How I learned English :-)
A couple of days ago I caught a rerun of The Golden Girls - and I have to admit, I love the show. First, it is just really funny - Dorothy rocks! The other reason why I like it is because it taught me colloquial English (together with The Cosby Show). Growing up in Germany, almost everything on TV was dubbed, there was almost no way to hear anything in original language, and while I appreciate it for non-English languages, I would have loved to see more TV in English.
Luckily, Cologne was close enough to the Netherlands so we actually were able to receive a couple of Dutch channels. There was too much on that I cared for - I am pretty sure it was public television mostly showing news and Dutch TV shows, but they did air The Golden Girls and The Cosby Shows - and boy am I glad it was those shows. Not only are they fun, I also believe that both use relatively proper and well pronounced English. In addition, they had Dutch subtitles and while I don’t speak Dutch, it often helped to figure out something I didn’t understand.
I was an English major in high school, mostly because I wasn’t able to pick German as my first major but had to pick a foreign language or a science. I picked English because it is pretty much like German class but in a different language. And boy, did I NOT do well. I remember that my teacher Mrs. Hellmund while handing out the graded papers said “You start out nicely but after about a page you are really losing it” to which I replied that I’ll try to stick with one page the next time. My biggest issue was that I tried to construct my English sentences like my German sentences but then I got lost in the grammar. The first page was find because it was just the intro. Once I reached the interpretation part, my brain took off but my language skills did not follow.
Now, on a completely different note, in Germany there are always those people who tell you that you have to watch this movie or read that book in original language and I always think it’s bull. Yeah, if your English is very very good, you may be able to pick up on some nuances that may not have been translated well into German but to be honest, for the vast majority speaking high school English - they lose a lot more information due to the lack of vocabulary than they gain by hearing the original language.
And of course, the recommendation usually comes from someone who is convinced that “he can English very good”. Most of the time, I find this recommendation pompous and condescending and I would never recommend it to anyone who wants to watch a movie for entertainment. Now if someone wants to improve their English, it’s a great idea - worked for me, right?
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3 Responses to “How I learned English :-)”
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As far as reading something in the original is concerned, I agree that most of the people here in Germany probably miss more than they gain if the point is to achieve a firm understanding of the book’s contents. The assumptions of fluency that I encounter here are an endless source of amusement. Most of the time the only ones who understand their limitations are those who truly are fluent. However, reading books in the other language is a fine thing, and it should be encouraged. I would, however, recommend reading the translated version first or in parallel to get the most out of the experience. Many years ago I gained a lot by reading American novels that I knew translated into German, though I was usually appalled by the poor quality of the translations. In many cases it was clear that the translators had never understood the original work.
Great post, Susanne! It’s funny thinking back on the cheesy media that helped all of us improve our second-language fluency. My high school French teacher used to let us (nay, encourage us to!) read romance novels translated into French and I remember being really hooked on them as a teenager. Then when I moved to France, the first time I really understood anything about French current events was from watching “Les Guignols de l’Info,” the puppet news show. Same as you, I’m sure that if I watched it now there would still be a soft place in my heart for it!!
I admit, reading foreign language books is better because you can put down the book and look up a term. But for movies, I remember watching the movie Life with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence and I didn’t understand half of it. Or The Wire, I enjoy the famous scene where for a few minutes they say nothing but the F-word and I am sure you simply cannot transfer how funny that is into German. On the other hand, I didn’t understand most of the rest, so it didn’t make much sense.