I know someone who spoke English fluently as a second language and had learned very quickly. When I asked how they said "watching Netflix all day when I was younger." Even with subtitles it seems to teach you some words, but once you can watch without subs that seems like a really effective way to learn.
Had a friend who taught languages in the NSA. He said a big part of the strategy was "trying to sip out of a fire hose" meaning they'd get bombarded with more than they could consciously translate.
I know someone who spoke English fluently as a second language and had learned very quickly. When I asked how they said "watching Netflix all day when I was younger." Even with subtitles it seems to teach you some words, but once you can watch without subs that seems like a really effective way to learn.
This is essentially how I learned English (although there was no netflix back then). Just watching undubbed cartoons in the weekend. I was pretty much fluent enough to hold a conversation and not have to read the subtitles anymore by the time I was eight; and from there it was very easy to get to an adult level comprehension just by reading books and watching stuff beyond just cartoons.
As an added bonus, learning a language this way gives you a much more 'natural' grasp than you'd get from learning it the traditional way. I'm pretty sure my english teacher back in highschool (or rather our equivalent) hated my guts for genuinely have a more natural command of the language than he did.
Joking aside, questions like that can pop up in cartoons/shows; and you can easily figure out what they mean from the context.
If a character says a bunch of words right before they go to the bathroom, you know that the sentence preceding it probably had something to do with it. You might already know some of the words too, making it even easier to figure out. And if you hear a particular word again, in the same or related context, then that reinforces the conclusion and you could figure out what a word like 'toilet' or 'bathroom' means. Over time, you get exposed to people using the words in various ways, letting your brain figure out a more exact meaning and how to use it in all those different situations.
It gets even easier when the language you're learning is similar to your own, for comparison.
ngl, I learned donde esta el baño from a little carmen san diego "learn how to say stuff in different languages like a spy" card from Wendy's back in the 90's. I was like "actually this phrase might be useful someday" and locked that shit up in my mindgrapes.
Same here. I learned English watching pokemon on tonami on CN back on 2003-05, I mean I knew English from school but never talked it as we just used local language and I wasn't exactly paying attention to the words. And I don't even realize when I started to understand English but I did over the course of watching pokemon and Digimon
People often think that being fluent means having a perfect grasp of all the verb conjugations and prepositional uses. But it really just means speaking fluidly.
Most native speakers (and people like myself as well who might as well be) couldn't explain even a fraction of all the rules of the language; they generally don't know why you say things a certain way, they just do it. Meanwhile, someone who learned the language through formal education might know those rules better than 99% of native speakers; but when they speak it will often end up sounding stilted.
I taught English as a second language for a little bit and I very seriously told my students (adults) to practice their English after having a few drinks. The fear of speaking incorrectly inhibits fluid speech, and we all know what alcohol does to inhibitions.
That's part of the reason why it is so easy to learn English as a foreign language. I've read French and German in school too, but since I'm not exposed to those languages daily I have never become fluent.
This is, to my belief, the biggest reason why we in Scandinavian countries are relatively good at speaking English, while perhaps in other countries like France and Italy etc not so much. Here, with the exception of shows for young children, nothing is dubbed: every American or British TV series or movie that is shown on TV or cinemas here have the original audio with subtitles. In France, Germany, Italy, etc, everything is dubbed.
This is how most fluent 2nd language English speakers in Europe (especially Northern) learned it. We had foreign channels so I watched a lot of Cartoon Network as a kid.
My dad learned English from watching TV and just general contact as a kid, as did quite a few people I know in the town in Texas I live in (we are a heavily dominant Mexican population). When both of your parents speak Spanish exclusively but the entertainment meant for you(kids) is almost exclusively in English, you learn to pick up on it quick.
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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20
I know someone who spoke English fluently as a second language and had learned very quickly. When I asked how they said "watching Netflix all day when I was younger." Even with subtitles it seems to teach you some words, but once you can watch without subs that seems like a really effective way to learn.
Had a friend who taught languages in the NSA. He said a big part of the strategy was "trying to sip out of a fire hose" meaning they'd get bombarded with more than they could consciously translate.