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    Is This The Most Exciting Way To Learn A New Language?

     Did you know that two of the most effective ways to keep your brain healthy as you age are learning to play an instrument and learning languages? Personally, one of these comes a lot easier and is more immediately rewarding. You don't need to know much to start playing simple melodies on most instruments.

    Language is somewhat more difficult. You need to spend a lot of time learning grammar and vocabulary. But it gets even more testing when you try to put your skills into action. You need to find a fluent or native speaker who has the patience to listen to you fumble and repeat themselves over and over again.

    Which is why we're always looking for new ways to learn languages. Apps like Duolingo and Babbel have certainly helped soften the process. However, there is perhaps no more exciting way to learn a language than the one harnessed by Lingopie.

    Watching TV to help you learn?

     If you ask many fluent English second-language (ESL) speakers, they'll tell you they learned a lot more from American TV series like Friends than they did in class. In watching TV series, they got to see how real people speak the language. They took in what the characters were saying even as they watched with subtitles.

    For those who have watched the plethora of foreign-language shows now on streaming services, this is understandable. We've all had those moments when we heard words or phrases and realized we no longer had to see them translated. This occurs even when you have no intention of learning the language.

    When watching carefully, trying your best to understand without subtitles, you pick up a lot just from hearing it spoken and recognizing context clues. If you really want to start learning a language but don't have the energy to start repeating words and phrases on an app, you can simply switch on your TV.

    Systematic learning on screen

     As mentioned earlier, this is the approach harnessed by Lingopie. It systematises language learning by providing thousands of foreign language series on demand. Not only can you watch and learn - they also provide interactive subtitles. You can click on the subtitles to better understand certain terms, and the site will collect these words and phrases so you can study them back later.

    You can see more in this Lingopie review about how this system can help you learn a second language. It really is innovative and fun, and so much more exciting than trying to drill contextless vocab into your brain.

    Lived experience

     Perhaps we should learn from the experience of playing an instrument. You don't learn to play guitar by plucking each note on its own and forcing yourself to remember its fret position. You learn some chords and immediately get strumming. Most of the learning comes from practice until it becomes intuitive.

    Language learning should be somewhat similar. You can only learn how to speak a language properly from lived experience, whether that experience be on TV or in real-life conversation.

    It is certainly a more sustainable way of learning for those whose lives are too busy to consider setting aside time for some exhausting cramming.