Jul
20
LingusTV: Learning Spanish by watching online video
There’s a new Spanish learning web site up and running called Lingus.TV. It offers to teach you Spanish via online videos. But unlike other language learning web sites, Lingus.TV is, at least initially, taking a decidedly different tack to teaching Spanish. The focus is on entertaining its students/viewers, and to that end the first series of videos is an original sitcom called “5 y acción.” It’s G-rated frat boy humor, laugh track included. Kind of like a post-post-modern reworking of Benny Hill or American Pie in Spanish. 
The Spanish guys from Barcelona behind Lingus.TV seem to be having a good time providing this content. Hopefully, they’ve got more up their collective sleeve than just (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) double entendres.
PROS:
- Web site design is simple, pleasing to the eye and the layout is easy to navigate
- Using humor to teach is a winning combination
- Videos are short and to the point. No episode is longer than 2 minutes.
- Beginner, intermediate and advanced categories.
- Each video contains Spanish subtitles. On the LingusTV web site, an English translation plus a glossary of key words, sometimes with a cultural context, are provided. (Below is a sample.)
Note to Lingus.TV: Uh, regarding the whole leaving the toothbrush thing and what it means, etc., I think that’s true everywhere, not just in Spain. 
CONS:
- Beginner level is not for true beginners. You need to know some Spanish to be able to follow along.
- Actors speak too rapidly in videos labeled “beginner” and “intermediate.” Yes, they are speaking the way people speak in real life, which is great, but for audio targeted at beginners, I think special attention should be paid to the speaking pace so that newbies don’t get easily frustrated and discouraged trying to keep up.
- It’s unclear what criteria Lingus.TV is using to determine what constitutes a beginner, intermediate and advanced video. Is it the use of particular tenses? Use of slang and colloquial expressions? How does a viewer decide at a glance which level is right for their current level of Spanish?
- Little focus on grammar. I know for some people this would be considered a plus, but I think there should be some attention paid to understanding the mechanics of the language, especially for a language learning resource that says it has materials for beginners. Call me old-fashioned.
The verdict? Jury’s still out. Lingus.TV has only been operational for a month and is still in beta mode, so it is too soon to issue a final verdict. But based on what is already available, it looks promising and I hope they continue to expand their online video library. For now, it’s an amusing diversion to cubicle dwellers who want to sneak in a few moments of Spanish listening and reading comprehension and pick up a few lines of Spanish lingo during their work day.
You ARE old-fashioned, hehe. Beginners shouldn’t worry about grammar, only advanced learners. Concentrating on grammar (especially in the beginning) ruins your fluency further down the road.
About the pace of speaking; I learned Spanish by listening materials for natives. Listen to it more and more and it becomes clear. I actually think that slow-pace speaking does more damage than it does good. If you start out with slow materials it might cause you to speak at that same pace, even if you’re more advanced. That’s not what you want! (Example: I once met a guy in Spain who was from Germany. He lived and worked in Spain for years and was totally immersed, but he spoke soooooo slowly, it was horrible. Even I, as a beginner, thought: ‘What the **** is wrong with him?!’).
I love the site by the way. When I’m back in the Netherland I’ll have a closer look. It’s actually a pity that the advanced videos aren’t longer. Do they contain subtitles as well? And about the notes: those come in handy for my SRS, hehe :).
Seems interesting, but not that promising quite yet. They clearly need to set some parameters and criteria with regard to distinguishing between levels. If they are going to use an audio component to deliver the Spanish lessons, I would suspect that they would not be able create one for complete beginners, as you certainly need some background in the language to see any improvement. One thing is for sure, though, it can definitely give some audio exposure to beginners in the language, which will ultimately help with word recognition, pronunciation, and intonation. For right now, though, I think this mainly serves to benefit intermediate-to-advanced learners with its abundance of colloquial expressions, slang, and rapid conversation. It’ll be good to keep tabs on this one, as it could certainly make some great improvements.
This site seems interesting to me…. I am a licensed Spanish teacher here in the USA and some of their materials look promising, even for use once and a while in my classroom, with modified worksheets and accompanying materials, of course. I’d be interested to see what more they come out with…
And about the pace of speaking… second language acquisition research shows it is best to NOT modify the pace when dealing with beginners…. let them hear the language the way it is REALLY spoken. I tend to agree with that, but do see how it can be frustrating for beginners at the same time…. I like to remind my students to focus on what they can understand rather than get hung up on things they can’t quite get yet.
First of all, thanks Elena for your review. I’m so glad that you consider our site to be mentioned in your blog. Second: sorry for my written english :-).
We’ve launched LingusTV last June 25th, and we are very excited about all the things we want to do. We would be very grateful if you share with us all the features that you consider interesting to introduce in LingusTV to be more helpful for Spanish teachers and students.
Please, feel free to contact with us and have a brainstorming via Skype or whatever
Best,
Sergio
Sergio,
Thanks for dropping by and for the invite to brainstorm. I’ll send you a PM.