Lianne wrote:I don't know anything about Vampire Slayers and some other series. But you may want to watch something that contains a lesser amount of "specialized" (as opposed to generic) vocabulary. Fantasy-themed programs tend to contain a lot of terms belonging to their very own jargon. What I had been doing is watching some very every-day YT FR videos, maybe something about (real-world and non-scripted) conversations, some food subjects, and so on. Or also about anything of my Special Interests, because I already am very familiar with those, so it is easier to grasp the meaning of unknown words by context.And if Buffy is too hard to count as comprehensible input for me, then what am I supposed to watch? I hope that this is helping my French, but it's hard for me to tell if it is.
I actually don't find the fantasy jargon to be difficult in Buffy. I've watched so much of it that I'm easily familiar with the words for vampire, werewolf, demon, the Slayer, Watchers, etc. So any difficulty I have understanding the show is a general difficulty understanding French, not something specific to the Buffyverse.
Fantasy and similarly "specific" genres are absolutely ok for language learning! The amount of specialized vocabulary and jargon is actually not as high as people tend to imagine, and it gets repeated. Plus, it is definitely practical for any fan. A person enjoing Buffy is not that unlikely to enjoy for example True Blood or Charmed or another fantasy themed series or movie, and the vocab will be very useful in such a case again. Truth be told, if I were to exchange fantasy, scifi,and other such stuff for every-day YT videos, I would prefer to give up than deal with so much boredom
One of my favourite sources on every day French were the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. The French translation was very good and I learnt so much from it! The "jargon" was a very small part (and I need the words anyways all the time, as a fantasy lover), and the language was overall much more natural and everyday needs focused than in many books without a single supernatural element. It depends on the particular author and book. And there are many such examples.
Buffy was recommended by emk and successfully used by a few more members.
If you enjoy it and can follow the plot, Lianne, it is a good resource. It's that simple. How far in the series are you? I usually notice a huge breakthrough by the end of the first season of my first tv series in a new language. In the following and new series, it usually comes earlier and earlier. You may need less or more time than me, but in any case don't expect too much perfection from the first few episodes and don't be too harsh on yourself
edit:fixed the quotes
