Dubbing / subtitling isn't everything, although it certainly helps. According to the theories of language acquisition, it is processing of linguistic input (con

Dubbing / subtitling isn't everything, although it certainly helps. According to the theories of language acquisition, it is processing of linguistic input (connecting form to meaning to be able to understand the meaning) that makes the internal, unconscious representation of language to develop. Subtitling movies and TV shows essentially gives more opportunities to encounter linguistic input. However, as the viewers are able to get the meaning from the subtitles only, they don't necessarily PROCESS the foreign language. Some do, so the mileage varies a lot. (Watching without subtitles will force you process the meaning – or if the difficulty level is too high, just frustrate and ignore it. Or process partially.) I find that even more than TV shows, kids these days are learning English from games – in Finland, they don't translate games at all, so there's even greater incentive to actually try to understand the English input.