Oh yeah I've learned a lot of my English from TV show with subtitles. Some countries (Russia) always dub English shows and moves while others like Romania pretty much never dub and most always just write subtitles. I think that account for %-wise more Romanian young people speaking better English.
I was recently in Romania and was blown away at how casually people spoke English! A slightly American accent, with pacing and rhythm similar to a native speaker.
Contrasting that to German English speakers whom likely had high quality English classes throughout education speak with a specific accent and rhythm closer to that of the German language.
I don't know if their are technical reasons for this, but anecdotally Romanians had said they learned a lot of their English from watching dubbed TV and movies.
Someone else in this thread mentioned the show 24. It's fascinating that, indirectly, watching pirated copies of a typically Hollywood entertainment television show (which academic and intellectual communities may find "crude") can open up a wealth of knowledge and culture (English language only resources) for people whom, potentially, wouldn't have had the educational opportunities otherwise.
It makes my spine tingle when stories like this flip your understanding and perspective of things like the Hollywood Entertainment Machine. Things have value in unexpected and fascinating ways.
In China, you can buy the scripts to Friends with the Chinease translation printed below as a learning resource.
I knew a guy at university who had an ok understanding of thw english language with a fairly Chinease accent, but would occasionally say strange slang informal words that no one has said since Friends aired.
That is likely because Germany dubs all of their shows on television (and I think most of western Europe does the same). Nobody that I know of in eastern Europe dubs their shows for television, we just caption them.
Hence, people speak good English with a slightly american accent. We're exposed to it pretty much all our lives.
> It makes my spine tingle when stories like this flip your understanding and perspective of things like the Hollywood Entertainment Machine.
No doubt. Not sure if they ever made a conscious choice of "we'll teach our people English better" or they just took the easier route. But watching American shows in English is really invaluable to learning American conversational English. A huge part of it is always cultural references and sayings that just never translate directly things like "Don't put the cart before the horse" saying, of even stupid movie and pop culture memes like "Hasta la vista, baby" (Terminator 2) That is stuff one has very little chance of learning in school (grammar and vocabulary always come first).
