ has been my favorite service for learning languages. Disney movies are pretty universal and since the language is meant to be somewhat simpler to understand for all audiences, they make great practice. Also because it's Disney, they tend to pay top dollar for voice actors so most languages are represented pretty well. The Incredibles in Spanish, underrated btw.
@@timothybruggeman9332 it is pretty great specially given there is only 1 Spanish version, Colombian Spanish, with some of the actors reprising their roles, while there is some obvious slang they tried to make it as neutral as possible.
If you’re learning French, and you like cooking competition shows I recommend “Qui sera le prochain grand pâtissier”. The episodes are on RUclips, and they don’t have subtitles so it helped my listening comprehension A LOT! Sometimes they explain what some baking terms mean and I get to simultaneously learn French and learn new things in general! Win win
I had a long conversation with a Swedish bus driver, in English. Impressed with his fluency, I asked him how he learned to speak English so well. His answer: watching television in English growing up.
Extra (mentioned around the 6 minute mark) isn't a real sitcom, but an educational series produced by Channel 4 in the UK. They made a version in Spanish, French, German and English, all with basically the same plot and the same male actor. It's definitely worth watching, but not an actual sticom, FYI.
That’s true, but I actually think these were rather well done, despite the look and cultural references being a bit dated now. They definitely capture the 90s sitcom feel. Even if you don’t necessarily find them funny, they are charming maybe even camp, definitely more entertaining than many skit based videos that come with textbooks and what not. I think the German one was the best performed of the bunch (since they all have basically the same story and contents), though I think one of the languages has more episodes than the rest. It’s actually too bad that there isn’t more content like Extra that’s freely available. I do look for dubbed cartoons, but the speech and vocab is often still a bit too above the capability of beginners. The Extra videos use situational context and body language as clues to help learners fill in the words they don’t know. The speech is clear and slow enough to be understood but also not to the point where it sounds too artificial or unnatural. And the topics are more real world than the magical and school based vocab that most children’s shows have. That is to say they feel a bit more relevant to adults not just aimed at kids.
I really liked Extra Deutsch! It was the first time I felt like I could properly understand what was going on. I still giggle over "Was ist ein Tierpräparator?"
Exactly how I do to learn Polish and Portuguese: first watch na episode with subtitles in my language, then watch it again with THAT language. It works great! Thanks for your videos, they’re really interesting 😁😁
Do you have anything you could share with me for learning polish!? I can only use Netflix but sometimes the subtitles don't match so it's pretty hard to learn it well
@@PetrocaVT That’s right, subtitles don’t always match. I’ve tried polishpod101 it’s quite cool. Next month I’ll start polish lessons with a tutor. For the rest I use Mondly app and listen to polish radio online while I’m working
Ah okay that's how you should do it! I was watching the Italian show 'Baby' with English subtitles and then just repeating what they said and ignoring the subtitles but will go back for a re-watch.
@@PetrocaVT-- I read an article recently about how the quality of Netflix subtitles can vary widely depending on who did them. So keep trying diferent programs ontil you find one with good subtitles. One good thing about Polish is that the words are spelled exactly the way you say them. I'd maybe watch an episode in English with Polish subtitles and seee if you can connect the Polish words with English you hear. Then watch it again in Polish with Polish subtitles. Once you're familiar with the characters and general plotline, just watch in Polish with Polish subtitles. This help?
My secret weapon for Italian is the soap, Un Posto al sole. After somewhat less than three years, the stages have been, 1. No clue, can’t get a word, but she is evidently mad at him for some reason; 2. Can pick out a few words; 3. Can follow plot with some holes; 4. Understand most of it; 5. Understand virtually everything including analyzing grammar as it goes by. I usually watch each episode twice, once with subtitles in Italian and once without, but the order varies. I also take scenes and copy the subtitles (correcting them when the subtitles are inaccurate) in column. 1, translate in column 2, make any notes (a new word, a grammar point) in column 3, then several days later cover all but the English column and retranslate into Italian. PS. In the early stages I enjoyed Olly’s short story books and the 30 day grammar topic books.
I watched Un Posto al sole for about 5 years! The characters became almost like family to me, and I loved the really out-there plots. When I was watching the soap, subtitles were not available, so I was forced to listen. At first, I didn't understand much, but after a while I could understand nearly everything. I am not learning German and am into Krimis (crime shows).
Linguistically, Un posto al sole has a major problem for learners: some of the characters speak with a fairly strong Neapolitan accent, and occasionally in dialect.
I would be a little wary of cartoons or at least watch some real action or people shows too. Watching the mouth of a person speaking is really powerful and cartoons lack this.
A Palestinian woman who was tutoring me in Arabic had good American English. I asked how she was so fluent in English. Her reply was that she watched “Fresh Prince of Bel Aire.” Apparently Will Smith is a good ESL teacher.
I agree with your 4 categories. However, I find exposure to news programming or interviews gives me valuable vocabulary needed to discuss and understand current events in a foreign language.
The other thing that I like about news for the beginning stages of learning a foreign language is that the presenters speak clearly using standard vocabulary without slang. TV shows present people speaking less clearly with regional accents and using slang, which is important to reach higher levels of competency.
The 1980s college episodic language learning programs by Annenberg Foundation are still online on their website and on sites like RUclips. For French there's "French in Action" starring the beautiful teen Valérie Allain, who became a cult idol from the show, for Spanish the mystery telenovela "Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish", and for German "Fokus Deutsch". You can still find all the various types of lesson sheets online in PDF form to go with the episodes.
I had to watch Destinos in College in the 2000s for Spanish class! It's like a live action Carmen SanDiego, but the main character is learning about her family history and family secrets. It's actually really well written and you learn some history.
@@siubhan2047 at least it isn't barney? apparently a lot of parents, when that was popular, wanted to gouge their eyes and ears out. something about him was that annoying or unsettling
News is great! One narrator speaking to the camera, without other characters interfering. You probably know the context already and if you get a little lost, it's easy to pick back onto what they're talking about. I like Visualpolitik for Spanish.
French audio books. I find that better for immersion. Somehow Harry Potter is working for me. I love the books and I know them so well that reading or listening in another language is very fun. Plus people who do Harry Potter in audiobooks tend to have a lot of fun with the voices. Thank you for your channel. I love learning languages. It’s fascinating
I'd love to use French HP audiobooks because I bet they're great for that. I'm trying to figure out how to do that w/o putting $ in JKR's transphobic pocket. (If you either agree with her or believe she's not a bigot, save your breath).
@@KaiOpaka You’re the one who brought politics into the thread though. For future reference if you don’t want political engagement, leave it out. I’m over hearing about it.
A trick that I often suggest for Italian (it may work for some other languages as well) is watching dubbed films. We Italians make a huge effort to dub everything, and we have some really good actors working as voice artists for dubbed films (actors like Francesco Pannofino, Anna Proclemer, Anna Marchesini, Gigi Proietti, Giancarlo Giannini all worked or still work in dubbing). Plus dubbed films have the advantage of having the background sounds much quieted down. A trick to helo learn Italian is to watch the Italian dubbed versionof a flim classic that you know very well. Let's say that your favourite movie is Gone with the Wind, and you have seen it dozens of times and can remember all of the dialogues. Watching it in the Italian version you can learn a lot (once you get over the shock of the voices not matching the original ones).
When I was stationed in Germany I used to like to watch the German-dubbed episodes of The Simpsons, because I'd seen them in English so many times and as a huge dork, committed most of them to memory in English. Made it easier to pick up on the German.
Hey Olly! First off, love your channel-it's been such a great resource for me! I'm an English teacher, so I’m pretty close to perfecting my American accent, but I really want to nail it to the point where no one can tell I’m not a native speaker. I know it’s mostly about making small adjustments at this stage, but do you have any tips for fine-tuning pronunciation? Thanks for all the great content-you’re a legend!
Shadowing. I grew up with a distinct local (native English, just very particular) accent. When I was in university, I watched and shadowed national news programs, which used the "standard" English of the country. I managed to replace my accent in about four months. To this day, no one correctly guesses my backwater home correctly.
My friend is inviting me to South Korea this winter. He gave me recommendations for K-Dramas to watch while learning the alphabet and grammar. Currently halfway through Crash Landing on You (사랑의 불시착).
If you are Anki-heavy and want to find words and phrases to mine, something Im doing is watching a movie with Spanish subs and Spanish audio. If I see a word or phrase I've never encountered, I make an Anki card for it. I do it for 5 mins at a time if there are a lot of unfamiliar words. My main input is passive listening and reading.
Watch the same episode over and over again with anki until you have every word memorized (or just high freq words), make note of number repetitions and time. Move on to the next episode, do the same. Note progress.
@@jichaelmorgan3796I think the guy from BTS, the K-Pop group did that with the show Friends, but I don't know if he made Anki cards for it. He got the whole series and just kept re-watching it.
@@jichaelmorgan3796 Friends has 235 episodes. That's a lot of content. If you read books in Spanish, something that works for me is a book series. I'm doing the Harry Potter series (I'm on Book 4 now). The first book is the hardest due to the large amount of unfamiliar words and phrases and sentence structure. It gets easier as you progress through the series. My reading speed is even increasing. I think the next series I want to do is Game of Thrones.
@@confidencemagnet Yeah I think those are great ideas! As soon as you mentioned Harry Potter I thought of Lord of the Rings, then you mentioned Game of Thrones haha. Being immersed in a whole world like that in another language is really interesting. Makes me wish I hadn't read them already. Maybe there are some good epic Spanish speaking story tellers we aren't so familiar with. I've considered reading Don Quixote in Spanish, which I'm sure is valuable, but something more modern or a series?
I have got so many thoughts to share over this topic! 1) I thank Trinity Blood for introducing me to Buck Tick's "Dress" which I really love. Even though my Japanese got rusty over the years of studying hiatus, I still remember the chorus lyrics and what most words in it mean! I'll start studying Japanese again together with watching anime. 2) Even though I've been studying Korean for some time, I would struggle finding enjoyable content to watch and practise on, apart from BTS shows, because the majority of K-Dramas are in the romance genre and I'm not into this. After a long search I found some non-romance K-Dramas to watch. I will also search for more reality shows in Korean, since I've noticed they entail a lot of visual cues for emphasis that makes practice somewhat easier. I can pinpoint episode 5 of Run Jin as an example of this. Thank you so much for sharing your ideas on this! You gave me inspiration to search for more content to practise and on more languages.
Yo, fellow Buck-Tick fan here! (RIP SA🥀) If you've got footing in Korean, going back to Japanese will be easier this time around, grammar-wise. :) If you're still into the music, Cayce's old translation site for Buck-Tick songs, Not Greatest Site, is still available on the Web Archive, and there are a few blogs and tumblrs sharing copies, too.
@@1980rlquinn Wow thank you for your info! I'll check it out and explore the content. It will both be a good restart/refresh in Japanese and I'll pay tribute to SA. I was shocked when he passed away :(
GUYS LANGUAGE REACTOR IS AMAZING...it can pull a transcript from Netflix or RUclips that you can print or at least have digitally. You can also keep both sets of language on or either one.
For me, my English really developed by watching a ton of Star Trek on the BBC with the subtitles on. It was my biggest interest at that moment and there were 4 shows on per week as I watched. You mentioned that sci fi and fantasy is not great for learning the language but I'd disagree. The moment something sparks your interest enough to rewatch it (like I did with Star Trek, where I sometimes rewatched a good ep 3x a week), it's easy to pick up new words and expressions.
Same here, just replace StarTrek with Stargate. I did watch Trek in English as well, but much later. Scify shows might have a bit more action than telenovelas. But if you can't stand telenovelas and love scify, it does not matter since you will just watch way more of it.
A lot of European countries have their own version of TaskMaster. I've been watching the Norwegian version. Not only fun but they are saying numbers and different types of measurements all the time. I also get to hear different dialects.
Spot on! I remember watching a bunch of Spanish speaking series which really helped me on my journey! I watched “el cartel de los sapos” and “distrito salvaje” to name a few. Both were very useful in helping me to really understand Spanish from Bogotá and Cali Colombia.
In certain circumstances, watching news programs can be helpful. For example, when I was studying Spanish in Ecuador, I lived with a host family. We would watch the TV newscast and it would be a starting point for conversation about current events. Of course, I benefited more from the conversation with native speakers than from the newscast itself, but the newscast did start the conversation.
i watched a detective series in Spanish (Argentina). Sometimes the English subtitles were translated to hide the Spanish phrases which might be offensive to Americans.
My tip for beginners in a language is to chose a show from a different language and select the soundtrack of your target language. These trachs are recorded in sound studios and the voice-over actors tend to articulate words better than the original actors.
I think something that's overlooked is sports shows. I know not everybody is a fan of sports, but if you are, it's a great way to learn the more descriptive verbs of motion, related adjectives and adverbs and collocations related to position and transition. Watching gymnastics or any sport which requires finesse in particular will be helpful as there is more attention to detail. Give it a try if it's an area you'd like to work on. 😊
A few observations on why telenovelas, soaps and TV comedies are better for learners: 1. The characters talk all the time unlike in more expensive films where there are usually lengthy periods without dialogue. 2. They rarely have distracting background music which can make the speakers harder to hear. 3. Cheaper sound filtering and editing actually makes the dialogue CLEARER in soaps and telenovelas. - Not sure I agree about the idea that if you are using subtitles that you should use those of the language you are studying instead of English. I know this may seem counterintuitive but consider this. Learners usually cannot read the target language easily which means that their brains end up focusing on the reading task rather than listening. However English subtitles can be read in literally less than a second, giving you the opportunity to understand the gist but also the time to focus on the sounds you are hearing. Obviously though, you shouldn't overuse them.
Yes, I very much agree with your opinion on using English subtitles. I've managed to get barely conversational in Persian and watching Iranian movies with English subtitles is very helpful. I am able to quickly read the subtitles and can use the remaining time to focus on the Persian.
@@alicearmen5601 native Spanish speaker, who read the books in French for the first time, but have consumed fan content in both English and Spanish related to the franchise it is really interesting the translations made for English and Spanish, in French they changed more stuff while in Spanish they chose to keep a lot things.
I recently finished reading The Little Prince in French and now I'm trying to read other translations in split screen on my phone, while asking ChatGPT about things I don't get or need help with.
Such a fun channel and definitely great tips for my linguistic journey. - I watch plenty of K-dramas/Romantic Comedies in Korean; finished an entire series in Swedish (which was VERY helpful for pronunciation) and plan to check out "Extra" per your recommendation. Thank you!
I've seen a few movies in Spanish, I mean, I changed the audio and subtitles to Spanish hehe of course, some Spanish movies also and a couple of Spanish series. YES, I ALWAYS TELL MY STUDENTS OR OTHER PEOPLE LEARNING LANGUAGES TO WATCH WHAT THEY FIND INTERESTING, WHAT THEY LIKE, IT'S MORE FUN AND RELAXED THAT WAY...
I tried it with Indonesian. I found the first Indonesian show I could find on Netflix and started to watch. After watching the episode in Turkish subtitles (my native tongue) then I switxhed to Indonesian subtitles but the thing was....they didn't match with the sound. Like most of the slang or the English words they used were written in standard Indonesian.
The best TV shows for learning another languages are ones that are repetitive, but interesting. Gameshows, Cooking shows, shows about makeovers, or house renovation, are basically the same episode over and over. Watching one a day is really just doing a vocabulary drill, but not feeling like you are. Also, a cool thing about "Un Gars, Une Fille" is it's a remake of a Québécois show. So you can the hear the same jokes in two different accents.
Let me share my three best TV learning tools. As you said, watch what you like, because you will stay engaged. I love cooking, and I love the Korean language, so there was a series called King of Food that taught me the most. I also watch Kpop videos and KDramas. The second best is when I lived in Costa Rica, and we watched a soap opera called Sos Mi Vida. My Spanish improved rapidly. Third best was watching Family Guy in Spanish. It is twice as funny, and really helped with my Spanish. I am also an Anime addict and prefer to watch in Japanese.
This is such good advice. I've just been to see the French movie "Neneh Superstar" and although I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was fast and furious - I was unable to adapt to how the young girls spoke and also Neneh's family and friends. And after an hour and a half, the film was over and I learned virtually nothing. I had a similar experience watching the Taiwanese film, A Sun. 2 hours is just not enough time to accustom oneself to the particularities of the characters' speech patterns. Now I will focus on the types of shows that Olly recommended here.
VPNs don't always work. I'm learning Korean, of course, and Viki, which is THE Korean drama channel, won't allow me access without a VPN, but then scolds me and won't allow me access for having a VPN.
I didn't expect an italian episode 😂 (and didn't expect a mistake in it... You should not use "di" between "hai dimostrato" and "quanto sei egocentrico", maybe this is useful for someone 😅)
Telenovelas are very famous in Brazil. We watch "novelas" in Spanish, Korean, Turkish, etc. 😂 In fact, K-dramas are huge here, mostly because of Netflix and other streaming services, like Amazon Prime and Disney+ Now, about learning English, I've learned it with Friends ❤
DVDs are better than streaming services when you can manage it. The reason being that you're not stuck with the subtitles they provide and you can more easily take those subtitles and turn them into flashcards for review between sessions and you can identify what vocab is being used the most throughout the series. Especially the nouns and verbs that carry a disproportionate amount of the meaning.
I'm learning Mandarin, and RUclips is perfect 12:47 There are a lot of shows available and the best part: they're all in Chinese and English subs at the same time
Ah, 4 types of TV shows... I was ready to say "Bootstrap Bill, you're a liar and you will spend an eternity on this ship". 1:43 Don't watch action packed thrillers 4:47 Comedies 7:24 Find Transcripts 8:06 Telenovelas 10:20 Reality show / non scripted types 13:50 Documentaries 15:42 Shows that you like
I think technical content is easier than colloquial content if you're learning a European language. They're usually the same easily recognisable French/Latin/Greek words across languages. Even in something like Hungarian, the sentence "A desztilláció vagy lepárlás egyrészt egy régóta használt laboratóriumi technika." is easier to figure out than something like "Mi folyik itt Gyöngyösön?".
Maybe it's just a stage I'm going through but I think I'm doing really well listening to speech with target language subtitles until I'm faced with a real person. Turns out I'm getting better at reading my target language.
I have a PBS passport account. For $5USD per month, I can watch international tv series on demand. If you’re learning English, BritBox might help but keep in mind there are some words they use in the UK for ordinary items that are slang for things you should never say in mixed company in the States. . . I can’t speak French (my youngest daughter accidentally learned French before English, so it’s not like I didn’t try) but I love the show Astrid. I find it helps to watch shows with subtitles in languages you’ll never speak, just to help your ears get used to other language sounds if you don’t live in an area where several are spoken. Watch out those Mexican novelas-- they tend to include words and phrases you can’t use in polite conversation. My neighbor from Mexico told me I needed to stop watch them, when she asked what I learned, and then nearly died when I started rattling off words I’d picked up. . . This reminds me, I got your short stories in Norwegian right before we got Covid back in June and I’d forgotten I had it until just now. Bought it at the Nordic Museum in Seattle.
"Extra" in French is wonderful...but I noticed they did not have as many episodes as the Extra in other languages. The actors are SO good together! I wish the cast would do an Encore set of shows!
I often recommend to my students to watch youtube videos on subjects that they love. I live in South America so I have a few go tos for my spanish: guitar teachers; because I am also one, people reading illustrated kids stories because images are very powerful, and any local channel that has things oriented around kids that might also have adults because it I am also a language teacher and hearing and seeing where kids are at is helpful for both my acquisition and ideas for the classroom. I also read books aimed at kids because that is how they learnt. So I initially read books for early readers and now I am at adolescent level. Although I also read local authors aimed at adults which for me are authors like Borges and Cortazar. However, Harry Potter is rich language but way more direct, though not exactly local.
when looking for good shows, check if the country or region gives out awards for the best tv. In Quebec, Les prix gemeaux honours the best in French Canadian tv, for instance.
There's an amazing ASL teacher who Olly interviewed in one video - look for the ASL video on his channel. She gives great insights there, and she has a RUclips channel too.
Barbie movie has an ASL picture in picture interpretation. I think there's a couple fully ASL series out on RUclips but I would have to find them. LifePrint has free lessons, and I bet they have links to anything relevant.
Before I even start watching this I'll just say: Back in 1998 I had 0 english skills and english class as a foreign language was completely gibberish to me. The regular class with meta-language was useless because I did not even understand much of my own native lang grammar, so trying to teach english by comparison was totally futile. But in 1998 we set up cable TV and I started watching american sitcoms with subtitles. Seinfeld, married with children, the nanny, that one with Tony Danza (where, I still remember, I learned the word "why"), 3rd rock from the sun, that 70's show and, most importantly, *friends* . If I speak english now, it's all on those old shows. Of course much more came later, but I went from knowing 0% english to 60-70% in about a year just by catching up with Kramer and Chandler's antics. EDIT: after watching it, yes, I agree with the principle and the importance of repetition. Much of what I learned is due to that. Sony entertainment Tv and Wrner would show new episodes once every week and reruns of older ones ALL DAY LONG. And as a teen I'd watch or at least listen to much of it. And thanks to that, I can still finish most of friends' punchlines before the characters say them and i know most of all the lines even after over 20 years, during which I spent many without ever wathcing a single episode again. The thought process that goes behind it is beautiful. Every little detail is deeply engraved. I only watched the office recently, but I already know the quirks of them characters voices like the palm of my hand, because I'm so well trained in it.
I would disagree about leaving English (or whatever your native language is) subtitles out all together. I think it depends on your level. If you're just starting, of course, your brain will naturally fall to the subtitles. But, if you're more intermediate, where you can already understand a good portion of what's going on from the context of the show and only glancing at the English to double check your own understanding, then the subtitles can be a great way for your to connect phrases with ideas and catch whole idioms over individual words.
(~11:20) Sucking teeth and learning about the sport Ssireum were two things I learned about Korean culture and communication after watching Physical 100 , Sisyphus, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and a few others. There's definitely quite a lot about natural ways of speaking that come out and learning about unique cultural trends if one watches several shows through in a target language
Game shows should be on the list to some extent, At least for English. The American syndicated pair that are optimal for this are Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Wheel spells out words for you on the puzzle board and then you hear them said. Jeopardy is maybe a bit more advanced but can help with understanding word play in English, But vitally all the clues are displayed on screen and also read out by the host.
Some of these make a lot of sense: like documentaries (love them). What about foreign language dubs of other shows you like. Example: I like watching Ancient Aliens (don't know if they have dubs or not) but would watching something like that help with learning a language by associating bits of information that I already know with their foreign language equivalent?
Does anyone have any recommendations for a good German show? Or should I watch a show that I’m already familiar with in German. Since I’m blind, when I do watch something in German, I watch it with the German audio description.
i have heard that Germany is particularly good at taking foreign media and dubbing it into German. Good as in the dubs are of high quality. Which means if you can find the German version of famous movies (probably childrens stuff will be easiest) then that is a place to start.
I've got two German shows I absolutely loved: The first is Dark. That's the name, not a description. It's a mind bender about a small German town where reality is broken, and all kinds of crazy things happen. It was a huge hit for his reason. Another one I found on Netflix is called Kleo. It's about a young woman raised in East Germany, and the action takes place around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She becomes an assassin and it's very over the top. Full of action and lots of plot twists. The second season dropped about a month ago. Loved this show and I gladly watched it a couple of times, just like with Dark. Oh, and the music in both shows is fantastic. Enjoy!
He talked about Extra in Spanish in the video, which was a huge surprise for me, who watched the German version of it! They even used the same setting and the same actor for Sam, the American visitor. So, my suggestion for you is Extra, but the German version of it. I'm not sure if you'll find it with audio descriptions, though.
I strongly disagree with the advice to watch with subtitles in your target language not your native language. That will help you with learning new vocabulary and making sentence structures more automatic but it will sabotage training your ear to understand the words you already know when spoken at full speed by native speakers, which is the one thing that shows do better than any other method! Put the subtitles on in your native language so your brain has the context to better interpret the sounds you're hearing and just make sure to listen closely and then listen for 100-200 hours and you'll start understanding (almost) all the vocabulary that you know. Then you can switch to target-language subtitles if you want.
Me as a Hungarian watching Olly to pick up more English by educating myself ... and a bit disappointed by the 'Keep English out of the picture' remark. :D:D:D
That's how I feel about Ukranian. Half my family speaks Polish and I studied Russian for years... and years.... Those languages are all related like Spanish, Italiian, and Portuguese.So I can't sit through 'Ukranian 101' for English speakers. I'll slit my wrists, lol. I need Ukranian 101 for Polish speakers.... A bit hard to find in ths US.
There are so many good productions coming out of Türkiye these days. I like to watch my Turkish series dubbed in Spanish. Is it my imagination, or is dubbed language easier to understand? My other question: Am I slowing my progress watching shows dubbed in Spanish for the clear language?
The last tip is a good one but it puzzles me why the same point isn't applied to your books of short stories in other languages. I was in a bookshop a few weeks ago and saw they had copies of your Italian short story books so I excitedly picked it up, but while I could see lots of information about what level of learning they targeted and how they would help me with my language learning, I couldn't see any information on what the short stories were actually about (and therefore whether they'd interest me enough to bother reading them). So I didn't end up buying the books. (If anyone can tell me what the Italian stories are about, please let me know!)
I remember watching a show in its native language for the first time, with subtitles and A2 level))) Dexter and True Blood in 2009! Watching True blood really taught me how to understand different accents, and not just in English.
I watched every episode of Paquita Salas when I was living in Spain … loved it, especially when I could understand the jokes, like when they said that a certain brand of alcohol was only good for cleaning the bar. 😂
Watching Doctor Who in English with subtitles really excelled my English. Nowadays I prefer watching series in English with subs, mostly the original is better than the synchro. I recently started watching italian series and am searching for good stuff 😊
Get 4 months extra on a 2 year plan here: nordvpn.com/ollyrichards. It’s risk free with Nord’s 30 day money-back guarantee!
After watching Star Trek in French, I can now say important phrases like “shields up” “red alert” and “evasive manoeuvres”. I’m ready for those francophone Romulans.
LOL
❤
I wonder if I can get Star Trek in Polish.....🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
I wonder what's the French term for "soliton wave".
@@ak5659 they have it with one of those lectors i don't recommend it. polish people get defensive about it but it really ruins the movie
In Japan, I met a girl in the donut shop who spoke perfect American English. I asked her where she learned it so well. Her answer blew me away: the children’s show Sesame Street!
I've met Mexicans from Mexico that say the same.
@@1rstBornAs opposed to Mexicans from China?
All I have is an Japanese Elmo accent in english in my head now 😂😂😂
Erumo
Hahaha, I can relate. An American couple went up to me where i used to work and asked for directions. After that they asked me where I learned English, told them I grew up on Sesame Street. Figuratively of course. 😀😀😀
I recommend watching interviews, because people speak at a casual pace with enough time to think about what they're saying.
Good idea !👍
There is Easy German who does exacty that, interviewing random strangers and turning it into learning content with double subtitles.
@@LanguageMauswhere can I find this? Is this on RUclips?
@@kianbensend Yes it's a youtube channel :) (there are others too under "Easy Languages", but the german one has the most videos).
Great idea! Thanks
One thing not mentioned here -- home shopping channels. I don't know who told me this tip but it's great for basic vocabulary and lots of repetition. Something about QVC Italia amuses me, but I couldn't watch 2 min of these channels in English
I'm learning Thai and your comment about the news was spot on. In Thailand they have formal speech (which the news uses) and informal which is how you talk with your friends. If you learn from the news your vocabulary is going to be overly formal for most situations.
Same for Korean
Every language has a formal track and an informal track. Nothing new.
That's an issue I faced with Thai language schools too... Which shows have you found? (I watched the one about the students trapped in the cave on Netflix but would prefer sitcoms/ or sci Fi)
The problem with most subtitles on (especially dubbed) Netflix content is that it doesn’t match the audio. So you’re listening to one thing in a foreign language and reading another 😝
That's true. I guess that the subtitle writers and the dubbers do their translations separately. However there are a few that are the same. For example, I'm learning Russian and both Chaos and Monsters use the same Russian version for dubbing and subtitles. It's worth checking each series.
They really only work well when watching in the native language. I wouldn't trust Netflix's subtitles to non-native languages anyway. In recent years, especially, they've made some wild choices, drastically changing character personalities in both sub and dub.
I watched Red One in Frence, one character said Chef for Chief and the subtitle said Patron which is Boss. The voice actor is given a script to allow their words to match the screen actors lip movements, but the subtitlers have to fit words into a single line at the bottom of the screen to often just give the essence of what is being said so it can be read before we go to the next lines. This is why when I watched a Korean movie where one character was getting excited and speaking fast, the subtitle just said Yes!
Any tips for shows in German plz?
I noticed in K Dramas that someone will shake their head “yes” but say “no”. My guess is that the question was what was different causing that to happen.
Disney+ has been my favorite service for learning languages. Disney movies are pretty universal and since the language is meant to be somewhat simpler to understand for all audiences, they make great practice. Also because it's Disney, they tend to pay top dollar for voice actors so most languages are represented pretty well.
The Incredibles in Spanish, underrated btw.
@@YngHunch I would think that the movie Encanto in Spanish would be amazing. Except, I'm not learning Spanish... 🤣
@@timothybruggeman9332 it is pretty great specially given there is only 1 Spanish version, Colombian Spanish, with some of the actors reprising their roles, while there is some obvious slang they tried to make it as neutral as possible.
@@timothybruggeman9332 I've only watched part of it but I remember a colombian friend telling me they liked it.
And because it is aimed at a global audience, a lot of things are translated into a dozen languages in both dubs and subs.
@@timothybruggeman9332 Encanto is worth watching in Spanish over English, in general. The music flows better
If you’re learning French, and you like cooking competition shows I recommend “Qui sera le prochain grand pâtissier”. The episodes are on RUclips, and they don’t have subtitles so it helped my listening comprehension A LOT!
Sometimes they explain what some baking terms mean and I get to simultaneously learn French and learn new things in general! Win win
thanks for the tip!
This is so helpful, thanks so much! 🙂
I had a long conversation with a Swedish bus driver, in English. Impressed with his fluency, I asked him how he learned to speak English so well. His answer: watching television in English growing up.
TL:DR
TV Series over Movies
Sitcoms
Reality TV
Documentaries
Shows you love
Thanks
Not all heroes wear capes
I activate subtitles in my target language for everything I watch in RUclips. That helps.
Woah that's an amazing tip!
Extra (mentioned around the 6 minute mark) isn't a real sitcom, but an educational series produced by Channel 4 in the UK. They made a version in Spanish, French, German and English, all with basically the same plot and the same male actor. It's definitely worth watching, but not an actual sticom, FYI.
It would still be classified as a "situational comedy", I.e. realistic setting, repeat characters, comedic elements.
I guess you could call it an edutainment sitcom
That’s true, but I actually think these were rather well done, despite the look and cultural references being a bit dated now. They definitely capture the 90s sitcom feel. Even if you don’t necessarily find them funny, they are charming maybe even camp, definitely more entertaining than many skit based videos that come with textbooks and what not. I think the German one was the best performed of the bunch (since they all have basically the same story and contents), though I think one of the languages has more episodes than the rest.
It’s actually too bad that there isn’t more content like Extra that’s freely available. I do look for dubbed cartoons, but the speech and vocab is often still a bit too above the capability of beginners. The Extra videos use situational context and body language as clues to help learners fill in the words they don’t know. The speech is clear and slow enough to be understood but also not to the point where it sounds too artificial or unnatural. And the topics are more real world than the magical and school based vocab that most children’s shows have. That is to say they feel a bit more relevant to adults not just aimed at kids.
I really liked Extra Deutsch! It was the first time I felt like I could properly understand what was going on. I still giggle over "Was ist ein Tierpräparator?"
Exactly how I do to learn Polish and Portuguese: first watch na episode with subtitles in my language, then watch it again with THAT language.
It works great!
Thanks for your videos, they’re really interesting 😁😁
Do you have anything you could share with me for learning polish!? I can only use Netflix but sometimes the subtitles don't match so it's pretty hard to learn it well
@@PetrocaVT
That’s right, subtitles don’t always match.
I’ve tried polishpod101 it’s quite cool. Next month I’ll start polish lessons with a tutor.
For the rest I use Mondly app and listen to polish radio online while I’m working
Ah okay that's how you should do it! I was watching the Italian show 'Baby' with English subtitles and then just repeating what they said and ignoring the subtitles but will go back for a re-watch.
Can I ask why you learn Polish? 😮
@@PetrocaVT-- I read an article recently about how the quality of Netflix subtitles can vary widely depending on who did them. So keep trying diferent programs ontil you find one with good subtitles. One good thing about Polish is that the words are spelled exactly the way you say them.
I'd maybe watch an episode in English with Polish subtitles and seee if you can connect the Polish words with English you hear. Then watch it again in Polish with Polish subtitles. Once you're familiar with the characters and general plotline, just watch in Polish with Polish subtitles.
This help?
My secret weapon for Italian is the soap, Un Posto al sole. After somewhat less than three years, the stages have been, 1. No clue, can’t get a word, but she is evidently mad at him for some reason; 2. Can pick out a few words; 3. Can follow plot with some holes; 4. Understand most of it; 5. Understand virtually everything including analyzing grammar as it goes by. I usually watch each episode twice, once with subtitles in Italian and once without, but the order varies. I also take scenes and copy the subtitles (correcting them when the subtitles are inaccurate) in column. 1, translate in column 2, make any notes (a new word, a grammar point) in column 3, then several days later cover all but the English column and retranslate into Italian. PS. In the early stages I enjoyed Olly’s short story books and the 30 day grammar topic books.
I watched Un Posto al sole for about 5 years! The characters became almost like family to me, and I loved the really out-there plots. When I was watching the soap, subtitles were not available, so I was forced to listen. At first, I didn't understand much, but after a while I could understand nearly everything. I am not learning German and am into Krimis (crime shows).
I agree. I'm learning German, and have been watching Sturm der Liebe (Storm of Love).
Ho dimenticato di Un Posto!
I watch it sometimes. it reminds me of Home and Away.
Linguistically, Un posto al sole has a major problem for learners: some of the characters speak with a fairly strong Neapolitan accent, and occasionally in dialect.
Cartoons are great. And kids programming. Especially when you are at a lower level.
I agree. Dora the Explorer may not be something I would otherwise watch, but it got me started pretty well.
@@williamiversen2842I can’t tell if this is joke or a serious statement
Spongebob in a different language is funnier.
I would be a little wary of cartoons or at least watch some real action or people shows too. Watching the mouth of a person speaking is really powerful and cartoons lack this.
A Palestinian woman who was tutoring me in Arabic had good American English. I asked how she was so fluent in English. Her reply was that she watched “Fresh Prince of Bel Aire.” Apparently Will Smith is a good ESL teacher.
🇵🇸 Cheers. May all Palestinians soon have their right to life dignity and freedom back.
@@Dylan-oy3ch may all Palestinians be gifted a pager for their birthday
@@Dylan-oy3chnope they have it already and deny it to Isreal
@@sputnikone6281and for all their family too
@@Dylan-oy3chThey've had freedom from the beginning. They choose a death cult over prosperity.
I agree with your 4 categories. However, I find exposure to news programming or interviews gives me valuable vocabulary needed to discuss and understand current events in a foreign language.
The other thing that I like about news for the beginning stages of learning a foreign language is that the presenters speak clearly using standard vocabulary without slang. TV shows present people speaking less clearly with regional accents and using slang, which is important to reach higher levels of competency.
The 1980s college episodic language learning programs by Annenberg Foundation are still online on their website and on sites like RUclips. For French there's "French in Action" starring the beautiful teen Valérie Allain, who became a cult idol from the show, for Spanish the mystery telenovela "Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish", and for German "Fokus Deutsch". You can still find all the various types of lesson sheets online in PDF form to go with the episodes.
I had to watch Destinos in College in the 2000s for Spanish class! It's like a live action Carmen SanDiego, but the main character is learning about her family history and family secrets. It's actually really well written and you learn some history.
BLUEY. This is the answer. Basically the perfect show for language learning.
Good tip. I love children’s cartoons. At the moment, I’m watching Bobo to learn German. He is a lovely toddler!
I’m gonna use this 👀 love bluey even tho I don’t have kids and the episodes are short so I don’t have to sit still for too long if it’s an off day
Yes this i decided to learn Mandarin this year and in the Australian ABC kids app they have all Bluey episodes in both Mandarin and English.
As a nanny I am forced to watch it every morning with the kids... but... but... it is Australiannnnnnn
@@siubhan2047 at least it isn't barney? apparently a lot of parents, when that was popular, wanted to gouge their eyes and ears out. something about him was that annoying or unsettling
News is great! One narrator speaking to the camera, without other characters interfering. You probably know the context already and if you get a little lost, it's easy to pick back onto what they're talking about. I like Visualpolitik for Spanish.
French audio books. I find that better for immersion. Somehow Harry Potter is working for me. I love the books and I know them so well that reading or listening in another language is very fun. Plus people who do Harry Potter in audiobooks tend to have a lot of fun with the voices. Thank you for your channel. I love learning languages. It’s fascinating
Do you think knowing the content in your native language before listening in another language is the key?
@@carrington2949 I think it helps with the immersion part. You can relax.
@@alicearmen5601 I read the books for the first time in French while learning the language
I'd love to use French HP audiobooks because I bet they're great for that. I'm trying to figure out how to do that w/o putting $ in JKR's transphobic pocket. (If you either agree with her or believe she's not a bigot, save your breath).
@@KaiOpaka You’re the one who brought politics into the thread though. For future reference if you don’t want political engagement, leave it out. I’m over hearing about it.
A trick that I often suggest for Italian (it may work for some other languages as well) is watching dubbed films. We Italians make a huge effort to dub everything, and we have some really good actors working as voice artists for dubbed films (actors like Francesco Pannofino, Anna Proclemer, Anna Marchesini, Gigi Proietti, Giancarlo Giannini all worked or still work in dubbing). Plus dubbed films have the advantage of having the background sounds much quieted down. A trick to helo learn Italian is to watch the Italian dubbed versionof a flim classic that you know very well. Let's say that your favourite movie is Gone with the Wind, and you have seen it dozens of times and can remember all of the dialogues. Watching it in the Italian version you can learn a lot (once you get over the shock of the voices not matching the original ones).
When I was stationed in Germany I used to like to watch the German-dubbed episodes of The Simpsons, because I'd seen them in English so many times and as a huge dork, committed most of them to memory in English. Made it easier to pick up on the German.
The Bart The .)
I did the same thing learning French. It's the only way I could learn French word for "Hillbilly".
I did the same thing with reading. The Rainbow Fish gave me so much confidence!
Hey Olly! First off, love your channel-it's been such a great resource for me! I'm an English teacher, so I’m pretty close to perfecting my American accent, but I really want to nail it to the point where no one can tell I’m not a native speaker. I know it’s mostly about making small adjustments at this stage, but do you have any tips for fine-tuning pronunciation? Thanks for all the great content-you’re a legend!
Shadowing. I grew up with a distinct local (native English, just very particular) accent. When I was in university, I watched and shadowed national news programs, which used the "standard" English of the country. I managed to replace my accent in about four months. To this day, no one correctly guesses my backwater home correctly.
My friend is inviting me to South Korea this winter. He gave me recommendations for K-Dramas to watch while learning the alphabet and grammar. Currently halfway through Crash Landing on You (사랑의 불시착).
What are the other recommendations?
@@habeebah6135 So far, he only gave me Crash Landing and All of Us are Dead, as to not overload myself. He did tell me Squid Game is overrated.
Isn't Crash Landing set in North Korea lol
@@dperrymThe story is set in North Korea. Highly doubt it was made in actual North Korea.
@@entropie138 right it was definitely filmed in South Korea. I was just laughing thinking about you going over there and using North Korean vocabulary
For Japanese, I have been finding street interviews and podcasts quite useful. You start to pick up on common words and natural ways of speaking.
Thanks for this, because I couldn’t tolerate Terrace House
@@zengseng1234 HARD SAME. The sound editing and the whole commentator sections make me want to pull my brain out through my ears.
I like the comedian who rolls his Rs.
If you are Anki-heavy and want to find words and phrases to mine, something Im doing is watching a movie with Spanish subs and Spanish audio. If I see a word or phrase I've never encountered, I make an Anki card for it. I do it for 5 mins at a time if there are a lot of unfamiliar words.
My main input is passive listening and reading.
Watch the same episode over and over again with anki until you have every word memorized (or just high freq words), make note of number repetitions and time. Move on to the next episode, do the same. Note progress.
@@jichaelmorgan3796I think the guy from BTS, the K-Pop group did that with the show Friends, but I don't know if he made Anki cards for it. He got the whole series and just kept re-watching it.
@@confidencemagnet Oh fr?? Maybe I'll try it with the Spanish version of Friends suggested in the vid.
@@jichaelmorgan3796 Friends has 235 episodes. That's a lot of content. If you read books in Spanish, something that works for me is a book series. I'm doing the Harry Potter series (I'm on Book 4 now). The first book is the hardest due to the large amount of unfamiliar words and phrases and sentence structure. It gets easier as you progress through the series. My reading speed is even increasing. I think the next series I want to do is Game of Thrones.
@@confidencemagnet Yeah I think those are great ideas! As soon as you mentioned Harry Potter I thought of Lord of the Rings, then you mentioned Game of Thrones haha. Being immersed in a whole world like that in another language is really interesting. Makes me wish I hadn't read them already. Maybe there are some good epic Spanish speaking story tellers we aren't so familiar with. I've considered reading Don Quixote in Spanish, which I'm sure is valuable, but something more modern or a series?
I have got so many thoughts to share over this topic!
1) I thank Trinity Blood for introducing me to Buck Tick's "Dress" which I really love. Even though my Japanese got rusty over the years of studying hiatus, I still remember the chorus lyrics and what most words in it mean! I'll start studying Japanese again together with watching anime.
2) Even though I've been studying Korean for some time, I would struggle finding enjoyable content to watch and practise on, apart from BTS shows, because the majority of K-Dramas are in the romance genre and I'm not into this. After a long search I found some non-romance K-Dramas to watch. I will also search for more reality shows in Korean, since I've noticed they entail a lot of visual cues for emphasis that makes practice somewhat easier. I can pinpoint episode 5 of Run Jin as an example of this.
Thank you so much for sharing your ideas on this!
You gave me inspiration to search for more content to practise and on more languages.
Yo, fellow Buck-Tick fan here! (RIP SA🥀) If you've got footing in Korean, going back to Japanese will be easier this time around, grammar-wise. :) If you're still into the music, Cayce's old translation site for Buck-Tick songs, Not Greatest Site, is still available on the Web Archive, and there are a few blogs and tumblrs sharing copies, too.
@@1980rlquinn Wow thank you for your info! I'll check it out and explore the content. It will both be a good restart/refresh in Japanese and I'll pay tribute to SA. I was shocked when he passed away :(
GUYS LANGUAGE REACTOR IS AMAZING...it can pull a transcript from Netflix or RUclips that you can print or at least have digitally. You can also keep both sets of language on or either one.
Is it an app?
For me, my English really developed by watching a ton of Star Trek on the BBC with the subtitles on. It was my biggest interest at that moment and there were 4 shows on per week as I watched. You mentioned that sci fi and fantasy is not great for learning the language but I'd disagree. The moment something sparks your interest enough to rewatch it (like I did with Star Trek, where I sometimes rewatched a good ep 3x a week), it's easy to pick up new words and expressions.
Same here, just replace StarTrek with Stargate.
I did watch Trek in English as well, but much later.
Scify shows might have a bit more action than telenovelas. But if you can't stand telenovelas and love scify, it does not matter since you will just watch way more of it.
A lot of European countries have their own version of TaskMaster. I've been watching the Norwegian version. Not only fun but they are saying numbers and different types of measurements all the time. I also get to hear different dialects.
The 7 minute mark - YES! I understood a reference in a Russian film about Dostoevsky and felt so accomplished.
Spot on! I remember watching a bunch of Spanish speaking series which really helped me on my journey! I watched “el cartel de los sapos” and “distrito salvaje” to name a few. Both were very useful in helping me to really understand Spanish from Bogotá and Cali Colombia.
In certain circumstances, watching news programs can be helpful. For example, when I was studying Spanish in Ecuador, I lived with a host family. We would watch the TV newscast and it would be a starting point for conversation about current events. Of course, I benefited more from the conversation with native speakers than from the newscast itself, but the newscast did start the conversation.
i watched a detective series in Spanish (Argentina). Sometimes the English subtitles were translated to hide the Spanish phrases which might be offensive to Americans.
Technique I use: watch once without subs, with subs + taking notes on unknown words, watch again without subs + reviewing notes.
My tip for beginners in a language is to chose a show from a different language and select the soundtrack of your target language. These trachs are recorded in sound studios and the voice-over actors tend to articulate words better than the original actors.
I think something that's overlooked is sports shows. I know not everybody is a fan of sports, but if you are, it's a great way to learn the more descriptive verbs of motion, related adjectives and adverbs and collocations related to position and transition. Watching gymnastics or any sport which requires finesse in particular will be helpful as there is more attention to detail. Give it a try if it's an area you'd like to work on. 😊
A few observations on why telenovelas, soaps and TV comedies are better for learners: 1. The characters talk all the time unlike in more expensive films where there are usually lengthy periods without dialogue. 2. They rarely have distracting background music which can make the speakers harder to hear. 3. Cheaper sound filtering and editing actually makes the dialogue CLEARER in soaps and telenovelas. -
Not sure I agree about the idea that if you are using subtitles that you should use those of the language you are studying instead of English. I know this may seem counterintuitive but consider this. Learners usually cannot read the target language easily which means that their brains end up focusing on the reading task rather than listening. However English subtitles can be read in literally less than a second, giving you the opportunity to understand the gist but also the time to focus on the sounds you are hearing. Obviously though, you shouldn't overuse them.
Yes, I very much agree with your opinion on using English subtitles. I've managed to get barely conversational in Persian and watching Iranian movies with English subtitles is very helpful. I am able to quickly read the subtitles and can use the remaining time to focus on the Persian.
I listened to all of Harry Potter in French. Now I’m reading it in Spanish
French audio books or the movies?
@@alicearmen5601 native Spanish speaker, who read the books in French for the first time, but have consumed fan content in both English and Spanish related to the franchise it is really interesting the translations made for English and Spanish, in French they changed more stuff while in Spanish they chose to keep a lot things.
I started reading HP in Hindi, and I liked seeing that Mr Dursley played tabla on the steering wheel 😅
You learned how to read Spanish by listening to French!!! That is impressive!
I recently finished reading The Little Prince in French and now I'm trying to read other translations in split screen on my phone, while asking ChatGPT about things I don't get or need help with.
When I started learning german, I watched "pepa pig or pepa wutz" in german. I helped me a lot to reach a2 and b1 level.
Extr@ is in English, French, German and Spanish. The English version goes on for about 30 episodes. All the others stop around 15 I think.
And the “American” is actually a Dutch actor who also starred in a Dutch version of Ugly Betty. 😊
Please share a link if you can. 🙌
Such a fun channel and definitely great tips for my linguistic journey. - I watch plenty of K-dramas/Romantic Comedies in Korean; finished an entire series in Swedish (which was VERY helpful for pronunciation) and plan to check out "Extra" per your recommendation. Thank you!
I've seen a few movies in Spanish, I mean, I changed the audio and subtitles to Spanish hehe of course, some Spanish movies also
and a couple of Spanish series.
YES, I ALWAYS TELL MY STUDENTS OR OTHER PEOPLE LEARNING LANGUAGES TO WATCH WHAT THEY FIND INTERESTING, WHAT THEY LIKE, IT'S MORE FUN AND RELAXED THAT WAY...
Never been happy like today.... this is extremely helpful. Thank you
I tried it with Indonesian. I found the first Indonesian show I could find on Netflix and started to watch. After watching the episode in Turkish subtitles (my native tongue) then I switxhed to Indonesian subtitles but the thing was....they didn't match with the sound. Like most of the slang or the English words they used were written in standard Indonesian.
The best TV shows for learning another languages are ones that are repetitive, but interesting. Gameshows, Cooking shows, shows about makeovers, or house renovation, are basically the same episode over and over. Watching one a day is really just doing a vocabulary drill, but not feeling like you are.
Also, a cool thing about "Un Gars, Une Fille" is it's a remake of a Québécois show. So you can the hear the same jokes in two different accents.
Let me share my three best TV learning tools. As you said, watch what you like, because you will stay engaged. I love cooking, and I love the Korean language, so there was a series called King of Food that taught me the most. I also watch Kpop videos and KDramas. The second best is when I lived in Costa Rica, and we watched a soap opera called Sos Mi Vida. My Spanish improved rapidly. Third best was watching Family Guy in Spanish. It is twice as funny, and really helped with my Spanish. I am also an Anime addict and prefer to watch in Japanese.
This is such good advice. I've just been to see the French movie "Neneh Superstar" and although I thoroughly enjoyed it, it was fast and furious - I was unable to adapt to how the young girls spoke and also Neneh's family and friends. And after an hour and a half, the film was over and I learned virtually nothing.
I had a similar experience watching the Taiwanese film, A Sun. 2 hours is just not enough time to accustom oneself to the particularities of the characters' speech patterns. Now I will focus on the types of shows that Olly recommended here.
VPNs don't always work. I'm learning Korean, of course, and Viki, which is THE Korean drama channel, won't allow me access without a VPN, but then scolds me and won't allow me access for having a VPN.
I didn't expect an italian episode 😂 (and didn't expect a mistake in it... You should not use "di" between "hai dimostrato" and "quanto sei egocentrico", maybe this is useful for someone 😅)
Ahahahah true
Telenovelas are very famous in Brazil. We watch "novelas" in Spanish, Korean, Turkish, etc. 😂 In fact, K-dramas are huge here, mostly because of Netflix and other streaming services, like Amazon Prime and Disney+
Now, about learning English, I've learned it with Friends ❤
DVDs are better than streaming services when you can manage it. The reason being that you're not stuck with the subtitles they provide and you can more easily take those subtitles and turn them into flashcards for review between sessions and you can identify what vocab is being used the most throughout the series. Especially the nouns and verbs that carry a disproportionate amount of the meaning.
I'm learning Mandarin, and RUclips is perfect 12:47
There are a lot of shows available and the best part: they're all in Chinese and English subs at the same time
Ah, 4 types of TV shows...
I was ready to say "Bootstrap Bill, you're a liar and you will spend an eternity on this ship".
1:43 Don't watch action packed thrillers
4:47 Comedies
7:24 Find Transcripts
8:06 Telenovelas
10:20 Reality show / non scripted types
13:50 Documentaries
15:42 Shows that you like
@Olly:
Thanks.
As for Russian, Star Media, which is on RUclips, is good for TV shows and documentaries.
I think technical content is easier than colloquial content if you're learning a European language. They're usually the same easily recognisable French/Latin/Greek words across languages.
Even in something like Hungarian, the sentence "A desztilláció vagy lepárlás egyrészt egy régóta használt laboratóriumi technika." is easier to figure out than something like "Mi folyik itt Gyöngyösön?".
love turkish dizis.. purely watching turkish series for 2 years, i understand and read at b1/b2... when i was a child i learned english by watchnig tv
I recommend watching vis a vis if you're learning Spanish and you like orange is the new black (English title: locked up)
Maybe it's just a stage I'm going through but I think I'm doing really well listening to speech with target language subtitles until I'm faced with a real person. Turns out I'm getting better at reading my target language.
Animation in general is a great way to learn a language, esp kids shows if you're just getting started.
I have a PBS passport account. For $5USD per month, I can watch international tv series on demand. If you’re learning English, BritBox might help but keep in mind there are some words they use in the UK for ordinary items that are slang for things you should never say in mixed company in the States. . . I can’t speak French (my youngest daughter accidentally learned French before English, so it’s not like I didn’t try) but I love the show Astrid. I find it helps to watch shows with subtitles in languages you’ll never speak, just to help your ears get used to other language sounds if you don’t live in an area where several are spoken. Watch out those Mexican novelas-- they tend to include words and phrases you can’t use in polite conversation. My neighbor from Mexico told me I needed to stop watch them, when she asked what I learned, and then nearly died when I started rattling off words I’d picked up. . . This reminds me, I got your short stories in Norwegian right before we got Covid back in June and I’d forgotten I had it until just now. Bought it at the Nordic Museum in Seattle.
La Vie Douce is a good way to learn everyday French as spoken among friends.
"Extra" in French is wonderful...but I noticed they did not have as many episodes as
the Extra in other languages. The actors are SO good together! I wish the cast would do
an Encore set of shows!
I often recommend to my students to watch youtube videos on subjects that they love. I live in South America so I have a few go tos for my spanish: guitar teachers; because I am also one, people reading illustrated kids stories because images are very powerful, and any local channel that has things oriented around kids that might also have adults because it I am also a language teacher and hearing and seeing where kids are at is helpful for both my acquisition and ideas for the classroom. I also read books aimed at kids because that is how they learnt. So I initially read books for early readers and now I am at adolescent level. Although I also read local authors aimed at adults which for me are authors like Borges and Cortazar. However, Harry Potter is rich language but way more direct, though not exactly local.
when looking for good shows, check if the country or region gives out awards for the best tv. In Quebec, Les prix gemeaux honours the best in French Canadian tv, for instance.
Any tips for sign language? My teen is taking an ASL class and we're wondering how we can supplement the not so great class she's in.
There's an amazing ASL teacher who Olly interviewed in one video - look for the ASL video on his channel. She gives great insights there, and she has a RUclips channel too.
@@lisamarydew Awesome, thanks!
Barbie movie has an ASL picture in picture interpretation. I think there's a couple fully ASL series out on RUclips but I would have to find them. LifePrint has free lessons, and I bet they have links to anything relevant.
Now I'm going to go check out all the recommended programs. I hope they are the best.
I watch Caso Cerrado because all of the scenarios are 100% real and true stories.
Before I even start watching this I'll just say: Back in 1998 I had 0 english skills and english class as a foreign language was completely gibberish to me. The regular class with meta-language was useless because I did not even understand much of my own native lang grammar, so trying to teach english by comparison was totally futile. But in 1998 we set up cable TV and I started watching american sitcoms with subtitles. Seinfeld, married with children, the nanny, that one with Tony Danza (where, I still remember, I learned the word "why"), 3rd rock from the sun, that 70's show and, most importantly, *friends* . If I speak english now, it's all on those old shows. Of course much more came later, but I went from knowing 0% english to 60-70% in about a year just by catching up with Kramer and Chandler's antics.
EDIT: after watching it, yes, I agree with the principle and the importance of repetition. Much of what I learned is due to that. Sony entertainment Tv and Wrner would show new episodes once every week and reruns of older ones ALL DAY LONG. And as a teen I'd watch or at least listen to much of it. And thanks to that, I can still finish most of friends' punchlines before the characters say them and i know most of all the lines even after over 20 years, during which I spent many without ever wathcing a single episode again. The thought process that goes behind it is beautiful. Every little detail is deeply engraved. I only watched the office recently, but I already know the quirks of them characters voices like the palm of my hand, because I'm so well trained in it.
i love he is a teacher who is just wonderful
Cheers fella... Massively helpful🥂👍🏾💣💥
I think watching movies you've already watched many times so you basically know the dialogue by heart, might be helpful
I would disagree about leaving English (or whatever your native language is) subtitles out all together. I think it depends on your level. If you're just starting, of course, your brain will naturally fall to the subtitles. But, if you're more intermediate, where you can already understand a good portion of what's going on from the context of the show and only glancing at the English to double check your own understanding, then the subtitles can be a great way for your to connect phrases with ideas and catch whole idioms over individual words.
My French friend learned English watching Friends!
(~11:20) Sucking teeth and learning about the sport Ssireum were two things I learned about Korean culture and communication after watching Physical 100 , Sisyphus, Extraordinary Attorney Woo, and a few others.
There's definitely quite a lot about natural ways of speaking that come out and learning about unique cultural trends if one watches several shows through in a target language
Game shows should be on the list to some extent, At least for English. The American syndicated pair that are optimal for this are Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Wheel spells out words for you on the puzzle board and then you hear them said. Jeopardy is maybe a bit more advanced but can help with understanding word play in English, But vitally all the clues are displayed on screen and also read out by the host.
Smart and practical language-learning advice.
Any show recommendation for Brazilian Portuguese? 😊
I haven’t seen any on Netflix but try lingopie
Do you advice against watching English shows dubbed in your target language? I've seen The Office so many times I know so many of the lines.
Some of these make a lot of sense: like documentaries (love them). What about foreign language dubs of other shows you like. Example: I like watching Ancient Aliens (don't know if they have dubs or not) but would watching something like that help with learning a language by associating bits of information that I already know with their foreign language equivalent?
I'm here from one of your books. I've finished it. Do you have other books similar to intermediate?
Does anyone have any recommendations for a good German show? Or should I watch a show that I’m already familiar with in German. Since I’m blind, when I do watch something in German, I watch it with the German audio description.
i have heard that Germany is particularly good at taking foreign media and dubbing it into German. Good as in the dubs are of high quality. Which means if you can find the German version of famous movies (probably childrens stuff will be easiest) then that is a place to start.
I've got two German shows I absolutely loved: The first is Dark. That's the name, not a description. It's a mind bender about a small German town where reality is broken, and all kinds of crazy things happen. It was a huge hit for his reason. Another one I found on Netflix is called Kleo. It's about a young woman raised in East Germany, and the action takes place around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. She becomes an assassin and it's very over the top. Full of action and lots of plot twists. The second season dropped about a month ago. Loved this show and I gladly watched it a couple of times, just like with Dark. Oh, and the music in both shows is fantastic. Enjoy!
Berlin Berlin is pretty good
@@glantch thanks for the suggestions. Dark is a good show. I’ve been enjoying that one. I haven’t seen Kleo, but I’ll check that out.
He talked about Extra in Spanish in the video, which was a huge surprise for me, who watched the German version of it! They even used the same setting and the same actor for Sam, the American visitor. So, my suggestion for you is Extra, but the German version of it. I'm not sure if you'll find it with audio descriptions, though.
All true. Listen to this man.
I strongly disagree with the advice to watch with subtitles in your target language not your native language. That will help you with learning new vocabulary and making sentence structures more automatic but it will sabotage training your ear to understand the words you already know when spoken at full speed by native speakers, which is the one thing that shows do better than any other method! Put the subtitles on in your native language so your brain has the context to better interpret the sounds you're hearing and just make sure to listen closely and then listen for 100-200 hours and you'll start understanding (almost) all the vocabulary that you know. Then you can switch to target-language subtitles if you want.
I agree, i feel like 99% of language learning advice on RUclips is for B1+ or at least not accounting for that long road between A1 and A2
Thanks for an amazing video!!! Question- What about having English phonetic subtitles where the language is not Latin based?
I remember watching Extra in Spanish class at school. I still sometimes think of the line "Soy de Sam".
Me as a Hungarian watching Olly to pick up more English by educating myself ... and a bit disappointed by the 'Keep English out of the picture' remark. :D:D:D
Same here, as an italian desperately trying to.improve her english :)
That's how I feel about Ukranian. Half my family speaks Polish and I studied Russian for years... and years.... Those languages are all related like Spanish, Italiian, and Portuguese.So I can't sit through 'Ukranian 101' for English speakers. I'll slit my wrists, lol. I need Ukranian 101 for Polish speakers.... A bit hard to find in ths US.
@@nonnapapera3044 wish luck to all of you guys, keep up the good work💪
There are so many good productions coming out of Türkiye these days. I like to watch my Turkish series dubbed in Spanish. Is it my imagination, or is dubbed language easier to understand?
My other question: Am I slowing my progress watching shows dubbed in Spanish for the clear language?
The last tip is a good one but it puzzles me why the same point isn't applied to your books of short stories in other languages. I was in a bookshop a few weeks ago and saw they had copies of your Italian short story books so I excitedly picked it up, but while I could see lots of information about what level of learning they targeted and how they would help me with my language learning, I couldn't see any information on what the short stories were actually about (and therefore whether they'd interest me enough to bother reading them). So I didn't end up buying the books. (If anyone can tell me what the Italian stories are about, please let me know!)
I remember watching a show in its native language for the first time, with subtitles and A2 level))) Dexter and True Blood in 2009! Watching True blood really taught me how to understand different accents, and not just in English.
Great advice! Hey, any show recommendations for learning Italian?
I bought your french and spanish books its funny im watching your channel and ive had before and never realized
I watched every episode of Paquita Salas when I was living in Spain … loved it, especially when I could understand the jokes, like when they said that a certain brand of alcohol was only good for cleaning the bar. 😂
Any recommendations for German?
Great tips, Olly. Love me some 「テラスハウス」。
Watching Doctor Who in English with subtitles really excelled my English. Nowadays I prefer watching series in English with subs, mostly the original is better than the synchro. I recently started watching italian series and am searching for good stuff 😊
First movies can be paused after 30 minutes making them just manageable as a tv show length
I also have subtitles on everything I watch in my target language even if it's an English show