Is Watching Friends the FASTEST Way to Learn a New Language?
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Did you know that millions of people every year use the sitcom Friends to learn English? No kidding! I found some superstar fans who learned fluent English, all with the help of 6 friends. When you finish this video, I only have one question for you: Could these friends BE any better at teaching English?
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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Millions learn English with Friends
0:18 – What is the Friends Effect?
1:59 – Rap Monster (BTS)
4:06 – Ana de Armas
6:19 – NordVPN
7:54 – Why Friends is awesome for learning English
11:20 – Jürgen Klopp
12:54 – Major League Baseball
14:19 – More ways to learn a new language
15:16 – Catchphrases
16:17 – Watch TV shows to learn a new language
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I always liked Chandler the best.
What would help you learn German, Spanish, and Italian?
“Aquí no hay quien viva” is amazing for Spanish! So funny, a lot of catch phrases and loads of episodes!
Hubert and Staller for German, and Betty la fea for Spanish. Both of them are long run series with a lot of humor in there
This is exactly how I learned english. My wife is a huge friend’s fan and asked me to watch it with her. I got hooked but I didn’t understand 90% . Overtime everything made sense and lets say I learned english by accident watching Friends.
Amazing!
Which language did you grow up with?
I am from Indonesia, but I’m an oddball because my “first” language is actually English, or at least I am more fluent in English than in Indonesian. My first exposure was from watching Magic English, which is a compilation of classic Disney movies and musical shorts, like Peter Pan, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Three Little Pigs, etc. I then moved to watching a lot of Cartoon Network shows and from there my English was so fluent my friends’ mothers thought I was American or studied at an American school. 😂
Same! I had Filipinos ask me when I moved to the Philippines from the US. I never left; I was always here 😭 I’m so glad I’m not the only one!
Peppa Pig is also a powerful weapon. 👀
1. Just watch what you would want to watch anyway, but in English. Makes learning a lot easier.
2. Comedy series and movies (the ones that are actually funny) give you instant gratification: if you manage to understand a certain portion of the conversation you get a joke that you can laugh at as an instant “reward”.
3. Married with Children, anyone? Fresh Prince of Bel-Air? Or are these too oldschool for most people nowadays?
i am not sure but western culture is changing quite quickly most of the 80s shows are fine but you got random things that are now seen as weird or rude
What’s the Spanish language TV show analogue for Friends?
Idk, Yo Soy Betty, la Fea?
I watched death note so many times in Japanese, I just love the first season so much
Most of the English input I had at the beggining was from videogames and from the Simpsons. Since the new episodes took around a year to be broadcasted in my country, I just downloaded bootleg files and watched them. It helped a great deal.
In Norway there is (or at least used to be) a stereotype of nerds being better at English. Similarly to this, nerds enjoy content made in English that lack proper Norwegian translations. Therefore, out of necessity, these groups of people with very niche interests obtain fluency in a second language as well, while enjoying their hobbies (anime with English subtitles, board games, video games, books that aren’t mainstream enough for any translations etc.) Enjoying content in target language is truly the fastest way to fluency, in my opinion.
I just posted that I hope old sitcoms like Bewitched exist in Norwegian. Do you know?
yea one downside i noticed about smaller languages like Norwegian is that there is not a lot of stuff that appeals to me they only got stuff that tries to appeal to very large demographics like football and sitcoms its fine for most people. my native language is Dutch so its similar the people here that don’t know English are usually people who only like more old school things like football or books or local tv shows and they don’t have high standards when it comes to entertainment .
@@belkyhernandez8281 no it probably doesn’t maybe the cartoon spinoff .but i am not sure since Norwegian tv was very bad and behind the times in the 1970s no progress between 1953 and 1990 even worse than most communist countries at the time
Handy tip for anyone wanted to learn Cantonese… the Chinese track on D+ Simpsons is Cantonese – gaw’churr!
Is there a french equivalent for learning french!
I’ve been waiting for translations of U love lucy, Bewitched, Laverne & Shirley, Happy Days, and I Dream of Jeannie in Norwegian bokmål.
Literally watching Friends/The Simpsons with French audio – class!
Thank you for featuring RM. He can also write songs flipping between Korean, English and Japanese. He is very impressive. I used Bollywood movies and cartoons to learn Hindi. I started watching K dramas and now I am picking up words and phrases in Korean so I know from personal experience that this method works.
When i started learning english i wondered why it was easy to understand friends but not others sitcom.
Super interesting Olly. I wonder if this is also true in Commonwealth countries where English is an official but not native language? I’m born and raised in India so I studied English since kindergarten, as did most of my friends and family. By the time I saw Friends, I already understood it as well as an American!
I’m learning Portuguese and had this same thought about watching the dub version a few times, then the english version, and then after a while I’ll know the script will be like the back of my hand. It felt validating to hear him say that. Im learning european Portuguese so dubs are harder to find but I’ve found some on Disney plus.
I also think looking for reality shows in that language is a good idea because you can see how people speak naturally.
Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Veep, Schitt’s Creek – the best TV shows ever!