Only 36 hours of TV - learn a language from it.

[drp9341]

If you had to learn to understand a language that was very closely related to a language you already spoke, and you only had 36 hour-long episodes of a TV series as a resource, what would you guys do?

- there's no subtitles in that language
- there's almost NO resources for that language
- there's subtitles for your mother tongue / the language that's closely related to it

I am currently watching the show Gomorrah 98% of the characters speak only in Napoletano. I've always wanted to learn a dialect, and Napoletano interests me the most. What would you guys do to learn to at least understand 95%+

Has anyone ever encountered a situation like this? If so, what did you do? / As a language learner, what would you do in this situation?

[Lawyer&Mom]

I’d start watching. Forget subtitles. Just watch.

And then I’d look for other resources. Is there radio in this dialect?

[Lawyer&Mom]

There are 14,488 articles in nap.wikipedia.org. Poking around a bit, at least a few of them are of a decent length. Should keep you busy. But I’d watch the show first.

[Iversen]

Record those 36 hours and watch them several times - and read the articles in WIkipedia in between to keep you from falling asleep.

[reineke]

How to learn an Italian dialect?

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 60&p=69588



Quanno o sole è doce
E te miette ‘ncammino
Fèrmate nu poco
Pe senti la voce
De la chiara funtana.

Comm’a na preghiera
Chest’acqua fresca
Ca te benedice
Fino a quanno è sera
Fattela bastare.

Cunusciuto e avuto
Terra benediciuta
Cresce la semenza
E l’ommo po’ campà
Vola vola l’ammore
E portale nu sciore
E po’ torna da me.

Sulo pe chi resta
Sta fatica è amara
Ma nun ce pensare
Ca dimane è festa
Festa d’a Madonna.

Festa a lu paese
Na Madonna nera
Pe chi è riturnato
Sulo pe sto mese
Da na terra luntana.

Comm’è longa a via
Pe turnà a casa mia
Stelle de lu cielo
M’ata accumpagnà
Quann’è bello o culore
De la notte ca more
Schiara juorno già.

[iguanamon]

I gave a detailed reply with resources in the post reineke linked to here. In addition, you're C2 in Spanish and Italian, B2 in French and Portuguese. You can do this without ideal resources. Watch, listen, take notes; watch again listen, take notes; watch listen and try to transcribe.

[drp9341]

Thanks for all the replies, guys.

I've already watched the first two seasons, (24 episodes) and yesterday I started watching the new season. It's amazing how much more I can understand. In the beginning I couldn't understand everything. Last year I made an effort to read a bit, (wikipedia, exactly ) and it helped a lot. The thing that helped the most is learning one word, "e" means "di" (of) I swear, learning this one word made such a huge difference it's unreal.

The second thing was getting used to the intonation, or as you say in Italy, "La Cadenza." I already speak 4 romance languages, Italian (obviously,) and Spanish help A LOT.

My grandparents spoke to me in Toscano growing up, and I can understand even very very thick Toscano as easily, (or sometimes even easier) than I can understand standard Italian.

I would rate my comprehension as follows:
40% of the utterances = I understand every word without needing to repeat it.
40% of the utterances = I understand 90% of the words if I repeat it 2x.
20% of the utterances = I can only understand a couple of words, this is usually because they use a couple of words that I don't understand, and I've been too lazy to find a dictionary.

Overall, my comprehension is pretty good.

STORY: Over the summer, me and a few friends visited one of our friends relatives in Puglia. My one friend's father is from Naples, and he can understand, (but not speak) Napoletano "perfectly" (so he says, he's never proven it beyond translating a few expressions.)

My friend with family from Puglia, can speak Pugliese fluently. I asked him how well he spoke it, and he said he speaks it how I speak Italian. I've heard him have long conversations in Pugliese, and he's definitely fluent.

I honestly could not understand much Pugliese though. They didn't speak around me, obviously, but I did my best to eavesdrop from a distance and couldn't understand much. END OF STORY


Also, I feel my ear has gotten much sharper from living in Poland these last 9 months. I can decipher speech much much better. It's quite weird. In one of the episodes a lot of Bulgarian was spoken. My Polish is upper intermediate, but not great, and I could understand about 25% of what they were saying if I repeated it and looked at the subtitles so that I knew what I was trying to listen for. I don't think I would have been able to do this a year ago. It's strange how your brain can actually get better at foreign languages. It's pretty cool.

I'm not going to focus hardcore on Neapolitan now. I am taking Italian lessons on iTalki twice a week with a real grammar nazi, (he's a great teacher though.) and he corrects my prepositions. That's really the only issue I have in Italian, and it's small. My main goal is Polish. 90% of my "language learning time" is spent with Polish. 10% is spent refreshing old languages. I have just become side-tracked because I like this show a lot, and needed to binge watch it.

Maybe one day, I'll try to get to like B2 in Neapolitan. There's teachers on iTalki.

Thank you guys, I've read all your posts.

[leosmith]

what would you guys do?

go nuts

No native speakers available?

[drp9341]

what would you guys do?

go nuts

No native speakers available?

Go nuts as in throw a temper tantrum?
or Go nuts as in study super hard?

[NIKOLIĆ]

Ue frate, tutt' appo'?

My friend and I just finished watching the second season last night.

What do you mean there are no subtitles?

Edit: misread the part about the subtitles