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Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows

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Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows

#31

Post by crazysaem »

Great idea - It seems a lot of people already use TV Shows/Movies to learn English, as did I.

This reminded me when I was re-watching a few of my favorite TV Shows, were the Dub/Sub transitions as following from early to later seasons:

1) German Dub – No Subtitles

2) English Dub – German Subtitles

3) English Dub – English Subtitles

4) English Dub – No Subtitles

Interestingly I moved away from German and to English for most of the media I consume and watching German TV at a friend’s house actually sounds really foreign to me now.

Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows

#32

Post by crazysaem »

ssw1n wrote: post #27

I am not a native speaker, and I learned English from movies and TV shows available to me. It is very interesting to see that this idea is being commercialized only now. It would be really great if options for other languages are available too. I am looking forward to learn French and German. I tried Duo Lingo, but it did not help me much in speech department. From my past experience, it has to be the movies, and TV…

You could also try http://board.tv4user.de/ for german subtitles of many US/UK TV Shows. It's made for german users who understand little english but still want to see shows as soon as they come out (So the site itself is in german, but finding shows shouldn't be hard). The community is pretty great and very fast when a new episode comes out.

Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows

#33

Post by trekky1700 »

polymatter wrote: post #17

Please don't use flags for disambiguating languages. ( http://flagsarenotlanguages.com/blog/why-flags-do-not-repres... ) is a starting point. Basically - some languages are spoken in more than one country (eg. English in US, Britain, Australia, India) - some countries have more than one language spoken in them (eg. see any large country) - you will end up accidentally annoying people when you accidentally get it wron…

The flags are something that have been used by sites for years, a lot of people are used to it. I speak English but am Canadian, I know to look for the Union Jack if I want English and the French flag for France. Perhaps it's not as simple in other places, but I really don't think it's a big issue. A lot of people can figure it out with a very minimal level of thought/remembering prior experiences. The Union Jack for instance could represent Gaelic, Welsh or Cornish, but most people know it means English. To me, I rather liked seeing the flags, I thought it was a nice touch and added to the look and feel (rather than writing out the language name in subtitle font).

Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows

#34

Post by jtemplestein »

I'm originally from Germany and moved to San Francisco three years ago, when I was 21. People are often surprised that I don't have a strong German accent and I jokingly say that it's because I watched all 10 seasons of Friends a few times in a row. It's a joke, but I'm convinced it has a lot to do with it.

There's an interview with Max Levchin somewhere in which he says that he watched some TV show over and over and repeated everything that was said in order to rebrand himself as a midwesterner after he moved to the US. His English is really good, too.

Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows

#35

Post by Dewie »

This is what happened organically for me* growing up in a country with a native language that has no international traction, and being over-saturated with American pop-culture.

Personally I would like something similar for Spanish.

*and with stuff like video games, the Web(!!)...

Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows

#36

Post by dom96 »

jtemplestein wrote: post #34

I'm originally from Germany and moved to San Francisco three years ago, when I was 21. People are often surprised that I don't have a strong German accent and I jokingly say that it's because I watched all 10 seasons of Friends a few times in a row. It's a joke, but I'm convinced it has a lot to do with it. There's an interview with Max Levchin somewhere in which he says that he watched some TV show over and over and…

That is precisely how I have learned English when I moved from Poland to the UK. Friends and other TV shows together with English subtitles is the best way to learn.

I would love to see this provide the ability to learn other languages, for which subtitles might be hard to find.

Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows

#39

Post by kraymer »

jwarren wrote: post #6

Smart! Any plans to work with multiple languages? I'm an English-speaker, and I'd love something similar in the other direction.

I have coded a python app in my spare time to auto-sync two subtitles streams (any langage) and maximize the time each dual-subtitle is displayed on screen. It just tries to merge two srt as smartly as possible. I'm interested for feedbacks and test cases, my mail in my profile.

But sometimes, doubling amount text on screen is just not processable at a glance, fleex seems to have very appealing solutions to that : picking one of the langage based on difficulty, arrow key to get back in time and slow down playrate. Cant' wait to play with it!

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