🍿 3 tips to acquire languages with TV

Low-effort and relaxing study routine

Good morning,

Lately, I’ve been studying passively, consuming content in my target languages. This is one of my favourite ways to learn, since it requires relatively little focus, is entertaining and super helpful to acquire a language naturally. Here’s my routine to maximise the effect with minimal input.

🍡 Pick the most relaxing shows

I usually watch TV in the evening when I eat dinner at home. At this time of the day, my brain is mostly melted from my workday and I need something entertaining and relaxing to enjoy it. If it becomes a chore, I know I just won’t do it.

👩🏻‍⚖️ Lovable characters

This is the main thing I’m looking for in a show. A character I love can get me through most stories.

👩🏻‍💻 Realistic stories

I like to learn realistic sentences, and I choose my content accordingly. I might be missing some very good shows, but I still would rather focus on useful situations and vocabulary. Among the shows I skip: science-fiction, fantasy, historic, unrelatable (millonaires, children at school).

🧭 Easy-to-follow plots

I often get lost when there are too many characters or to many plotlines at the same time. For this reason, I usually watch 1-season TV shows, unless each episode has a different story.

Some of my favourite relaxing shows:

• 이상한 변호사 우영우 (Extraordinary attorney Woo): a super loveable autistic attorney navigates the world of law, learning it’s not always easy to do the right thing.

• 갯마을 차차차 (Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha): a group inhabitants in a charming small seaside town teach a city girl what truly matters for her to be happy.

• 봄밤 (One Spring Night): the pressure put on adults in their 30s isn’t making it easy to love, but these two will certainly melt your heart.

• KLEO: a talented and charismatic German spy is ready to do anything to understand who failed her in her last mission.

똑바로 읽어도 거꾸로 읽어도 같은 기러기, 토마토, 스위스, 인도인, 별똥별, 우영우 (No matter which way you read it it’s the same, it's the same: wild goose, tomato, Swiss, Indian, shooting star, Woo Young-woo!)

🔡 Double subtitles

I swear by them! I got used to it so fast and now I cannot live without double subtitles. I use a Chrome extension that works on both YouTube and Netflix called Language Reactor (ex Language learning with Netflix).

My favourite features:

🙈 Blurred translations

I use this for languages I feel more confident in (German and Dutch for example). Simply hovering over the blurred translation will reveal the text, so I don’t even have to pause the video.

🈁 Integrated dictionary

Hovering on single words shows a definition. Quick, simple, and now essential!

🔙 Subtitle navigation

Instead of going back 10 seconds each time I don’t catch a word, it takes me back to the previous subtitle line. Very practical for fast paced dialogue.

There’s a bunch of other features I don’t personally use, so feel free to check it out for yourself!

My opinion on double subtitles.

🃏 I talk about Anki in all of my entries at this point

When I hear a sentence or expression I like, I want to save it immediately to remember it. Here are a few tips to make the experience seamless.

• If the sentence is relevant to me, I’ll just copy it straight to my Anki deck.

• If it’s a bit long, I might use Papago or another translator to capture the text from my phone camera.

• If I like a word or grammatical point, but the whole sentence feels irrelevant, I’ll search my favourite dictionaries or other sources of sample sentences. Naver is my dictionary of choice in Korean.

Naver offers both sample sentences from texts and from video subtitles.

How often do you watch content in your target language(s)? If you have more tips, please share them with fellow learners!

Best,

Lou

✍️ Quote of the Week

I've always felt my entire life, always! - like I was on the outside looking in. And you, you have all made me feel like I'm part of something bigger, and I will be forever grateful for that. Thank you.

From Robbie Daymond as Dorian in Critical Role S3E14