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Personally, I would love to learn a language by watching movies/videos with 3 subtitle tracks: (1) What they are speaking - IN their script (this is called SLS

Personally, I would love to learn a language by watching movies/videos with 3 subtitle tracks: (1) What they are speaking - IN their script (this is called SLS: Same-Language-Subtitling and has been quite successful for literacy programs for one's own language) (2) What they are speaking - IN my script (3) What they MEAN - IN my language (i.e. translation) Data for (1) is easy to find. (2) could theoretically be generated from (1). It's (3) which requires a lot of deliberate manual effort.

GEBBL 9y ago
Are there video players like VLC that allow the displaying of more than one sub/srt file at a time?
- shard 9y ago
  I use KM Player, which allows up to 3 subtitles at a time, although the 3rd subtitle is placed right in the middle of the video (the first is on the bottom and the second is on the top, which works very well).
austinl 9y ago
This is the way FluentU works (https://www.fluentu.com/ https://www.fluentu.com/). They have content with 2-3 subtitle tracks that can be toggled on and off. Then you can click on specific words in the subtitles that you don't know, it'll show a definition, and you can add it to a list of words to review. They've got several TV series (although they might not be your favorite series), depending on the language.
dilap 9y ago
Netflix will give you (1) and (3) for a bunch of their newer stuff
- schacon 9y ago
  A tip on Netflix - in the US, it's often nearly impossible to get foreign language dubbing or subtitles. I've found that I can watch Friends in German by using TunnelBear or another VPN to get a German IP and then downloading them offline and watching them in airplane mode.
jackpirate 9y ago
In my experience, (1) is actually really hard to find. The subtitles (of translated english movies) are always subtly different than the audio.
- schacon 9y ago
  I've found this for German and French too. If I watch a movie or tv show that I already know and turn on both the German language track and the subtitles, it's awful - they're almost never even close. I would assume it's better for English because so much is produced in English, so there aren't two different teams on audio and text. I would try to find more German language stuff, but due to a lot of media region restrictions, it's insanely difficult to get foreign language material if you're in America. I've been known to pirate content just so my daughter can have French cartoons to watch. So frustrating...
kmatt 9y ago
I've been working on something similar. Check out Flowlingo (iOS or Android app stores). You watch videos and read books to learn a language. Currently in Spanish only. If you have any feedback, please let me know!
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  Flowlingo looks awesome. I like how the subtitles show/scroll below the video.
avn2109 9y ago
This is Yabla (almost)
skosch 9y ago
Yes! I found https://github.com/oaprograms/lingo-player https://github.com/oaprograms/lingo-player, but it seems to have a broken dependency. For (1), I have considered using https://cloud.google.com/speech/ https://cloud.google.com/speech/ because it's so cheap. I am learning Cantonese, and Cantonese subtitles virtually don't exist – frustratingly, everything is in Mandarin.
- nileshtrivedi 9y ago
  Very useful links these two. Google speech would produce text in the native script (1). Know of any tool that can transliterate that to your script (2)? Google translate might work (with some errors) for (3).
tchaffee 9y ago
I use movies a lot for learning a new language. Try using only the subtitles in the language you are learning. Subtitles in your own language will actually slow you way down. You'll stop hearing the words in the foreign language and just read your native language. At first it will seem very difficult to have only the foreign language subtitles, but once you start seeing the repeated phrases and see the context in which it happens, you'll pick up new phrases very quickly. It does take a leap of faith, because at first you'll understand almost nothing and it might be a bit boring or frustrating. If you stick with it, it's pretty powerful.
- cloverich 9y ago
  It's funny because as silly as your suggestion seems, this is how real language aquisition. I'm super interested in any more info you have about your success doing this! (I.e. Language learned or how long before things started clicking etc)
  - tchaffee 9y ago
    I learned Italian to the almost fluent level. I can conduct business and get through complex negotiations. I learned a little Spanish before having to switch to Portuguese for business reasons, and I'm now advanced beginner in PT after a few months. I have also learned a little Mandarin. How long before things started clicking? Almost immediately. You recognize what you've recently learned from your other resources and you get to hear different pronunciations, accents, and even slurring. But to learn new things from context takes longer. It's very hard to say. I'm not keeping track of how many times I hear a slang phrase or some other common phrase before it sinks in. I would guess hundreds of times. But that's why this method works so well. The most common phrases and words will be repeated over and over even in one movie. So you are automatically getting more exposure to the most common words.
- nileshtrivedi 9y ago
  The problem is that you have two things to learn: Foreign script AND foreign language. Subtitles in foreign language will also use their script which makes it completely incomprehensible to you. The barrier is too high. You're right though: At some point the support rails need to be taken away.

GEBBL 9y ago

Are there video players like VLC that allow the displaying of more than one sub/srt file at a time?

shard 9y ago
I use KM Player, which allows up to 3 subtitles at a time, although the 3rd subtitle is placed right in the middle of the video (the first is on the bottom and the second is on the top, which works very well).

austinl 9y ago

This is the way FluentU works (https://www.fluentu.com/ https://www.fluentu.com/). They have content with 2-3 subtitle tracks that can be toggled on and off. Then you can click on specific words in the subtitles that you don't know, it'll show a definition, and you can add it to a list of words to review. They've got several TV series (although they might not be your favorite series), depending on the language.

dilap 9y ago

Netflix will give you (1) and (3) for a bunch of their newer stuff

schacon 9y ago
A tip on Netflix - in the US, it's often nearly impossible to get foreign language dubbing or subtitles. I've found that I can watch Friends in German by using TunnelBear or another VPN to get a German IP and then downloading them offline and watching them in airplane mode.

jackpirate 9y ago

In my experience, (1) is actually really hard to find. The subtitles (of translated english movies) are always subtly different than the audio.

schacon 9y ago
I've found this for German and French too. If I watch a movie or tv show that I already know and turn on both the German language track and the subtitles, it's awful - they're almost never even close. I would assume it's better for English because so much is produced in English, so there aren't two different teams on audio and text. I would try to find more German language stuff, but due to a lot of media region restrictions, it's insanely difficult to get foreign language material if you're in America. I've been known to pirate content just so my daughter can have French cartoons to watch. So frustrating...

kmatt 9y ago

I've been working on something similar. Check out Flowlingo (iOS or Android app stores). You watch videos and read books to learn a language. Currently in Spanish only. If you have any feedback, please let me know!

rahimnathwani 9y ago
Flowlingo looks awesome. I like how the subtitles show/scroll below the video.

avn2109 9y ago

This is Yabla (almost)

skosch 9y ago

Yes! I found https://github.com/oaprograms/lingo-player https://github.com/oaprograms/lingo-player, but it seems to have a broken dependency. For (1), I have considered using https://cloud.google.com/speech/ https://cloud.google.com/speech/ because it's so cheap. I am learning Cantonese, and Cantonese subtitles virtually don't exist – frustratingly, everything is in Mandarin.

nileshtrivedi 9y ago
Very useful links these two. Google speech would produce text in the native script (1). Know of any tool that can transliterate that to your script (2)? Google translate might work (with some errors) for (3).

tchaffee 9y ago

I use movies a lot for learning a new language. Try using only the subtitles in the language you are learning. Subtitles in your own language will actually slow you way down. You'll stop hearing the words in the foreign language and just read your native language. At first it will seem very difficult to have only the foreign language subtitles, but once you start seeing the repeated phrases and see the context in which it happens, you'll pick up new phrases very quickly. It does take a leap of faith, because at first you'll understand almost nothing and it might be a bit boring or frustrating. If you stick with it, it's pretty powerful.

cloverich 9y ago
It's funny because as silly as your suggestion seems, this is how real language aquisition. I'm super interested in any more info you have about your success doing this! (I.e. Language learned or how long before things started clicking etc)
- tchaffee 9y ago
  I learned Italian to the almost fluent level. I can conduct business and get through complex negotiations. I learned a little Spanish before having to switch to Portuguese for business reasons, and I'm now advanced beginner in PT after a few months. I have also learned a little Mandarin. How long before things started clicking? Almost immediately. You recognize what you've recently learned from your other resources and you get to hear different pronunciations, accents, and even slurring. But to learn new things from context takes longer. It's very hard to say. I'm not keeping track of how many times I hear a slang phrase or some other common phrase before it sinks in. I would guess hundreds of times. But that's why this method works so well. The most common phrases and words will be repeated over and over even in one movie. So you are automatically getting more exposure to the most common words.
nileshtrivedi 9y ago
The problem is that you have two things to learn: Foreign script AND foreign language. Subtitles in foreign language will also use their script which makes it completely incomprehensible to you. The barrier is too high. You're right though: At some point the support rails need to be taken away.