Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

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Arnaud
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby Arnaud » Sun Apr 23, 2017 7:49 pm

s_allard wrote:Understand how this works and you have a pretty advanced understanding of French.
Having a pretty advanced intellectual understanding of a language doesn't mean necessarily that you can decode "on the fly" what native speakers say.
Both intensive and extensive pratice are necessary, imho: I have a russian friend who has been learning french for a very long time (8 years), but never really made the effort to immerse himself in french material: only russian teachers, conversations in little groups with comrades also learning french, grammar exercises (a lot !!!), intensive listening on books like "grammaire en dialogues" (not a bad thing in itself, the last teacher does its job as he noticed the big weakness on the listening abilities), but no extensive activities with native material : the result is a B2 level with heavily fossilized mistakes, an unability to understand native french speakers when they speak normally.
I think that if he would give up his lessons with his teacher for a few months and binge watch a few Tv series in french (and read a few books), it would make a huge difference for him...but he doesn't want. :roll:
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby s_allard » Mon Apr 24, 2017 1:35 pm

Arnaud wrote:
s_allard wrote:Understand how this works and you have a pretty advanced understanding of French.
Having a pretty advanced intellectual understanding of a language doesn't mean necessarily that you can decode "on the fly" what native speakers say.
Both intensive and extensive pratice are necessary, imho: I have a russian friend who has been learning french for a very long time (8 years), but never really made the effort to immerse himself in french material: only russian teachers, conversations in little groups with comrades also learning french, grammar exercises (a lot !!!), intensive listening on books like "grammaire en dialogues" (not a bad thing in itself, the last teacher does its job as he noticed the big weakness on the listening abilities), but no extensive activities with native material : the result is a B2 level with heavily fossilized mistakes, an unability to understand native french speakers when they speak normally.
I think that if he would give up his lessons with his teacher for a few months and binge watch a few Tv series in french (and read a few books), it would make a huge difference for him...but he doesn't want. :roll:

The question isn't about intensive vs extensive practice. They are complementary activities. Notice that in my statement I did not say "... a pretty advanced intellectual understanding..." I said "...a pretty advanced understanding..." of French. The point I was trying to make is that a bit of intensive work will make the extensive TV watching even more useful.

What I would suggest to the Russian friend is to do some work with transcripts as I have suggested earlier as a prelude to all that binge watching.
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby Arnaud » Mon Apr 24, 2017 5:31 pm

s_allard wrote:What I would suggest to the Russian friend is to do some work with transcripts as I have suggested earlier as a prelude to all that binge watching.
That's what I did...but it's without counting on the human psychology (I won't expand here as it's not the subject of the thread)
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby rdearman » Sat Apr 29, 2017 11:55 am

I used all your responses and links to various information given and I've come up with this simplification.

Anyone care to argue the toss?



B1150 hours
B2366 hours
C1590 hours
C22000+ hours


Your various responses made it difficult for me to figure out if you mean (for example) it too you 1000 hours to go from A2 -> C1 or if the numbers in the table are cumulative. So for example an A2 learner going to C1 would be 150+366+590 ??? Which seems reasonable to me.
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby daegga » Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:03 pm

Even as totals, these numbers look somewhat high (assuming you don't start watching from day zero but after some initial formal learning, let's say a solid A2), but are probably in a realistic range. Viewing them cumulatively would give way too high figures. More than 1000 hours from A2 to C1 for listening comprehension? No way. This amount of watching wouldn't leave any time for reading and vocabulary development.
Last edited by daegga on Sat Apr 29, 2017 11:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby s_allard » Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:17 pm

rdearman wrote:I used all your responses and links to various information given and I've come up with this simplification.

Anyone care to argue the toss?



B1150 hours
B2366 hours
C1590 hours
C22000+ hours


Your various responses made it difficult for me to figure out if you mean (for example) it too you 1000 hours to go from A2 -> C1 or if the numbers in the table are cumulative. So for example an A2 learner going to C1 would be 150+366+590 ??? Which seems reasonable to me.

With all due respect to rdearman who has compiled what others have said, I really have to say that these figures are meaningless because they do not qualify how one uses these hours. I get a lot of flak in this forum because I constantly question the meaning of words and figures. But 591 hours to C1 and 2000 hours of watching TV to get to C2? I'm not saying the figures are wrong. It's just I don't know what they mean.
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby rdearman » Sat Apr 29, 2017 1:44 pm

s_allard wrote:
rdearman wrote:I used all your responses and links to various information given and I've come up with this simplification.

Anyone care to argue the toss?



B1150 hours
B2366 hours
C1590 hours
C22000+ hours


Your various responses made it difficult for me to figure out if you mean (for example) it too you 1000 hours to go from A2 -> C1 or if the numbers in the table are cumulative. So for example an A2 learner going to C1 would be 150+366+590 ??? Which seems reasonable to me.

With all due respect to rdearman who has compiled what others have said, I really have to say that these figures are meaningless because they do not qualify how one uses these hours. I get a lot of flak in this forum because I constantly question the meaning of words and figures. But 591 hours to C1 and 2000 hours of watching TV to get to C2? I'm not saying the figures are wrong. It's just I don't know what they mean.

I concur because I really don't know what they mean. However, some people did take a test for B2 and C1 after watching lots of TV (and other activities) and anecdotally have said the TV has helped them in the listening comprehension section of the test. Having never taken an examination in my TL's I cannot address this specifically but I do believe TV has helped my comprehension. How much I cannot measure, so I'm really looking for some confirmation of the numbers and your interpretation of what they might imply for the typical language learner.

Personally I think that TV helps because it has a number of things going for it.
  1. Repetition of common vocabulary.
  2. Repetition of subject vocabulary, e.g. DNA in police dramas.
  3. Same actors (or voice actors) giving repeated exposure to an accent or speech pattern.
  4. Typically includes slang words and informal speech structures.

Some additional information I'd like to gather:
  • Are you looking up vocabulary while watching?
  • Are you using axillary or supplemental activities like spaced repetition software? If so, which ones?
  • Are you watching solely for the purpose of study, or is it just relaxation?
  • Do you "rip" audio from TV for repeated listening? I've done this for Finnish, for example.
  • What other relevant data can you share?
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby aaleks » Sat Apr 29, 2017 2:28 pm

daegga wrote:More than 1000 hours from A2 to C1 for listening comprehension? No way. This amount of watching wouldn't leave any time for reading and vocabulary development.

Well, in my case that amount of time was taken to get from B2 to C1. Of cause, it is just the approximate number calculated by multiplication of the average numbers of days and hours but I think it is close to truth. On the other hand it all depends on the target language. For example, being a native Russian speaker I definitely will need less amount of time to get C2 in Ukraine or Belorussian since these languages are really close.
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby blaurebell » Sat Apr 29, 2017 2:40 pm

To be honest I think it's hard to generalise these numbers and use them as a prediction for results, rather than in a descriptive way to quantify past learning experiences of a particular person. Some people do better with audio than others. Also most learners start with TV at different stages in their learning journey. I don't think 200h of TV after learning only vocabulary of A2 will have the same effect as 200h of TV with B2 vocabulary.

So, how do I do it? I start watching properly after reading 5000 pages intensively, so I already have B2 vocabulary in place. I pretty much never look up vocabulary while watching unless there is a word that keeps reappearing and that I can't seem to grasp vaguely from context. I looked up a single word in French in 270h of audio. I don't use spaced repetition software, but I read a lot which is also a kind of spaced repetition. I generally watch for entertainment and relaxation and only watch for study purposes if I can't find anything properly entertaining to watch - that can happen with certain accents where native content is particularly bad. When I watch things because "I have to" it usually seems less effective.

Also, I think those numbers you extracted are total numbers, not cumulative. As long as I keep progressing with my vocabulary elsewhere, it's just a matter of recognising known words, not of acquiring new vocabulary. Acquiring vocabulary from TV and audio doesn't seem to be very efficient for me, so if I stop reading and primarily watch TV at some point I won't progress anymore even if I put in 100s of hours. That said, I think aaleks might be onto something too - how different the target language is might be a deciding factor. My numbers are for close languages, i.e. English, Spanish and French aren't that far apart from each other.
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Re: Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

Postby aaleks » Sat Apr 29, 2017 2:59 pm

rdearman wrote:
Some additional information I'd like to gather:
  • Are you looking up vocabulary while watching?
  • Are you using axillary or supplemental activities like spaced repetition software? If so, which ones?
  • Are you watching solely for the purpose of study, or is it just relaxation?
  • Do you "rip" audio from TV for repeated listening? I've done this for Finnish, for example.
  • What other relevant data can you share?

Are you looking up vocabulary while watching?
Yes, including idioms and sometimes professional slang.

Are you using axillary or supplemental activities like spaced repetition software? If so, which ones?
No

Are you watching solely for the purpose of study, or is it just relaxation?
I think, both. In the beginning it was more studying, now it is more relaxation.

Do you "rip" audio from TV for repeated listening? I've done this for Finnish, for example.
Yes, I did it in the beginning when I started to work at listening.
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