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Friday, June 26, 2020

A new language lerning tool - netflix with subtitles


I joined the Polyglot community page on Facebook. You can ask a question and get an answer.

First I shall tell you what wastes time, then the good results. Like elsewhere on Facebook, reading it wastes a lot of time because people are often asking questions which are irrelevant to me, such as, Where can I learn Swahili. Others ask questions about English grammar, making so many mistakes that I could be spending fifteen minutes correcting and explaining two sentences. I would be better off spending my time creating a proper blog post or podcast or even a series of slides for Toastmasters on the English language.

However, every now and then something really interesting crops up. Yesterday somebody asked about songs to help learn Hebrew. I did not find the perfect song. What I would have wanted was a song like a nursery rhyme, the equivalent of Ten Green Bottles, which teaches numbers one to ten and one colour, Simon says, which teaches the parts of the body, or the rhymes about days of the week, (Many of them are too old fashioned with words you don't use every day. 'Sunday's child is full of grace, Monday's child is fair of face' - nobody, no beginner, would need the word grace, nor the econstruction fair of face.)


Moving on, today I saw a question about 'has anybody used netflix for learning languages'. I am a busy person and don't watch videos, too time consuming. I like a page I can read and skim to the end to the vital links.

The good news is that the Netflix system uses subtitles in English (or your language) and the other language. You can even go backwards or forwards, and switch between one language and the others.

This is my dream come true. I have installed it. Later, when I have time, I shall report back.

The trouble is, I am looking for a free service. I now find, install 30 days for free. I never sign up for anything unlimited.

Firstly, I often sign up for something and change my mind. I might suffer from buyers remorse. The amount you pay over a year or more is larger than a one off payment.

What's more, I am over 70. If I died, how would my relatives cancel it? After my late uncle died, it was a nightmare trying to cancel subscriptions. In addition to the major events of death certificates and funeral speech and funeral and gravestone and bank accounts and pensions, I had monthly orders for books and other unwanted items. All of them could not be cancelled without passwords and proof that the person had died. A whole hoo-ha. I don't want to risk.

I am happy with a service such as Duolingo which offers a basic course for free, a better one for a price, if you want to continue learning to a higher level, to support the system which has supported you by giving back money to help them develop further features and languages.

Useful Websites
https://media.netflix.com/en/language-selection

About the Author
Angela Lansbury is an author and speaker. See books such as Wedding Speeches on Amazon and Quick Quotations on Lulu.com
You can also join Angela on Facebook and LinkedIn and at a meeting of a Toastmasters club. Please share links to your favourite posts.

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