Wow, this is a little bit overwhelming but in a GOOD way!
What a treasure trove of information!
dgc1970 wrote:https://languagelearningwithnetflix.com/
I learned about this extension from this forum. I think this extension might have been developed by a forum member but I'm not 100% sure.
This looks great, but I'd rather not have to spend any money if I don't have to.
These here also play two subtitles : Lingoplayer allows you to slowly advance the subtitle lines for study. With SMPlayer you can adapt colour, position and size of subtitles to your liking.
https://oaprograms.github.io/lingo-player/https://www.smplayer.info/If you take YouTube clips or films that have subtitles here:
http://www.lilsubs.com/it will give you also the second language subtitles machine-translated in an srt file(doesn't always work for all kinds of subtitles)
I run Linux, so SMplayer would be an option. I'll give it a go and let you know. I'm also liking the site that rips the subs from YouTube—very nice! In Linux, youtube-dl can do this, for anyone who run that OS.
If you want TL subtitles, your best bet is to look at native French productions and look for options with [CC] by the subtitle options. That indicates that the subtitles will likely be accurate. For example, Call My Agent is a great French show on Netflix with accurate subtitles available. But I definitely wouldn't recommend it for beginners. Unfortunately, the shows most likely to have accurate subtitles are also the hardest for beginners to understand...
Thanks. I'll be checking. Seems that the content that is natively French is the best way to go.
It's a web-extension and in my opinion it works awesome. I currently use it an hour a day watching a show of my choice. You mentioned Frozen (and if you enjoy the film I apologize for what I am about to say). I am a 30 year old man with no kids. At the present time a movie like this doesn't interest me in the least bit. For this reason only, I would suggest choosing a movie/series that you would enjoy watching in your native tongue. Again, if Frozen is it...watch that! I mention because passively watching and actively watching (to learn) are two different things. So enjoying the film is important - IMO.
I love Frozen—I'd not consider watching and learning from it if I didn't. The nice thing about that movie is that it has songs as well to mix things up.
What I do is turn on auto-pause. After every line spoken it pauses the film. You can play it at 75%-125% speed or replay as many times as you need. Each word will be in target language and native language for the dual subtitles you've inquired about. Those words can be highlighted to save for future instances where the word populates it will later appear highlighted if repeated in the show. Once you have the word learned you can un-highlight. Also, each of the words that come up in the titles you can click and the definition will populate in your target language. You can also just watch the movie/series without stopping just like you would on TV.
As a side note, I would consider myself an upper beginner but watching Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent) took about 1 hour to get through 10-15 mins of the show. I discussed the show with my tutor and he said that the time will decrease more and more with the more input you get. I only note to not be discouraged if you feel like this takes forever. I have been learning using Standard French and found that trying to watch Marseille (South of France) was rather tricky as I wasn't used to the accent on the show. So I wanted an accent I was used to hearing. If you find something better let me know!
Bonne Chance!
Merci beaucoup!
After hearing yet another person mentioning this resource, I am starting to consider buying it. This really does sound like a dream setup, and I do LOVE movies!
How does the translation work? Does it grab from the movies' built in captioning and then use Google or some other source to translate it back to English? Or does it generally have both languages professionally subbed and use them?
I can't understand the mentality behind this. Watching TV is about going with the flow and having fun. If you want to spend ages agonizing over every sentence, read a book! As it is, you seem to be getting the worst of both worlds.
You wouldn't pause after every sentence when watching TV in your native language, would you?
You have a point. That's why I make sure to view content that uses beginner/intermediate French. Also, I want to immerse myself in the language, so that includes reading only in French and watching TV only in French. As for reading a book being easier, the Netflix program that was suggested takes all that hassle away, as you never need to look any words up. Plus, you can hear the voice, which will help with pronunciation. And with the built in vocab lists, it's quite a great sounding learning tool, IMO.
In any event, if it feels like a chore, which is what you might've been getting at, I wouldn't do it. First time actually does feel like a chore, but I can watch the movie again and again, and it gets easier.
Documentaries are shows where the speech isn't rushed. One of the first TV series I watched was Enquêtes archaeologiques on Arte, a 30 minute history documentary series. Le dessous des cartes is a weekly 15 minute current affairs programme that I still watch, that might be good for a beginner, you get french subs with that one on the arte.tv website.
Very good point! And one could learn something whilst watching it! Maybe a documentary on French history such a Neapolitan!
Also, I like the idea of short 15-30 minute, bite-sized, documentaries for this type of thing.
You might also want to consider radio, that tends to be clearly spoken, standard french. One of the first radio programmes I remember understanding was Une Vie, une oeuvre about Tolkien, I knew enough about his life to know guess what the programme was trying to say, even where I lacked the french vocabulary: Tolkien, CS Lewis, Dashiell Hammett, Leonardo de Vinci, Jane Austen.
The most important factor is going to be your interest in the subject matter, your brain won't try very hard to understand something you find boring.
I'm just not there yet with being able to understand French through audio alone and still enjoy it, but perhaps in a few months, this would be a great thing to listen to before bed!
There is tons of interesting material if you take into account the channels you can receive via satellite in Europe, most are subtitled.
It's is also relatively easy to create a second subtitle file - a translation into your mother tongue - with DeepL.
1. Extract the subtitles of your film as an srt file
2. Take the text of the file with the time-stamps to DeepL and have it translated
3. The time-stamps remain intact and you get the second srt file with the translation
4. You could also write your own comments (grammar, conjugations, word families etc ) into the second file ... instead of translations
Problems:
DeepL offers only a limited amount of text translation, you would have to repeat the translation procedure many times for a complete feature film.
DeepL translations are not flawless.
This would be great for those movies that one really wants translated, though I can't say I'd look forward to having to cute and paste bits of an .srt file several times to do the task.
