I NEVER heard of this way to learn a language , but it seems to work great \ stacker news ~alter

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I NEVER heard of this way to learn a language , but it seems to work great

588 sats \ 17 comments \ @Signal312 11 Jun alter_native

I just had a conversation with a young man, who did pretty poorly in school, failed high school, etc. However, he spoke English really well. A bit of an accent, but very fluid.

I asked if he had lived in England or the US or anything, but no. He said he learned his English from...playing video games! These are the types of games where you're constantly talk with your fellow players with a headset.

In case any English speakers are wanting to learn other languages - well, that doesn't really work, since apparently the "lingua franca" of all the video games is English.

The other surprising language learning methods I've heard of are...binge watching TV shows in English. When traveling through France a few years back, two separate times I talked to people who spoke English really well, very fluently.

When that happens, I used to assume that they lived in an English speaking country for quite some time. But both of these guys said no, they just...binged watched TV. For the one it was the show Peaky Binders, and for the other, it was The Big Bang Theory.

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44 sats \ 1 reply \ @teemupleb 11 Jun

If I was a crooked politician in a non-native English-speaking country, I would make sure to overdub all American movies and TV shows in the local language so the people wouldn’t get exposure to spoken English.

This way they would have less international work opportunities, they would be poorer, stay in my country and pay more taxes to fund my corrupt undertakings hahahaha

15 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 OP 11 Jun

But...remittances! Lots of countries earn big bucks with remittances - take for instance Philippine nurses, who work all over the world.

I think the crooked politician should think these things over...

44 sats \ 4 replies \ @denlillaapan 11 Jun

I asked if he had lived in England or the US or anything, but no. He said he learned his English from...playing video games! These are the types of games where you're constantly talk with your fellow players with a headset.

TOTALLY!

I mean, living in the UK and visiting the US a lot + working daily in English (and reading voraciously as a teenager) obviously helped, but video games for sure was the gateway drug.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Signal312 OP 11 Jun

I should have mentioned this in the original post, but in my head, I'm contrasting him (spoke English really well) with some of the other French people I know, who completed high school and maybe even university, but have a terrible accent, and aren't fluent at all. But his gaming habit really did wonders for his English.

I think the system of teaching English in France must be pretty bad. People who go through the school system in places like Germany or the Netherlands seem to end up speaking English quite well.

10 sats \ 2 replies \ @teemupleb 11 Jun

I agree. Even the educated French who read and write English well often have a terrible pronunciation that makes my ears bleed.

Efficient verbal communication should be a priority when learning a new language.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 OP 11 Jun

Yes. And honestly, it seems like it's not that hard, nowadays. Really, just watching (a lot) of TV shows in the target language does the trick, in terms of understanding and pronunciation.

I guess that wouldn't provide jobs for teachers, though!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Bell_curve 11 Jun

Oprima 2 para Espanol

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @stack_harder 11 Jun

you can get a lot out of emesrion into shows and things, when i was learning russian somethign i did was put phone and OS into russian (then later video game language) as well for forced benefits lol

the advantage learners of English have is that there is so much content to consume in the form of grerat shows, movies and IP.

my wife's nephew leanred a ton of english by playing online and knew all the military words lol

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @elvismercury 11 Jun

The rule of thumb for the band of vagabonds I fell in with while drifting internationally was the best way, by far, to learn the local language was to get a local girlfriend who didn't speak English. 100% checked out.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei 11 Jun

I think your examples go to show that the what isn’t as important as the why. If one is intrinsically motivated, he will find the best way for him to pick up a language

80 sats \ 0 replies \ @d680ecaa8e 11 Jun

The same rule apply to show TV shows in german.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @SwapMarket 11 Jun

That was always my explanation to parents for why I played quests.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @supratic 11 Jun

you forgot about reading books with a side dictionary...

Anyway, if TV if your preferred, you should check this #980571

39 sats \ 0 replies \ @LibreHans 11 Jun

I'm curious, have you ever learned a second language? Because exposure to the language is the obvious way to learn a language. Research shows that you can learn it a little faster with a structured approach, courses etc, but they don't replace exposure either if you want to get to a decent level.

34 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter 11 Jun

When I used to teach, I always recommended ways of direct communication with tbe native if possible by any means. Most of my students adopted gaming and there's an app (I forgot the name) where they could talk to random people.

I could speak English while In my school and college times, but the major improvement in accent only came when I started communicating directly to natives. I got lucky I had a few friends who I could talk to.

5 sats \ 0 replies \ @nout 11 Jun

I learned English by binge watching shows like Family Guy without subtitles, so I can confirm 😄

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Mbtcax 11 Jun freebie

Interesting, something I saved in my bookmarks a while back https://fluentsubs.com/