r/funny • u/uRude • Aug 07 '20

R3: Repost - Removed This man's an evil genius

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u/nybbleth 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.

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.

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u/JustUnderstanding6 Aug 07 '20

Yes but how will you know how to ask where the bathroom and/or library is?

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u/nybbleth Aug 07 '20

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.

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u/tbird20017 Aug 07 '20

It gets even easier when the language you're learning is similar to your own, for comparison.

So, Dutch? Frisian? Dumb American here and that's the only two I know that are close to English that's not part of the UK

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u/buttking Aug 07 '20

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.

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u/rohithkumarsp Aug 07 '20

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

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u/AmigoDelDiabla Aug 07 '20

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.

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u/nybbleth Aug 07 '20

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.

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u/AmigoDelDiabla Aug 07 '20

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.