Should I and is it worth watching telenovelas without subtitles / auto-generated ones?

[acorngalaxy]

I would like to start watching Italian and Brazilian telenovelas , but I have a huge obstacle- the lack of subtitles.

Italian: It’s hard enough to find episodes of telenovelas (soap operas, if you will). And when I find them, 0 subtitles.

Portuguese: Tons and TONS of telenovelas on YouTube and other sites, but if and when there are subtitles, they are auto-generated.

You may ask- why don’t I use Netflix to watch shows instead (since they have proper subtitles, and shows that feature my target languages), and I will tell you that I have a very low bar when it comes to entertainment, so telenovelas provide hours and HOURS of cultural immersion, entertainment and vocabulary learning ( this turned out to be very effective when I learn(ed) Spanish- most Spanish telenovelas are subtitled manually.) Besides, contrary to popular belief, telenovelas are actually pretty good if you recognise them for what they are.

This is why I was really disappointed to find out that subtitles were lacking for the aforementioned languages. I rely on subtitles quite a bit to understand the dialogue, even in ENGLISH (when actors mumble or when the dialogue is not clear due to background effects).


Earlier on in my learning journey, I had a pretty silly idea of watching the episodes with my language tutors, but I figured that the money would be better spent on conversation practise. A 45-minute episode could take 4-5 lessons to cover with frequent pauses.

Summarising: Is it worth, and is it beneficial, trying to watch them without subtitles/ with auto-generated subs at an intermediate level?

Does anyone have any experiences trying to watch telenovelas or shows in any of those 2 languages with auto-generated subtitles or no subtitles at all? Could use some advice (or any other language; I hear Turkey produces a lot of telenovelas too)

Thanks!

[Lawyer&Mom]

You don’t need subtitles. You don’t. Just start watching. It will be rough sledding at first, but I promise you will get a big jump at 50 hours. And as you say, you have tons of hours available.

I did this with French and went from A1 to B2+ listening after about 300 hours. Go for it!

[AllSubNoDub]

You don’t need subtitles. You don’t. Just start watching. It will be rough sledding at first, but I promise you will get a big jump at 50 hours. And as you say, you have tons of hours available.

I did this with French and went from A1 to B2+ listening after about 300 hours. Go for it!

I second this. I did most of my German through book learning (except for initial Pimsleur) up to that point. I then watched a series with 500+ episodes with clear audio, not very complicated language, but no subtitles. The first few episodes I tried to intensively watch/learn and progressively got more and more "lazy" just looking up stuff that interested me or kept popping up (after the fact and if I remembered to do it). I'd watch for several hours every day getting through several episodes, usually before bed or on the weekends. I read graded readers on the side.

I magically went from understanding a word here and there, to understanding whole sentences here in there, to understanding large chunks at a time, to understanding virtually everything. It's funny, because although I know this works, I've also been obsessing over subtitles with Spanish too. Being lazy is the key, at the time the pause button was on the other side of the room.

[Radioclare]

I agree too. I have watched many hundreds of hours of telenovelas in Croatian, which is also not a language where there's much chance of finding subtitles. It was extremely painful to start with, but I persisted and eventually I started making breakthroughs in my understanding. For me the hardest thing was forcing myself to sit there and watch the episode, despite the fact that I felt I barely understood anything. If you can make yourself watch despite low comprehension at the start, I think you've already won half the battle and gradually you'll find you're starting to understand enough to enjoy it

[iguanamon]

I've watched all my telenovelas without subtitles. It's difficult at first, but it gets easier. A good online dictionary for Brazilian slang is Dicionário inFormal. If you search for "resume dos capitulos" + name of novela. You'll get a synopsis of each chapter which can help with giving a guide as to what is happening/has happened in each episode. Some novelas have discussion forums too.

A novela with over fifty hours of content is a good way to train listening and learn about the culture.

[daegga]

Headphones (or even better in-ears) help. Even in a seemingly silent room they make a difference.

[acorngalaxy]

You don’t need subtitles. You don’t. Just start watching. It will be rough sledding at first, but I promise you will get a big jump at 50 hours. And as you say, you have tons of hours available.

I did this with French and went from A1 to B2+ listening after about 300 hours. Go for it!

I second this. I did most of my German through book learning (except for initial Pimsleur) up to that point. I then watched a series with 500+ episodes with clear audio, not very complicated language, but no subtitles. The first few episodes I tried to intensively watch/learn and progressively got more and more "lazy" just looking up stuff that interested me or kept popping up (after the fact and if I remembered to do it). I'd watch for several hours every day getting through several episodes, usually before bed or on the weekends. I read graded readers on the side.

I magically went from understanding a word here and there, to understanding whole sentences here in there, to understanding large chunks at a time, to understanding virtually everything. It's funny, because although I know this works, I've also been obsessing over subtitles with Spanish too. Being lazy is the key, at the time the pause button was on the other side of the room.

wow, I didn’t know Germany had telenovelas too. What was the name of the show?

[Lawyer&Mom]

You don’t need subtitles. You don’t. Just start watching. It will be rough sledding at first, but I promise you will get a big jump at 50 hours. And as you say, you have tons of hours available.

I did this with French and went from A1 to B2+ listening after about 300 hours. Go for it!

I second this. I did most of my German through book learning (except for initial Pimsleur) up to that point. I then watched a series with 500+ episodes with clear audio, not very complicated language, but no subtitles. The first few episodes I tried to intensively watch/learn and progressively got more and more "lazy" just looking up stuff that interested me or kept popping up (after the fact and if I remembered to do it). I'd watch for several hours every day getting through several episodes, usually before bed or on the weekends. I read graded readers on the side.

I magically went from understanding a word here and there, to understanding whole sentences here in there, to understanding large chunks at a time, to understanding virtually everything. It's funny, because although I know this works, I've also been obsessing over subtitles with Spanish too. Being lazy is the key, at the time the pause button was on the other side of the room.

What is this magical 500 episode German TV show? My German listening is already okay, but…

[Sassa]

Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten?

oder

Lindenstraße?

[AllSubNoDub]

wow, I didn’t know Germany had telenovelas too. What was the name of the show?

What is this magical 500 episode German TV show? My German listening is already okay, but…

I guess I should mention it wasn't actually a telenovela, it was a dub of an anime I already watched in English (which was a dub itself) years before, loved, and wanted to re-watch anyway. A lot of anime is targeted at adolescents, hence the simple language, casual speech, and smattering of useful slang (dict.cc ftw). This was the perfect, seamless bridge to advanced materials for me at the time.

I'm not really into telenovelas, truth be told. I would imagine the same principals apply for a telenovela or any other content you really enjoy, even if you can only follow the basic plot (though you may have to do so for longer). There is no magical material. Or rather, the only magical material is stuff you really want to watch (sounds like a cliché at this point). So if it's made for natives and you enjoy watching it, do that.

I think there's something to be said for re-watching stuff you like in another language or reading the outline before you watch it. Knowing how it ends can enhance your enjoyment, despite popular opinion.