Watching a TV show episode with or without subtitles?

Ask specific questions about your target languages. Beginner questions welcome!
german2k01
Green Belt
Posts: 467
Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:16 pm
Location: Germany
Languages: English, Urdu, and German
x 573

Watching a TV show episode with or without subtitles?

Postby german2k01 » Fri Jan 14, 2022 8:21 pm

Hello guys. Have you done something like this for example reading subtitles only for meaning at the same time listening to audio in your target language (kind of a similar approach in the L-R system ). Then watching the episode right away without subtitles.

Did it improve your understanding of the plot or your overall listening skills so to speak?

I did it last night, to be honest, I enjoyed the experience but time was an issue for me so could not think about doing it with every episode. if it really proves to be a step in the right direction then I will do it more often.

What are your general thoughts? Thanks
1 x

User avatar
luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1243
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (intermediate), Esperanto (B1), French (intermediate but rusting)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
x 3631

Re: Watching a TV show episode with or without subtitles?

Postby luke » Fri Jan 14, 2022 9:34 pm

I did something similar, although it wasn't a TV show. By speeding up the Target Language audio while reading a short story, I was able to reduce my "time investment" and greatly increase my comprehension when I later just listened to the same short story on a walk.

In more details:

Yesterday, I had a 55 minute short story on my todo list, but I didn't feel like spending a lot of time on it.

I Listen-Read with audio at 150-200% and read along in TL.

This morning, I read the first few pages of the short story in the TL with breakfast.

Then I went for a walk and listened to the story. I was very happy and surprised at how comprehensible it was.

Two reasons I think this was effective:
1) The quick Listen-Read (target language-target language) helped me visualize certain words, names, and happenings.
2) The leisurely read of the first few pages got me interested in the story. That made it easier to focus.
6 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

golyplot
Black Belt - 1st Dan
Posts: 1726
Joined: Mon Jan 16, 2017 9:41 pm
Languages: Am. English (N), German, French, ASL (abandoned), Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Japanese (N2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12230
x 3404

Re: Watching a TV show episode with or without subtitles?

Postby golyplot » Sat Jan 15, 2022 3:12 am

TSS42 wrote:What exponentially improved my listening comprehension was tons and tons of reading.


The funny part is that tons and tons of listening seems to have helped my reading comprehension. When reading, I just do my best to mentally vocalize it and then "listen" to it to understand what it is saying.
2 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Watching a TV show episode with or without subtitles?

Postby reineke » Sat Jan 15, 2022 3:23 am

golyplot wrote:
TSS42 wrote:What exponentially improved my listening comprehension was tons and tons of reading.


The funny part is that tons and tons of listening seems to have helped my reading comprehension. When reading, I just do my best to mentally vocalize it and then "listen" to it to understand what it is saying.


You're both going to subvocalize while reading whether you're aware of it or not. If one's subvocalization is relatively close to target pronunciation it'll be easier to catch up with listening too.
2 x

german2k01
Green Belt
Posts: 467
Joined: Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:16 pm
Location: Germany
Languages: English, Urdu, and German
x 573

Re: Watching a TV show episode with or without subtitles?

Postby german2k01 » Sat Jan 15, 2022 9:44 am

I Listen-Read with audio at 150-200% and read along in TL.

This morning, I read the first few pages of the short story in the TL with breakfast.

Then I went for a walk and listened to the story. I was very happy and surprised at how comprehensible it was.


I liked the fact that you do L-R in the first stage of learning this way you are already familiar with the sounds so when reading the text in the full reading mode you are kind of aware of the true pronunciation. In my case, I picked up a lot in the second pass but still missed some of the sentences which is understandable since people talk really fast on TV shows.

I wonder if I choose Anime shows instead of TV shows that may serve my learning purpose better as far as picking up the language since the main characters speak clearly?
1 x

StringerBell
Brown Belt
Posts: 1035
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2018 3:30 am
Languages: English (n)
Italian
x 3289

Re: Watching a TV show episode with or without subtitles?

Postby StringerBell » Sat Jan 15, 2022 2:19 pm

I have done some variations on what you're describing and it made very noticeable improvements in my listening comprehension.

One example:

I found an American TV series with 8 seasons, with 25 episodes per season that had audio available in Italian. However, there were no accurate subtitles available (which is always the issue). So here's what I did:

1) Watched an episode dubbed in Italian with English subtitles so I could follow what was happening.
2) Immediately after that, rewatched the same episode dubbed in Italian but with no subtitles. If I noticed that a particular unknown word kept showing up, I'd try to take note of it and look it up or ask a native speaker. Then I moved on to writing down any unknown word I came across and looking it up (unless I could tell it was inconsequential and I didn't want to bother with it). Italian is a very phonetic language so this was fairly easy to do.

I did this for 200 episodes. Somewhere around the middle of the 5th or 6th season I realized that I didn't really need to rely on the English subtitles very much but I waited until the 8th season to stop doing step #1. I did step #2 with the English subtitles stage when I felt really confident that I could follow the episodes easily. After that, I could watch most dubbed series comfortably.

However, there are some caveats:

1) Word order in English and Italian is relatively similar.
2) I looked up most unknown words - I didn't let them just pass by me like leaves in a stream. I didn't look up every single thing, but I did take notes anytime I heard someone saying something that sounded like it would be useful in a conversation.
3) I already had a basic understanding of Italian.

Another example but with only text in target language (so not like L-R):

I used a 7 episode Italian podcast series where I was able to find the transcript. I listened while reading along and stopped to look up ALL unknown words. It was a little tedious but I was highly motivated and the series was really compelling. This podcast was difficult because there were a lot of interviews with people with different accents who weren't always pronouncing words very clearly and were using a lot of slang or constructions I wasn't familiar with and sometimes there was background noise.

Immediately after finishing the series, I listened to it again with the transcript but trying to remember the meaning of everything I'd already looked up. Then I listened a 3rd time with no transcript. This activity made a gigantic difference in my comprehension.

Of everything I've ever done, the activity that has had the best return on investment was listening while reading and then listening to the same thing without the text. In my experience it's the best way to improve listening comprehension.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, early on I started with the duel subtitled videos from Italiano Automatico. He made 200+ videos where he's speaking in Italian with both Italian and English subtitles. That made a huge difference, too. However, the caveats I mentioned before still apply. Early on, I stopped the videos repeatedly to take note of new/useful words, I rewatched videos many times. Then I downloaded the audio from the videos and relistened to them multiple times without the text. After maybe 100 or so videos, I didn't need subtitles to understand him anymore but other native speakers were still challenging if they spoke about different topics, used more complex constructions, had a different "way" of speaking, or there were multiple speakers.
7 x
Season 4 Lucifer Italian transcripts I created: https://learnanylanguage.fandom.com/wik ... ranscripts


Return to “Practical Questions and Advice”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests