What about going the other way? I'd love to learn another language form movies / tv shows.
Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
141–150 of 162 posts
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#142I'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.
I'd like Japanese subtitles for Japanese movies. Maybe that way I'd learn to read too.
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#143Cool, looks like BabbleFlix, which I tried starting in 2009, but ran out of runway. Check out the videos on YouTube for so possible improvements.
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#144First time posting here at HN, long time reader though.
I am fluent in English and German with no accent and I never had any formal education in either. Well that's not completely true as I did have standard English classes in primary and high school but that doesn't count because that stuff was pretty useless.
I learned both languages by watching endless hours of English and German TV, first cartoons as a kid and then the rest later on. Actually for English it was pretty much Cartoon Network so in a sense Cartoon Network taught me English.
One thing that surprises most people is that all of this was completely without subtitles. I'm not sure how one goes from not knowing a word of a language to speaking it fluently by watching and listening to a foreign language with no reference points but that's how it went for me.
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nekopa, These are all good ideas, that we've of course considered and been pondering for quite a while now. There are various difficulties associated with them, at various degrees. Personally I tend to think that in most cases, ideas are relatively cheap: finding the right way to implement them in a way that's highly scalable really is the hard part. We can of course chat sometime this week - as a teacher, we'd of co…
Thanks for replying! Yes, indeed, ideas are cheap. But I have to point out one thing: implementation can also be cheap; get it working first, then think about scale. I know everyone aims for the hockey stick, but before you can get there , do something to monetize, even if it is small scale. For example, point 1 above, I am already doing it. I am already thinking how to make a simple document I can send to my student…
That's fine. Competition is a healthy thing ;-)
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#146Brilliant! This is exactly how a lot of us exposed to US and UK culture since a young age learned English. Although I've noticed that as I age, I have far less patience to watch television in an unknown language than I used to. Tried learning German this way and it was just annoying.
Quite the coincidence...the comment I wrote actually had another part but I deleted it because I didn't want to appear as someone giving out advice that nobody requested.
Basically what it said is that if you want your kids to learn a foreign language you should put them in front of the TV at a young age because once they are a bit older and actually know that they have a choice they won't want to spend a lot of time looking at a screen where characters are going on about something that they can't understand. As you said it is "just annoying.
So if you want to do this for your kids you basically need to do it when they're clueless to the fact that they can actually change the channel. Once they know they have a choice and are actually bothered by not understanding the language they will surely change to an English channel, one that they can actually understand.
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#147I'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…
As an Englishman, I think it's sad that when non-native English speakers learn the language they target an American accent.
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#148I'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…
As an Englishman, I think it's sad that when non-native English speakers learn the language they target an American accent.
It's a sign of our times. Indian English follows more or less the British pattern (colour instead of color etc.). However, recent times have seen a marked shift towards American spellings and pronunciation. I would imagine this is the case in other former British colonies as well.
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh if only watching tv was enough to get rid of the accent! As a dane, my accent at its worst sounds like someone making fun of a deaf person
Same here as a french guy. Even worse is that I can usually hide it pretty well (or at least diminish it) until I have to pronounce the letter 'R'. Damn R's...
The problem is reversed for those of us learning French. Tough pronouncing the 'err' :)
Re: Show HN: Learn English with movies and TV Shows
#150Waiting for the Mac version!
s/Mac/Linux :)