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Using TV for your languages

Tags: TV Italian German french VPN Spanish

July 19, 2011
23:16

timm

New Member

Forum Posts: 4

Member Since:
July 19, 2011

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Hello,

I would like to give a tip for language learners of French, German, Italian or Spanish. Yes, it's watching TV in those languages. Watching TV in your chosen language can be very useful and with the internet it's very possible to do.

What one needs:

1) A very good internet connection. For streaming live TV, you need a quality internet connection. You can first test your internet speed on http://www.speedtest.net and then hope your ISP doesn't throttle your bandwidth.

2) A VPN connection. I use a Swiss VPN connection from http://www.vpnuk.net, though there are many offering VPN connections. The site I use to watch live TV is http://www.zattoo.com. With a Swiss IP Number you have the choice of over 100 European TV channels in German, French, Italian and Spanish -- and you have about 10 UK channels too.

And that's it! It may sound a little difficult/technical but it isn't at all. One can be up and running in a very short time.

If there are any questions, just ask

July 22, 2011
19:46

NKellyEmerald

Dublin, Ireland

Experienced Language Hacker

Forum Posts: 231

Member Since:
July 22, 2011

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I wholly agree! Watching TV in the target language I feel is a must. Soap operas are probably your best bet. Quality of the show/acting/storyline/etc aside, soap operas tend to use everyday language at an everyday pace. Language learning is probably the only thing that could get me to watch them though in most cases, I must say!

I might just add, a lot of the time if you go directly to the webpage of the tv channel itself they have online streaming, either live or of shows broadcast over the last few weeks.

The ones I use:

http://www.antena3.com/videos/ Spanish

http://beo.tg4.ie/ Irish

http://www.rai.it/ Italian (I have had trouble with this one though)

http://www.pluzz.fr/ French (There are a few channels in this link, I quite like it)

Native: