Using Netflix is one of the most fun and easiest ways that a lot of people like to learn languages. But there's more than one way to do it, and the strategy that you choose to use dictates your results. My name is Jamie. I'm a language coach. Let's talk about ways to learn languages with Netflix, including which strategies you should be using and which resources to use. The first way to learn languages with Netflix is the easiest. It doesn't require any extra resources except clicking around a few times. Once. And that is to change the language of your Netflix account. All you have to do is go into the settings of your account and let Netflix know that you speak a different language. Now, if you have one account with a bunch of different profiles, this will only affect your profile. So don't worry about your friends or family getting confused when all of a sudden German or Korean pops up. This change doesn't affect anything else on Netflix. So just because you change your language to German doesn't mean you're going to see more German language Netflix shows and movies. We'll talk about that in a second. All this means is that everything that you see on the platform is going to be in that new language. So the next time you’re idle for too long and it asks if you're still watching, it won't be in English anymore. It'll be in your target language. The vast majority of movie titles and show titles will also be different, so the imagery will be the same, but a lot of times a title is translated. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. It really depends on the individual piece of content. So if we’re not changing what we're watching and we're not changing any subtitles or anything like that, why even bother doing this? Basically, this is one tiny little step to immersing yourself in the language. So every time you see words like, “Did you like this?” or “next season is coming soon” or “coming soon”, or “add the show to my list”, all of those little words and phrases will be translated. So even if you do already know the words and you already understand them, Imagine your target language being like one little piece of your brain. If you do this with your Netflix, you are consistently poking that part in your brain and keeping it alive. Your brain will automatically passively start picking up patterns, conjugations, spelling, things like that. This will get you so much farther than you think, really. Personally, I've had my Netflix in Spanish for years now, and because of that, my spoken Spanish is significantly better than it would have been otherwise. Now, the next way to learn languages with Netflix is another step closer, which is seeking out content specifically meant for people who speak your target language natively. if you already have your account in your target language, this is the next step because now you're actually consuming the language and you're using that part of your brain. Yes, even if you also have English subtitles, but we'll talk about that later. Fortunately for us, Netflix has a wildly international audience, so it can be really easy to find the movies and the shows that are specifically meant for that international audience so you can take advantage of it too - with the caveat that not all content is available in all countries. So if you know there's a lot of, like, I don't know, Japanese content on Netflix that you can't access, there are more techie ways to get around that, which I'm not particularly familiar with, but I know it's an option. Regardless of that, it's easy enough to go into Netflix and search by language. And of course, this is outside of the language that you have the platform hosted in. So it's not going to automatically change the content based on your target language. It's going to change it based on where you are. Because tech. I don't I don't know the nitty gritty of it, I just know that that's a thing. Tell Netflix to show you what's available in your target language, and then you can easily filter by dubbed or original audio. Obviously, original audio is best, but if it's kind of lacking, you can totally use dubbed audio and then just ignore when the mouth movements don't match up with what you're listening to. And of course, if you're going to use subtitles, they absolutely have to be in your target language, not just your native language. Another way to find Netflix content that is great for your target language is to go through Language Reactor. If you’re not familiar with Language Reactor, I have my review of the Chrome extension linked below in the description, but it is a totally free Chrome extension for you to use that can take the transcripts and subtitles that are available on Netflix and make it so that's easier for you to learn. If you go onto Language Reactor's website, you can also browse their Netflix catalog. So instead of searching by country, by language, Language Reactor allows you to search by subtitles. Language Reactor is specifically for language learning, so there's a chance that it might be better to search through Language Reactor to find good subtitles. This also might change due to your personal preferences, the language that you're learning, all sorts of stuff. Or a third way to do this is Lingopie’s Chrome extension. While Language Reactor takes the content that Netflix already has available for you, Lingopie has created the content for particular shows and movies. While this does mean that shows and movies that are available with Language Reactor won't be available with Lingopie, Lingopie is a lot more user friendly. But again, I'm not going to go too deep into Lingopie because I have my review down below. Regardless of how you want to view your subtitles, whether it's strictly through Netflix, whether it's through Language Reactor’s Chrome extension, or if it's through Lingopie’s Chrome extension, unless you are already very comfortable understanding your target language, I would recommend using one of the Chrome extensions because the Chrome extensions allow you to see your target language and your native language at the same time. Netflix only shows you one or the other because it's not a language learning tool. So if you're not comfortable enough with your listening comprehension to understand the content without it being translated in real time, I would stick to the Chrome extensions because I would say having the bilingual subtitles while you're watching the movie is going to be significantly more helpful than if you just have the target language, but you still can't understand what's going on. After you do this for a while, consistently, you'll start to understand more and more, and you can just drop the English subtitles. But don't do that if it's like painful for you. I would rather you enjoy the process and understand what's going on than push yourself and force yourself to try to understand and then burn yourself out. Bilingual subtitles get a thumbs up from me if they are helpful. Now, once you are watching a Netflix show or movie and you're getting the subtitles and you're reading along as you go, the next step is to save the words and phrases that are new to you so that you can brush up on them later and start to study a little bit more. How do we do this? Which resources are the best for you and what should you be looking for? Now we're going to introduce a third way to learn languages with Netflix and that is Trancy. It's another Chrome extension that does similar things to Language Reactor and Lingopie, with just a few more other flavors. So when it comes to coming across new words and phrases in your Netflix shows and saving them to study them later, Language Reactor and Trancy are much better than Lingopie. And mostly that's just because they're much more flexible. Remember, Lingopie’s translations are like manual. They don't use an AI as far as I know, and they're very selective in which content has Lingopie’s subtitles available. But there are some very stark differences here. So Language Reactor is a lot better at translating words, phrases, whatever you ask it to translate and it’s highly flexible so it's really easy to decide if you want the whole sentence phrase, word, conjugation, whatever it is. And it's really easy to choose which dictionary you're using and how many dictionaries you're using, and that's all for free. It's pretty good. On the other hand, Trancy can be a lot better because it brings a transcript right in front of your face and minimizes the video. So if you really want to focus on that text and those words and those subtitles and you're totally fine just listening to the video, but really paying attention to those subtitles with the option to click and save words and, you know, pause and all that good stuff that I talk about in my Trancy review linked below, then I'd recommend Trancy.. And unfortunately in this category, Lingopie is last, but that's only because the sheer quality of the subtitles is kind of limiting. You're not going to have nearly the flexibility that you get with Language Reactor or Trancy. However, the next section is where Lingopie is so much better, and that's after you save the words and phrases and now you want to review them. In this part of the process, Lingopie is like top tier A-plus because out of the three Chrome extensions, Lingopie s the only one that offers you study techniques right within the platform. When you save the words, when you save your sentences or phrases within Lingopie, you can go back into Lingopie and review those same words with the video clip that came with the subtitles. So you're not just reviewing words that you're looking at. You're kind of brought back into the moment where you were when you first learned that word. It brings a whole lot of context back into language learning, which makes it so much easier. Plus, like I said, it's right within Lingopie, you don't have to do any other like strategies or use any other resources to study them. It's all right there and Lingopie’s the only one that does that. It's a really beautiful platform too, and it's awesome, especially for beginners who might not have any direction or know what to do. They want somebody to like basically hold their hand and just like allow them to study because the other two platforms do not give you any way to study. You have to figure that out on your own kind of. I say that because the second best way to learn languages with Netflix when it comes to studying the things that you've already learned is Trancy. What Trancy does is it takes the subtitles of what you are watching and it gives you like a full fledged activity book. While you're watching or after you're watching, Trancy allows you to take those sentences, those phrases, those dialogs, and gives you a handful of activities that you can use to practice your speaking, practice your spelling, practice just recognizing the words, whatever activity is going to be most beneficial to you. You'll get shadowing, which is when you hear an audio saying something and then you repeat it and then you compare the two audios to see if you can improve your pronunciation. That is honestly pretty excellent and might be better for you, especially if you're past the beginner phases and you want something a little bit more contextual. Whichever one you prefer. They're definitely better than Language Reactor where, at the time of this recording, there is not really any ways to study them like inside of Language Reactor, you're going to need to take the content and put it into an Anki deck or flashcards or something like that. This requires an extra step and if you are a newbie, then that extra step may be enough to make you stop. But if you're not a newbie and you're already using these resources, then Language Reactor is just fine. It's super easy to take the words you've learned, export them into a spreadsheet, and then keep them in the spreadsheet or put them into an app or whatever it is that you like to do. It's not the prettiest in the world, but it is simple and it works and it's convenient. Whichever study method works best for you is the one I would recommend, honestly. Because what's important is that you enjoy it enough to keep doing it consistently. All three options do this very, very differently, which is really excellent because it makes language learning much more accessible to different kinds of language learners. So after you've collected your words and you studied your words and you're building up that comprehension, then you start from the beginning. You find new content that you enjoy and you do it all over again. And like I said, if you do this consistently for long enough, eventually maybe you can drop those English subtitles or you can watch something a little bit more complex or go to a different accent. Just follow what feels good to you, honestly, because as long as you keep doing it, then you'll get the results you're looking for. if you're like me and you're a little skeptical about that idea, I would really recommend you go to the link down below and take my free quiz. Take that quiz, and you’ll get free recommendations as to some helpful things that you need to hear, whether that be to be patient, to do things that you enjoy, It really depends on your answers to the quiz and it'll be really helpful to keep you in the right mindset for learning a language. But that's all I have for this video. If you found it valuable, make sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified when I post a new video all about how to learn languages every Wednesday. Of course remember to go and take the free quiz. See you there.
