It has been a while since I posted an update on the TV Method. Although there’s not much to report I’m still going strong. So far I’ve watched 130 hours which is less than I planned to watch, but these are simply countable hours as I’ve certainly watched more ‘normal’ television.
So what have I found out in those hours? That Spanish is pretty much replacing English as my second language and that it’s more natural to me than ever. Sure, there are still some things I don’t understand (mostly vocabulary-wise) but television is no problem at all. Watching series also helped me immensely regarding the news. Some people claim that understanding the news in Spanish is really difficult, but I don’t see the problem. I’ve been training my ears so much over the past weeks that as soon as I hear Spanish I automatically ‘tune-in’.
Another neat thing I noticed the last few weeks is the fact that I automatically finish the sentences of other people. No, I’m not saying it out loud (that’s just annoying) but I mosly know the words people are going to use next when starting a sentence. This is not some kind of paranormal shit, it’s simply because of the fact that natives use a fairly limited set of words and phrases. I first noticed this when watching Lost where there are a lot of moments where someone starts a sentence, pauses, and then continues. But before that person pauses, I already know how he/she is going to finish the sentence. Pretty cool, huh?
That’s pretty much what I wanted to tell. I’m going to try to cram at least 70 hours in the next two weeks which shouldn’t be too hard as I’m addicted (again) to The O.C. and Grey’s Anatomy. Some of my friends already call me mariquita, but I simply enjoy those shows.
¡Adiós!
The TV Method: Update 1
The TV Method: Update 2
The TV Method
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
No creo que seas un mariquita por ver esas series, para gustos colores.
Yo a veces veo mujeres desesperadas y no me considero un maruja.
@Ramses – Glad to, finally, see the number go up on your TV Method Progress. Thought you had given up on TV.
I’m glad to see people who have such strong desire to learn a new language, I share that aspiration too. In my case my mother language is Spanish and I’m trying to acquire English. I have seen many methods and I have impressed by the amount of new “warriors” in the language acquisition trend. Stephen Kaufman, Keith Lucas and you between other. Seems to me that there are a lot of misinformation related with how an adult acquire a new language, and the reason lying in that business behind language learning.
I going to test the method you suggest, however I have some questions:
How useful is the use of close caption?
Do you advice just regular TV or DVD movies?
Thanks in advance for your advice and please forgive me my mistakes
Regards
Edward
Hi Edward,
Good to see that you´re learning another language. I learned most from dubbed shows and movies without using subtitles. But when you have exact subtitles it can be useful. However, this isn´t something common (maybe if a movie or show has a subtitle track for the hearing impaired, which is mostly very accurate, it´s more useful). I wouldn´t use subtitles that aren´t accurate because you´ll need to concentrate on two different stories; the story from the audio and the story from the subtitle.
You can use anything: television, DVD releases, even going to the cinema will do, as long as it´s in your target language (English) and has no foreign language subtitles.
i also love Grey's Anatomy and i'm watching it in French now. the French Dubbing is amazing becasue the voices are so close to the original ones. seeing your posts is such an encouragement to me. because using the immersion method sometimes means that you want to know you're not crazy and not alone