How I build vocabulary effortlessly in my target languages
It’s no secret that watching movies or series in your target language is one way to learn new words in a more enjoyable way than pure study.
However, when your vocabulary is still pretty basic you have to choose between pausing every few minutes to look up words, or not understanding 90% of what the characters are saying.
Doesn’t that take all the fun away?
Yes, you can pick up some meanings based on the context, but the learning is so slow that it can feel discouraging.
Our subconscious can effortlessly store information and find language patterns that the conscious can’t always understand, so why don’t we let this guy do the job for us?
With this in mind, my approach now is a bit different: I will choose my native language for the audio and set captions in my target language.
While it may sound weird, this provides me with multiple benefits:
- My brain will be receiving both languages at the same time, transforming the movie in a live dictionary. I am constantly learning new words and expressions without the need to pause.
- Even when my conscious mind isn’t fast enough to process both audio and text, my subconscious will still take notes.
- It offers a comfort zone I can come to whenever I need it. Being exposed to a foreign language can be exhausting, and there’s no way out if both audio and text are in the target language. If you want a break, you need to pause or ignore the movie completely. But not anymore, now I simply forget about the captions for a few minutes, allowing my mind to recharge and rest. And since I can do this without pausing, I am more likely to spend longer periods of time exposed to my target languages. Also, remember that even when I ignore the captions my subconscious is still aware of them! So it’s never a waste of time.
Hopefully, there will be a point where my vocabulary will be broad enough for this method to become pointless. But until now, I will be embracing it. 😁
Disclaimer: I am no professional, psychologist, linguistic or polyglot. This is my personal experience. Take whatever works for you and leave the rest.