• akakunai
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    1 month ago

    I’ve found that when I watch something in another language with subtitles, I find myself going by what I heard, and using the subtitles to support or reinforce sections or words I didn’t understand. I often end up disagreeing with how things are translated, or there is something said in the foreign language that can’t simply be translated. In other words, I think using subtitles as reinforcement can be useful, whereas just reading every line and not thinking in the other language for yourself might not really be helping you much.

    • MacN'Cheezus@lemmy.today
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      1 month ago

      Right, I’m not saying it’s useless, just a different type of learning. As you said, it’s more of a reinforcement activity — repeating the words you may have already learned and putting them into a variety of real life contexts helps you remember them better.

      However, at least personally, I do find it rather difficult to learn new words that way unless I constantly pause and rewind, which breaks the flow of the story and ends up not being super enjoyable.

      When you learn new words, you need to actively repeat them a bunch of times until they stick, and Duolingo seems better suited for that.