Anecdotal evidence for extensive TV series

[NoManches]

Some additional information I'd like to gather:

• Are you looking up vocabulary while watching?
  Yes and no. At first I looked up a lot of vocabulary. Now I only look up words that I think are very important or are words that I may need to use some day.
  
• Are you using axillary or supplemental activities like spaced repetition software? If so, which ones?
  Again, yes and no. I used to use Anki religiously and would add a lot of vocabulary that I got from TV shows. stopped using Anki a few months ago and promised myself that I would replace Anki with extra reading.
  
• Are you watching solely for the purpose of study, or is it just relaxation?
  Both! I am currently rotating between at least 3 TV shows in Spanish. One show contains at least 350 episodes. I've watched over 130 forty-five minute episodes of this show and understand it quite well. I use this show to relax with, and hardly ever rewind it or look up vocabulary. Another show I am watching has about 55 episodes made so far. I still watch this show to relax but since it is much shorter than my first mentioned show, I take it a bit more seriously and really want to understand everything that is going on. With this show I hardly ever look up words but rewind quite a bit to turn on the subtitles. And finally, there are a few shows out there that contain far less episodes (they are also shows that I really enjoy compared to the others I've mentioned). Sometimes I'll watch these shows solely to relax but on multiple occasions I have worked through these shows in an intensive manner, looking up nearly every unknown word, and rewinding in order to turn on subtitles to figure out what was said. From time to time I will re watch an entire episode just to make it more of an intensive study session rather than a period of relaxation.
  
• Do you "rip" audio from TV for repeated listening? I've done this for Finnish, for example.
  
  I have thought about it but have never done it before.
  
• What other relevant data can you share?
  A lot of people have mentioned throughout the forum that they got the most out of TV when they reached a B1-B2 level. I agree with this 110% and then some. Although TV helped me out when I was just beginning, it has really helped me out in the last year or so when I reached an "intermediate to advanced" level.
  
  Its important to remember that he title of this thread deals with extensive viewing of television. Until you reach that B1-B2 level, it can be very difficult to find material that is extensive in nature. Even now at my current level, I sometimes can't help but think that the shows I'm watching are too advanced to be considered extensive. I think logging in quality hours at first is very important and as you advance you can turn TV into more of a relaxation/extensive study technique.
  
  

[Arnaud]

Some additional information I'd like to gather:

• Are you looking up vocabulary while watching? Sometimes, but it's rare (the word has to come back several times and be important to understand what's going on).
• 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? Both (usually for study, I have the transcripts and study them intensively, but it's very time consuming so I do that rarely. So the answer is rather: mostly for relaxation and cultural insight)
• Do you "rip" audio from TV for repeated listening? I've done this for Finnish, for example. Yes, with the easiest series. When I feel I'm close to 100% of understanding but still miss some little things, I rip and listen again to try and reach 100%.
• What other relevant data can you share? Sometimes I watch again a series that I like (not a long one or not entirely) one or two years later to check if I have progressed. Usually I have progressed and it gives a positive feeling, you understand little details or little jokes you didn't understand before: that's cool and motivating

[NoManches]

French: 270h extensive listening, of which 245h were dubbed TV

Spanish: At least 680h of extensive listening, of which 420h were dubbed series -

So I am really curious to hear your thoughts on dubbed series. Personally even though my listening skills are the weakest in my L2, I have almost completely ignored dubbed TV and movies because I feel like I am better off sticking to native content 100% of the time. However, the other day I decided to watch a show on Netflix called "13 Reasons Why" and watched it dubbed in Spanish. It was a really cool experience because I could understand everything with almost no difficulty at all, but at the same time I questioned myself: "Is this too easy?" I know this is getting a little off topic but I wonder if dubbed TV shows can be used as extensive materials and perhaps can bridge the gap between no comprehension of TV to full comprehension of native content.

[blaurebell]

I know this is getting a little off topic but I wonder if dubbed TV shows can be used as extensive materials and perhaps can bridge the gap between no comprehension of TV to full comprehension of native content.

Dubbed shows are indeed a good way to get started with listening comprehension. I always start with a dubbed show and only then move on to native content. I usually tend to find native content too difficult at first and dubbed shows make the jump to native content a lot easier. They are also useful when you want to do AJATT style immersion, but find proper native content simply too heavy - movies - or too dumb. Finding good native series isn't always easy because of lower production values, bad acting, bad writing and so on, so dubbed series can make it easier to get massive exposure. Also, since they are not a challenge from a listening comprehension perspective I can use them to pick up specialised vocabulary - watching dubbed medical shows like House MD or Scrubs is actually a good way to prepare for a doctor's visit - and dubbed sci fi shows are a fun way to get some more vocabulary for native sci fi. Also, at some point re-watching Star Trek for the n'th time seems like a waste of time - re-watching your favourite series dubbed is a good trick to make wasting your time with TV seem a lot more productive

[Systematiker]

Here, I've got concrete numbers and context - of course, then it's skewed entirely by work I've done in other Romance languages.

I've watched 12 hours of Film in Portuguese, and have read the Gospels of Matthew and Mark in the Nova Tradução na Linguagem de Hoje while playing the Portuguese audio with it. I've done about 10 hours of native podcasts. At the very beginning, I did the first two discs of Michel Thomas.

I understand native podcasts quite well - sermons better than multi-host discussions, but in either case I never lose the thread. I can give someone directions and chat a bit about myself, tested in person and through SMS. I understand Brazilian far better than European. I can follow some, but not all, overheard conversations (Brazilians). I do prefer TL subtitles when watching. Without subtitles, it's active effort to understand rather than relaxation. With them, there's only a few phrases per episode I'll miss. Reading, I have no words I don't recognize, but it's really familiar content, too. I have no problems with understanding Facebook posts, news headlines, r/Brazil, or the occasional post here, but I haven't tried any modern or classic literature.

Overall my listening probably varies from B1-C1 depending on content, context, background noise, and my frame of mind / tiredness.

[SophiaMerlin_II]

Love to know as well if you used NL sub-titles, TL sub-titles, no sub-titles, or a mixture (if so what mixture). I would also be interested in knowing what additional activities you did which you feel reinforced the benefit you were getting from watching TV.

So last year I did (what was in my opinion) a very successful little AV experiment.

I watched about 270 episodes (~90hr) at a rate of about 12 episodes (~4hr) per day. So that was about a month. I would say that I had a very low A1 grasp at this point.

For the first few episodes I found the subtitles in T2 and translated them after watching each episode first without subtitles, then with subtitles in T1. After less than a day, I decided that was absolutely too much work. For the next few days, I watched each new episode in T2 without subtitles, then with T1 subtitles, and only decoded the T2 subtitles for the first episode of the day. But that was still taking more than 8 hours a day to do... way too much time. So then I dropped rewatching every episode, only watching it again if I really needed to, and maybe only certain scenes that were super confusing. Then eventually I dropped translating the T2 subtitles for the first episode of the day, because I just didn't have the time, but looking back that was a mistake. I was picking up a LOT of vocabulary! So at this point I was binge watching basically a quarter season every day, straight in L2, and honestly making really good strides. It was getting to the point where I was able to rewind and watching the portions I didn't understand without the use of L1 subtitles.

I was just crazy floored by this super drastic improvement, and was starting to pick up some grammar and vocabulary by context, even if was sort of specialized and not really always super applicable to daily use. I was also starting to pick up different mannerisms and types of speech, levels of politeness and formality, more cultural references and so on, even a pun or two, if they were really obvious.

And I honestly think that it was a HUGE thing for me and crazy motivating because honestly, I have trouble with TV in my L1, with not being able to hear and understand people, not because of the words, but just because sometimes I swear that my ears are broken! I almost never watching anything in my L1 without captions on, or otherwise a headset because I struggle so much.

I had absolutely no issues with my little AV project and would have happily continued, however, I started a new job, and started working for 10-14 hours a day. I was in no mood to do anything other than sleep, I literally didn't even eat when I got home.

I think at the end of this experiment, which didn't even last more than 30 days, I would say that my vocabulary and grammar skills definitely improved from probably a low A1 to perhaps a mid-high A1, maybe poking at an A2 if we're going to be generous. If we pretend I had magically been dropped into the world of the TV show, I had the vocabulary to talk about most of the day-to-day things that talked about, in the way they talked about them. "I must fight and defeat ___ in order to defend ____ and save ______." " _______! I will defeat you! You cannot win!" etc etc. But the actual daily use of those sorts of phrases and expressions are ... limited to say the least.

What was really more important in this respect was the psychological component. For about the first 4-6 days, while I was learning a lot of vocabulary, I was absolutely banging my head against the dialogue. But somewhere in the second week (~40hr) I started to really relax, and by relaxing, better hear and understand the words in the context that I -did- know, and feel comfortable enough to guess what was happening while watching.

Based on my level while doing this, for other people that want to start this early, I have a few recommendations:

• It may fly in the face of conventional wisdom, but I'd actually suggest picking something that you would not normally watch. Something that in L1 you would consider a little simple, or slow, or predictable, etc. You're going to miss most everything at the beginning, so if the story if very complex and tight and you need to understand long, intricate dialogues or monologues, you are going to struggle.
• Start with a very long running series, so that you can get used to actor's voices, place names, group dynamics, and important series vocabulary. I specifically picked the series I was watching because it had, if I recall correctly, somewhere around 500 episodes, or more.
• In the beginning, basically just blast yourself, only repeating things or using subtitles if you can't figure out what's going on, only pausing to look up a word if they are constantly using it and not knowing it is driving you completely insane. You'll know when you've "gotten there" when you start saying phrases from it in your sleep.
• Take time to go over the transcript (in L2) of at least a portion of what you have watched that day; for example one episode if they are short, or a 10-20 minute section if watching a longer episode or movie.
• At least until you start to feel more comfortable with what you are hearing, you probably want to listen to at least an hour a day, probably more. As you get more used to a series or just AV in general, you could probably watch even less per day.

So yeah, that's my anecdotal bit.

TL;DR: Watch TV until your brain starts exploding, then learn 20 min of L2 transcript per day, and I'd suggest some kind of grammar and light workbook.

[Steve]

After about 6 months of working through Assimil's Spanish with Ease, I started watching a few series on Netflix. About 3 months into Assimil, I had tried TV, but it was simply too frustrating.

I now watch Netflix on my computer because it's trivial to pause and flip back and forth between Spanish or English or No subtitles as needed as well as having Google Translate and Spanishdict.com open in other tabs on the browser. Being able to pause, compare Spanish and English subtitles on the fly, and then look up stuff as needed combines everything I need in a convenient manner. I can rerun sections by restarting at a previous location. Not as nice as Audacity with audio files where I can loop phrases or sentences, but helpful at times.

I went through the 5 seasons (about 100 episodes) of the Clone Wars first. I started off watching on my TV set with Spanish subtitles on. I was simply missing too many words initially to follow anything. After perhaps a half dozen episodes and experimenting with some different methods, I finally found something that was useful for me. I tried pausing and looking words up in a dictionary. I tried writing them on the fly on paper and looking them up later. That was when I hit on using my computer as described above. By the time I reached the end of the series, I was mostly using Spanish subtitles with occasional lookups of words. I found I was going quite awhile before I needed to pause to look things up.

My next series was a telenovela comedy called Que Pobres Tan Ricos. I was watching about 1 to 2 episodes (about 45 minutes running time each) per day. I was doing a lot of flipping between Spanish and English subtitles and looking words up initially. There was a lot of slang and characters with different accents and levels of education. It took me a bit to figure out the mother was Italian and kept dropping Italian phrases into conversations. I watched about 80 or so episodes. I then skipped ahead and watched the final episode to see what happened. I tried watching without subtitles but simply couldn't follow enough.

Since then I've watched 1 season of DC's Legends of Tomorrow, started a Transformers' cartoon series, started a couple Anime series, and just finished 5 seasons (x 13 episodes) of Merlin. I found several times watching Merlin with Spanish subtitles on that I was simply enjoying the show and was not conscious I was watching in Spanish. That would last for perhaps a minute or two and I'd be brought back to reality that I missed what someone had just said.

I've recently started back through the Clone wars with no subtitles on. I'm finding that I'm usually catching the meaning and frequently am fully comprehending what is said. I'll also watch or listen to news in Spanish and find I can usually catch what's going on. Compared to where I was about 1.5 years ago, I've made quite a bit of progress.

I'd guess I've put in about 150 to 200 hours of episode run times. I'd put myself at perhaps a B1 level. I'm definitely past the beginner stage and somewhere in the intermediate stage. My attitude varies between hard effort to improve and just sitting back and enjoying it. I'm trying to strike a balance where I continue to enjoy doing this but keep improving. I'd guess maybe 25% work and 75% fun. This seems a sustainable balance for me in the long run.

[Brun Ugle]

I've probably watched about 600+ hours of Spanish language TV at this point and listed to maybe 50 hours of podcasts. I'm easily a B2 in comprehension and now that I've starting speaking regularly on Skype, my speaking is improving rapidly too. It's easily B1 and probably B2 on a good day.

I started by working on FSI and then added in podcasts for learners and Destinos, a telenovela for learners (~35-40 hours). After Destinos, I watched Extra, a short sit-com for learners (~5 hours). I then watched my first real telenovela, La fea más bella (~200 hours/300 episodes). That was when I had a breakthrough. I chose it because I had a vague idea of what it was about, and I could follow the story even when I didn't understand the words. I agree with SophiaMerlin_II on that. Choosing something simple with a fairly obvious plot is very helpful. Telenovelas are great for this. After about 60 episodes, I felt like I was understanding a lot of the dialogue. And by the end, it felt almost like watching in English. I didn't have any subtitles or transcripts to help me. I looked for them, but I couldn't find any. All I had was a brief synopsis of the plot, but with that, the overdone acting, and the YouTube comment section where people would sometimes write down their favorite bits, I followed the story easily, even in the beginning when my listening comprehension was horrible. I watched purely for fun and didn't rip the audio or make flashcards or anything. When I got to a level where I understood almost everything, the words I didn't know stood out and I would sometimes write them down. I also would sometimes read the comments before watching the episode and look up unknown words in the bits of dialogue people had written there.

When I started a new telenovela, my comprehension level dropped again, but never as low as it had been in the beginning of the first one. It just felt like I'd gone from watching with nearly the same ease as in English, to having to actually listen and pay attention again. But my comprehension level rose much more quickly and it became pretty easy after only 10 episodes or so. With the next telenovela, I only found the first 3 episodes a little hard. More complicated shows, like comedies are still a bit harder, as are certain dialects.

I continued FSI throughout until I finished it. I also did the A and B levels of a grammar workbook series, the entire Duolingo tree, Language Transfer, a bit of Memrise, a few GLOSS lessons, chatted a little on Skype, read a few novels and probably a few other things I can't think of at the moment. TV has been a tremendous help to me, but I don't think I'd have managed without some active grammar study. I might have achieved a high level of comprehension, but I think I'd have much more trouble activating the language. I find there is a synergy there and all the elements: courses and grammar exercises, reading, vocabulary study, massive exposure/TV, writing and speaking, are necessary.

[chrisphillips71]

How does everybody think that reading a book while listening to the audio compares to watching tv? For one thing, books lack periods with no audio that occur while action unfolds on television. However, books are read at a constant rate of speech, which is slower than tv speech.

[DaveBee]

I'm doing a talk in Bratislava about using native materials such as TV, with Anki, and I'd like to pick up some anecdotal evidence regarding TV series watching.

Former UFC champion Junior Dos Santos says he learned english from watching The Simpsons.

“I love to watch ‘The Simpsons,'” Dos Santos said. “I started learning English watching ‘The Simpsons.’ Nobody believes that. That’s not a good advice, that’s not a good thing, but that’s how it works.”