Why Television Deserves a Second Chance

Remember when you were a kid and your parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles – well, basically everyone over the age of 30, really – used to tell you not to spend too much time in front of the telly? Back then, they told you your eyes would become square, your brain would melt into nothingness and you would miss out on all the fun your friends were having outside while you were sitting face to face with the idiot box. And this is what your parents were afraid you would become: an idiot.

But what if this “idiot box” was not so idiotic after all? What if you could actually learn something from watching television? And right now I am not talking about thrilling documentaries you can on BBC Four. I mean normal television shows and films. But what is it we can learn from the average show? That Thomas Gottschalk is still wearing the most frightful suits in European history? Or that Heidi Klum shows young girls that walking in a straight line AND moving in time to the rhythm of a song is an amazing ability? No, not exactly.

Thomas Gottschalk

What I am addressing here are foreign programmes. Nearly everyone in Austria and Germany comes in touch with foreign films or television series (like House, MD). But merely watching an American film, will not make us smarter. Especially when we are watching the dubbed version. And this is where a study by Holger Mitterer and James M. comes in.

In 2009 “PloS ONE” published their research in an article with the painfully uncreative title “Foreign Subtitles Help but Native-Language Subtitles Harm Foreign Speech Perception”. Holger Mitterer and James M. McQueen explored the question whether watching films in their original version with subtitles is helpful for understanding a foreign language (especially various accents).

They found that English subtitles were most beneficial while subtitles in one’s native language are least helpful. For understanding different accents spoken in a film, it’s even better to have no subtitles at all, before using – in my case – German ones.

So, we learn that subtitles have been good for us all along! Well, when thinking about subtitles some of us might look back upon school trips to the cinema, when our teachers made us watch totally outlandish foreign films that were subtitled. Or some might think about typical films shown in English class, like Rabbit Proof Fence, where 90% of your class was too busy acting real cool and bored instead of actually paying attention to the film – not to mention the subtitles.              

But let’s be honest. Foreign languages are becoming more and more important and anyone who isn’t willing to be quoted as a negative example for their lacking foreign-language skills until the end of time, like the European Energy Comissioner Guenther Oettinger, should become aware of television and film as a device for learning. You could watch your favourite film in its original language for a change and actually learn something.

So, we have established that subtitled foreign films don’t have to be outlandish and boring to deserve the label “educational”. Next time you are sitting in front of the “idiot box” just push the magic, little button on your remote control. You will see that you not only remember lots of vocabulary from school days (good times!), but that the original version of the film is, in many ways, also better than the dubbed version. So, sit down and enjoy!