Quote: (04-22-2016 02:14 PM)Bury Zenek Wrote:
Watching films and TV is a valid tip. I learned English when I was not even a ten year old lad by watching countless hours of Cartoon Network
You say this as if learning a language by osmosis is somehow more difficult to do at age ten than at fifteen or twenty. The opposite is true. Adult beginners aren't able to learn just by watching films and TV. That's a certainly great activity once you are more advanced and have figured out basic grammar and so on.
Quote: (04-22-2016 02:14 PM)Bury Zenek Wrote:
... by watching countless hours of Cartoon Network (laugh all you want) without translation (although having subtitles then would've helped enormously).
By not having subtitles, you're doing a listening comprehension activity. That's a good thing. When you're reading subtitles in the language you're learning, you're not forced to pay close attention to what you're hearing. In fact, you can't, because you're busy reading a foreign language quickly. You've turned the whole thing into a reading exercise, primarily. Without subtitles, if you don't understand a scene or even a snippet of conversation, just rewind it and watch it several times. You'll pick up more on repeated viewings. If the subtitles can't be turned off, paper them over. Take off the training wheels. If the material is too difficult to follow even the basic gist, look for something else that is at or just above your current level.