how to finally understand native content

i was so p*ssed off.

i’d spent close to a year learning french, smashing video calls with duolingo characters, acquired so many words. i finally felt ready to watch some real, authentic baguette content on netflix.

but after sinking an hour into the first episode of marseille, i came away questioning whether i’d learnt anything at all.

they spoke so fast. they were barely enunciating. everything just smushed into one mumbled blob.

“maybe i’m just gonna have to roll with english subtitles” i thought to myself.

but what good would that do me? i’d long known that i’d have to fully immerse myself in pure french at some point. english subtitles would only delay that. the french audio would become white noise and i’d have to settle for the illusion of learning. nothing more.

so, what did i do?

in true matt fashion, i gave up and didn’t bother with episode two.

that was, until a week ago, after i saw a video on youtube that reminded me of something i’d been meaning to try for ages…

but we’ll get to that in a second.

for the past year, my french routine has been very simple.

it’s centered around duolingo because duolingo has pretty much everything i need. the course goes all the way up to the high b2 end of the cefr (which, the boffins reckon, is basically fluency).

with duolingo max, i get daily conversation practice with one of their cheery characters. the radio calls are good for boosting my listening comprehension. and the new flashcards seem to be improving my active recall.

and yet, for all the progress duolingo has made, one thing it still lacks (and perhaps always will lack) is authenticity.

you know, the stuff that resides beyond the classroom. real life french stuff. what it means to be a genuine baguette-eater.

french courses like duolingo’s will give you the bread and more fillings than your local subway. but they don’t necessarily show you how to put it all together.

that’s why, as long term readers will no doubt recall, i’ve always loved lingq [affiliate] as an appetizing side dish. it lets you import pretty much any text-based content you want and turn it into a personalized lesson. you just go through at your own pace, tap words and phrases, save them to your database, then review them in future lessons and flashcard exercises.

it works great for audio/textual stuff, but it’s not so great for movies and tv shows. which is a problem for me, because i’m very much a visual kind of dude. if you were to give me the choice between a book on world war two, or a world war two documentary narrated by tom hanks, i’ll choose the one with monsieur hanks every time.

so that leaves me at a bit of an impasse when i want/need to make the jump over to native tv shows and movies. this is the stuff i really want to dig into. but how can i when i can barely understand a single word they’re saying?

well, fast forward to a week ago, and this video popped up on my youtube feed: “i did this every day to learn french”.

i’ll be honest: i tend to skip over videos like this because they’re either a) stuffing as many product recommendations as they can to make that affiliate bank, or b) they’re pedaling their own edgy method that usually just centers around sh*tting on duolingo.

but for whatever reason i decided to bite this time. and i’m glad i did, because corinna reminded me of a google chrome plugin that a reader recommended to me about 18 months ago.

it’s called language reactor [no affiliate].

it’s basically like lingq but for youtube and netflix. rather than working through text documents, you work with videos and subtitles.

all you have to do is simply login; install the chrome extension; browse the catalogue of youtube videos and netflix shows (you’ll need a netflix account for this by the way); pick something that tickles your pickle; and get to watching.

below the video you’ll see two sets of subtitles: your target language, and your vanilla language.

see a word you don’t understand? just hover over it for a set of translations. want to review it later? save it to your database.

you can slow it down, speed it up. replay a sentence as many times as you like by tapping ‘s’ on the keyboard. skip forward. jump back. flow as you please.

it works a lot better than i was expecting. i’d been a tad concerned the process of surgically analyzing every sentence would be too much of a faff and suck the joy out of it.

but then i remembered there was absolutely zero joy in what i was doing before, so what did i have to lose?

nothing, my friend. rien du tout.

so, as you can see above, i finally got started on the second episode of marseille. and, as if by magic, i can now understand what the devil is going on.

i must have sunk about an hour into just a 10-minute slither of it this morning. it’s slow going but remarkably satisfying. i can already see and feel the progress.

this past week has made me realize that the reason i failed with the first episode is that i passively sat back and just hoped i’d understand everything.

i figured i’d spent enough time gathering words on duolingo and actively using them in video calls that i’d be able to just infer my way through.

but the annoying truth is that the classroom (duolingo) and the real world (tv shows, movies, life) are very different places, and it helps massively to have a bridge between the two.

this is how we roll when we learn to drive. we have an instructor sat beside us (quite often with pedals and controls of their own) and usually after a couple of lessons we’re straight out onto the open road.

we learn by driving in real conditions, with someone right at our side to stop us from killing ourselves or anyone else.

lingq is very much that instructor for audio/textual stuff. i think language reactor might be the equivalent for tv shows and movies.

let’s see how it goes.

perhaps i’ll finally get to the end of marseille and find myself speaking fluent bouillabaisse?

i’ll keep you posted.

ciao for now,

matt

au fait,

let me know if you’ve given language reactor a go and what you think of it. do you pay for it or do you find the free version is enough? any tips? better alternatives? drop a comment and let me know.