Entertainment

Friday, 25 August, 2017 - 14:28

Can YouTube help us learn a foreign language?

by JennyBlogger

It’s a website that everyone has heard of. Perhaps most people even use it on a daily basis, and it’s a form of both entertainment and social media. But can we use YouTube to help us learn a foreign language?

Of course there are channels which produce video classes dedicated to helping us learn, but what about the standard daily vlog or clothes haul videos? Can they be valuable learning resources too?

In my opinion, they’re a way of being able to experience the way in which real people talk. This can make a good change from the listening exercises we hear in class, which aren’t always authentic. For example, many English speakers have different accents or use lots of colloquial words and phrases  have you ever heard them say ‘all right, guys’ as a greeting in a listening clip? Some English learners don't have the chance to talk to native speakers in person, so surely YouTube videos can offer an invaluable alternative.

To add to this, there is more to learning a language than simply words, phrases and grammar. It’s also about the culture of the language’s speakers. As YouTube increases in popularity, it also offers an insight into popular culture. As well as the channels themselves that are popular, through watching them we can learn about a country’s fashion trends, popular video games and simply how people spend their daily lives.

However, some people would argue that listening to YouTubers will only make us fall into bad habits. Not only do they often use colloquial words, but sometimes their speech is even grammatically incorrect. Why would we want to risk learning to speak in a way that isn’t even right? Then again, others say that this is the way that people really talk, so we should get used to it.

It is debatable whether YouTube can help with language learning. But one thing for certain is that it can be a great source of entertainment!

Language level
Discussion

What do you think, can YouTube help us learn a foreign language?

Submitted by Reyes_S_J_A on Sat, 03/11/2023 - 05:08

I fully agree with the text, YouTube is a platform where everyone can find topics of interest or entertain themselves for a while, and I think it's excellent for learning foreign languages. Many people make videos for their subscribers can learn a language, mainly teaching them grammar and pronunciation, however, I believe that it can be easily learned by listening to other people speak as they would commonly do in their lives, which is why this platform is perfect. to learn about daily life, ways of speaking and the culture of people who speak a certain language, in fact, as a Spanish speaker, I have managed to learn a lot about how people from the United States and the United Kingdom speak.

Submitted by Clank983 on Sat, 03/11/2023 - 03:12

In my opinion, YouTube if it helps to learn new languages because there are many videos and each one explains in a different way, then it would only be a matter of people being able to find the necessary video to learn efficiently. , so it would be useful to be able to learn any possible language

Submitted by ZoeGR on Thu, 03/09/2023 - 01:15

I think YouTube helps a lot of people that want to speak another language, like English, Portuguese, Italian, Germany, etc.
How does YouTube help us? In the platform exist a lot of educational videos where teach everything you imagine about a language, from structure to common phrases. You can also watch videos of people that speaks that language for improve your listening.

Submitted by lombardini Ahm… on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 16:45

I believe that YouTube is one of the platforms that helps me the most in terms of learning due to the number of people who share their knowledge of the same subject, allowing for a variety of explanations. In this aspect, I believe that the use of technology is essential for learn a language

Submitted by Wizzyyy on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 15:57

Well, actually I think youtube has good and bad things that help you learning any idiom. For example, you can see peolpe teaching you gramatic, while you learn listening and speaking by listeningg them; but in case you cannot understand them or if you have any dude at the moment it isn't the best option.
And in other way it could be easier for older people to learn by a face to face than in the internet.

Submitted by minkimattel on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 15:50

Yes, YouTube can help us learn a foreign language. Not only are there channels that produce video classes dedicated to language learning, but watching daily vlogs or other types of videos in the target language can also be valuable resources for language learners. They provide an opportunity to experience how real people speak and use colloquial words and phrases, which may not be present in formal language learning materials. Additionally, YouTube can offer insights into the popular culture of the target language's speakers, providing a more comprehensive learning experience. However, some people argue that listening to YouTubers may lead to bad habits or grammatically incorrect speech. Ultimately, whether YouTube is an effective language learning tool is debatable, but it can certainly be an enjoyable source of entertainment.

Submitted by cominitoCD on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 15:48

I can say that I agree with the blog's writter opinion, it is truly important for people who are learning a language
like us to have new learning tools that match the constant technology development and the increasing use that we give to social media in our daily life. In addition I can say that learning a new language based on what you hear form native speakers will for sure improve your skills and expand your vocabulary to new horizons.

Submitted by Mau439YT on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 15:45

Yes, it can help us. Thanks to the advancement of technology, learning media have expanded and teachers have been able to teach online, mainly using YouTube. Autonomous learning with videos, if given a good dedication of time, can have the same results as face-to-face learning. In my daily life I watch some videos on how to pronounce words and how sentences are formed in English and the truth is that they have helped me.

Submitted by Jefferson_Guti… on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 15:43

I think that youtube is a excelent plataform to learn English for example, there are many videos like lessons, tips and entertainment content. I see youtube because helps me to better understand the native language, something that, for example, is not taught in traditional English courses.

Submitted by Nomar on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 15:41

I agree that youtube is a great learning tool, it can be used to turn on almost anything, including a language, there is at least one channel for each language you want to learn, within each channel there are functions such as playlists to organize the contents according to the level of difficulty.

Submitted by RGM on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 15:35

To learn to speak a new language it is important to practice three things, grammar, speaking and listening; Watching the video I was able to practice the language in an easy and didactic way.
It also helps to learn common phrases and more basic words in the language, making it easier to understand.

Submitted by MCF on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 15:31

Watching videos on Youtube help us to our listening in English. To listen words that we did not know and how they were pronounced. It will also improve our vocabulary because we will learn new conjugations and more colloquial words that are only said in the country where the language is.

Submitted by ZalgoCk-11 on Wed, 03/08/2023 - 03:53

I think that yes youtube can help, but I see it not in the formal way, more in a less traditional. Making you understand the lenguage yes or yes, like watching conten in other lenguages. A very useful example are the tutorial, because sometimes some of this have another lenguages so to make it right the thing you want to learn you need to understand almost everything that the video says.

Submitted by Person on Tue, 03/07/2023 - 13:27

I agree with part of the text, there are severals Channels that you can see to learn in a grammatically correct way but most of the times when you travel to those countries you don't have to speak as formal as the videos teach, sometimes you can use colloquial words like "gonna" instead "Going to" to make you sound more natural.

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Submitted by lifestar230 on Tue, 08/21/2018 - 00:21

A great idea to watch movies and videos, i liked the grammar ones to Make on Youtube, facebook, instagram and twitter,
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Submitted by Vilgon on Tue, 05/08/2018 - 11:02

Yes, the reason as to why i’m doing so good in English class right now (i am Danish and if there are any errors in here, sorry!) is because of youtube. Even though i just watch videos for entertainment, it still helps listening to how different youtubers speak.
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