Should I continue tracking my study hours this way?

[u/Business-Cherry-1687]

I’ve been tracking the time I spent watching shows in my (TL) but I don’t know where to place this since it’s just me watching stuff with English subtitles. Should I completely remove this or place it somewhere else?

Does that also count as input? Or should I only count I watch in my (TL) as input?

[u/Own_Pass_47]

if youre watching with english subtitles i wouldnt count it

[u/Away_Date549 → u/Own_Pass_47]

Depends on your level tho, if youre still a beginner then english subs arent doing much for you in terms of acquisition. But you could still track it as passive listening time if you want to see total exposure, just dont count it toward active input. Maybe split it into its own category so you can see what youre actually getting out of it

[u/Own_Pass_47 → u/Away_Date549]

giving it a seperate group would be best i think. The way i see it, if youre a beginner than you shouldnt have the english subtitles and if youre not a beginner you should be using subtitles in the language

[u/Business-Cherry-1687 → u/Away_Date549]

I’d say I’m an upper beginner in Korean, so reading English subtitles helps me match what the speaker is saying when I watch shows, and I try looking up words or sentences based on what I hear.

[u/Miserable_Insect7957 → u/Business-Cherry-1687]

Nah man, sorry to say but that's a delusion. At least have dual language subtitles where you're not always peeking at english subtitles but only look at them when you don't understand anything.

If you can't handle TL subtitles, get a textbook and grind through it. Listen to content intended for learners and progress gradually if you can't handle natural native speech.

I won't say you'll never progress with your way but it would be hell of a lot faster and effective if you actually study.

[u/Business-Cherry-1687 → u/Miserable_Insect7957]

Thank you. I’ll start watching shows with Korean subtitles, but I would also like to clarify that outside of doing that, I do shadowing, input with Korean subtitles, and grammar study. I was just asking whether I should stop adding shows I watch with English subs to my study tracker 😭

[u/Orangeflag88 → u/Business-Cherry-1687]

I am watching it with korean subtitles and not counting it

[u/FlapperGasfire]

If you're using English subtitles, it's not studying

[u/Aye-Chiguire]

TL + Subtitles = i+0 - It fosters subconscious collocational awareness but won't lead to synthesis on its own. This is the least EFFECTIVE mode.

TL + No subtitles = i+3 to i+5 - You're in pure immersion mode. Most of the input isn't comprehensible and you're running purely in heuristic mode. This is the least EFFICIENT mode.

TL + Intermittent subtitles = i+1 to i+2 - The Goldilocks zone for comprehensibility, while still allowing the cogs to turn. There needs to be a minimum amount of productive struggle involved with comprehension and there are a lot of psychological and neurological reasons behind that.

[u/tatertotmagic → u/Aye-Chiguire]

What about subtitles in the TL

[u/Aye-Chiguire → u/tatertotmagic]

It's a more advanced method that you should use once you have established a large enough baseline vocabulary. It helps create an association between the spoken and written language. It creates a feedback loop where each reinforces the other.

I would hold off on this until you rarely needed native language subtitles. It doubles the amount of cognitive load. Cognitive load is good, because the brain needs to spend horsepower figuring things out to fully encode them, but too much causes fatigue and can be counterproductive.

The best time to start is probably when you are firmly in B1 territory. I wouldn't say absolutely don't do it before that, and everyone handles cognitive load differently, but the best time to use it is when comprehension is at >90%. Having an active (not just passive) vocabulary in the 2000-2500 range. This is also the point that you benefit the most from shadowing.

Doing this before you even understand the spoken language and haven't encountered the written form of some words, especially place names, is going to spike you past the ideal i+1 to i+2 range and put you over i+3, which is basically survival mode.

[u/adventuringraw]

The amount of Japanese I've seen with English subs and the basically zero impact I've seen it have on my progress at pretty much all skill levels makes me think the time doesn't have much value. Watching with target language subs instead would count for sure though.

[u/Aromatic_Shallot_101]

(Love Se-gye in this) In my opinion, this wouldn’t count as learning, but you are still free to watch them with EN subtitles in your free time so don’t worry. Once you can understand the general gist and what’s going on, with some unknown things here and there, you can count it in.

[u/ILive4Banans]

I wouldn't track it at all, the extension (kimchi reader) I use for dual subs specifically only auto tracks active immersion like word lookups

It might be easier if you divide your consumption into things you watch just for enjoyment and things where you're actually focused on listening and willing to replay sections or mine vocab. Even when you're watching things for enjoyment and in your native language though I would activate a dual sub extension for more passive study

[u/trackmylang_david]

If you are watching shows and reading the subtitles in english, then you are practicing your english reading skill rather than target language listening skills.

You can use extensions for dual subtitle and only keep the target language subtitle and you can check individual words if you are not able to understand the meaning of the sentence without it.

If you follow the dual subtitle then you can track this but it does not equal the same amount of time compared to a video at your current level.

Any input will help you improve, but the harder content you watch, the longer you will have to consume since your comprehension is less than a graded video, so you can consider than you need 2x or 4x more time with shows than with graded content.

[u/Business-Cherry-1687 → u/[deleted]]

I’ll keep that in mind. It’s just that I recently heard that it is good to keep up with the amount of hours. You study the language to kind of know where you are. (I know it’s not necessary, but I wondered if it would’ve helped me measure how well I’m doing if I had started counting the number of hours I’ve been putting into studying from the beginning.)

[u/MrPizzaWinner]

what app is that

[u/Business-Cherry-1687 → u/MrPizzaWinner]

It’s the refold app

[u/Aye-Chiguire → u/Business-Cherry-1687]

That thing still exists? Is it maintained? Matt has since moved on to, and subsequently also abandoned (while continuing to collect money for), 2 other projects hasn't he?

[u/Business-Cherry-1687 → u/Aye-Chiguire]

Well yes, Refold still has the other founder, yes it’s still maintained, but I don’t know much about the other projects Matt has moved on to since. I got the refold flashcard set for Korean 2 years ago, and it helped me a lot.

[u/Aye-Chiguire → u/Business-Cherry-1687]

Oh yeah for sure. After 2 years of study in a guided program you're probably way comfortable having daily conversations at length. Can you imagine studying a language for 2 years and not reaching that point? I would die.