English is a bit of a special case, being the modern lingua franca (LOL), having two top-tier media producing countries behind it (plus several smaller but not-insignificant ones), and representing an incredible proportion of the world's wealth and economic power. It's telling that a lot of successful creators of foreign-language film, in particular, end up switching to English—it's where the money is, which brings a lot of other benefits to speakers of the language (native or otherwise).
I remember at one point, when I was a still trying to keep up my French, I spent a fair amount of time trying to track down some equivalent to what Friends has been (so I gather, anyway) for English-language learners—every option seemed much worse (far shorter, lower quality—which, Friends isn't even that high a bar) and even those were nearly impossible to get ahold of, because the rights holders just didn't care about foreign markets (since no-one who can speak English well is going to care much about a mediocre French sitcom, unless they're like me and trying to learn the language). Music's a little easier, but hell, even there half the time they sing in English. Maybe it's improved since about a decade ago, but at the time, there was just nothing.
Meanwhile there are dozens of shows with many, many episodes that could help provide daily exposure to colloquial, conversational English, that are relatively easy to come by (just don't pick The Wire—even Americans have trouble with that, between the authentic Baltimore accents and slang and the pervasive cop-talk).
I actually think another language that's got a huge advantage here, for foreign learners, is Japanese. It was hard not to be envious of the Japanese resources and media readily available, even back in the '00s (let alone now), compared with even a language as important and heavily-studied as French. Which is really surprising and impressive when you consider that Japanese is probably the most insular of the major world languages—one might expect French, German, and Spanish, at least, to do at least as well on that front, given that they're read and spoken widely on multiple continents by far more people than live in Japan, but no. I think it's in part because they've been able to resist the shift to preferring English media that other countries have experienced—you look at French TV schedules and there's a lot of translated English media on there, for instance, while I don't think the same is so broadly true in Japan, with the result that they have a stronger domestic media market than many other states.
>I remember at one point, when I was a still trying to keep up my French, I spent a fair amount of time trying to track down some equivalent to what Friends has been [...]
Like I said, language is a tool. I have to wonder why you were learning French if you had no use for it. Can you imagine, say, picking a computer before you know if it will be able to run the software you need?
That said, you don't have to limit yourself to professional productions. I'm sure there are French-speaking YouTubers or streamers out there nowadays. That's even better exposure than high-budget productions because you'll hear a variety of local accents. And again, oral is only part of the story. You can get a lot of grammar practice by talking to people on forums and such.
>I actually think another language that's got a huge advantage here, for foreign learners, is Japanese. [...]
Japanese is actually my next language, and I've been half-seriously considering Korean because some of the artists I've been following lately happen to be Korean. Right now it's probably the best time in history to learn either of the two.
I don't think it's accurate to say that the Japanese have been "able to resist" English-language media. Like you said, Japanese culture is insular; xenophobic, to put it bluntly. It's a combination of Japan being hesitant to embrace culturally foreign media and thus producing more locally, and western cultures being more willing to embrace foreign things.
> I don't think it's accurate to say that the Japanese have been "able to resist" English-language media. Like you said, Japanese culture is insular; xenophobic, to put it bluntly. It's a combination of Japan being hesitant to embrace culturally foreign media and thus producing more locally, and western cultures being more willing to embrace foreign things.
Right, that's... how they've been able to resist it. Even the French, probably the most infamously-jealous and protective of their culture and language in Europe (and against whom accusations of xenophobia are leveled pretty regularly!), haven't been anywhere near as successful, because they don't take it nearly as far as the Japanese. For all its other downsides, a strong culture of xenophobia seems to be the only way to resist this aspect of globalization—even top-down heavy-handed laws don't work, historically speaking, even before the Internet. A genuine (if somewhat cultivated) culture of reflexively dismissing the foreign seems to work, and not much else.
I do agree that Youtube has probably closed the gap somewhat, though that became a usefully-well-populated resource long after I gave up. Even with dedicated instructional material on Youtube, it's goddamn hard to maintain motivation when all the media you genuinely want to read/watch are "high" art and come with language/complexity barriers to match (Proust, Racine, Molière, Renoir, Godard, et c.), with little material to provide the sugary-sweet, approachable appeal of sprawling, crappy anime series, or American sitcoms. Best the French language has for that is comic books, and even that's got nowhere near the volume and selection of, say, manga.
About the only media I still consume in French is the occasional French news article, just because their slant on things or selection of what to cover is sometimes interesting—no coincidence that the ability to stumble through reading a French news article is currently where my French tops out, much reduced from where it once was.
>For all its other downsides, a strong culture of xenophobia seems to be the only way to resist this aspect of globalization—even top-down heavy-handed laws don't work, historically speaking, even before the Internet. A genuine (if somewhat cultivated) culture of reflexively dismissing the foreign seems to work, and not much else.
I don't think it's a good thing overall, though. They get to maintain a very strong national identity, but when they do end up interacting with people from other places they appear disconnected. For example, if you've ever tried to interoperate with Japanese software, it's like going back to the '90s. They just do their own thing over there.
Yeah, I'm not saying it's "the right thing to do", but it does seem to be the only approach that works if you really want to keep the allure of English-language money and the vast wave of English-language media from being a huge influence on your country's media.
> For example, if you've ever tried to interoperate with Japanese software, it's like going back to the '90s.
Hey, I thought you wrote that it wasn't a good thing! ;-)
I remember at one point, when I was a still trying to keep up my French, I spent a fair amount of time trying to track down some equivalent to what Friends has been (so I gather, anyway) for English-language learners—every option seemed much worse (far shorter, lower quality—which, Friends isn't even that high a bar) and even those were nearly impossible to get ahold of, because the rights holders just didn't care about foreign markets (since no-one who can speak English well is going to care much about a mediocre French sitcom, unless they're like me and trying to learn the language). Music's a little easier, but hell, even there half the time they sing in English. Maybe it's improved since about a decade ago, but at the time, there was just nothing.
Meanwhile there are dozens of shows with many, many episodes that could help provide daily exposure to colloquial, conversational English, that are relatively easy to come by (just don't pick The Wire—even Americans have trouble with that, between the authentic Baltimore accents and slang and the pervasive cop-talk).
I actually think another language that's got a huge advantage here, for foreign learners, is Japanese. It was hard not to be envious of the Japanese resources and media readily available, even back in the '00s (let alone now), compared with even a language as important and heavily-studied as French. Which is really surprising and impressive when you consider that Japanese is probably the most insular of the major world languages—one might expect French, German, and Spanish, at least, to do at least as well on that front, given that they're read and spoken widely on multiple continents by far more people than live in Japan, but no. I think it's in part because they've been able to resist the shift to preferring English media that other countries have experienced—you look at French TV schedules and there's a lot of translated English media on there, for instance, while I don't think the same is so broadly true in Japan, with the result that they have a stronger domestic media market than many other states.