MuviLover

In my opinion, it is quite helpful. The best way to learn to speak and understand a language, of course, is to hear native speakers speak it. If the option of going abroad is not available to you, then watching TV in that language is the next best thing, imho. Subtitles are useful if you're a beginner, but intermediate and advanced speakers should wean themselves off of it. If you must use subtitles, at least use the target language's subtitles. I personally find it quite disorienting because the subtitles are often different from what's actually being said (since people can hear faster than they can read). I don't think that watching TV alone will make you fluent in that language (and even so, it would take a lot of time and a lot of TV), but it certainly helps you hear how the language is actually applied in real life. It helps a lot with one's oral comprehension, and is a great way to learn the country's slang and colloquialisms; stuff you often don't find in the textbooks and learning packages.


If you want to learn new words, then the best option would be to read. This holds true for your native language too. If you ask anyone here what they suggest for improving one's vocabulary, they'll all tell you the same thing. When it comes to deciphering a word's meaning through context, I prefer it in written form; that way I can reread the sentence (and the sentences around it) over and over again 'till the appropriate meaning clicks in my head. It also means that I won't have to hit the pause button on the remote every time I need to look up a word in the dictionary.