
How Sitcoms improved my English
The title might seem odd or funnier for native English speakers. But I share my experience for the non-native English speakers who are struggling to communicate in English.
Agree or not, in this modern, globalized world, English is way more important than you imagine. But the approach we take to learn it might make it difficult.
I’m from India, the country with hundreds of languages. English is used as the bridge language in India for people from different regions to communicate. In Indian schools, you either study all subjects in English or else you study all subjects in your mother tongue and English as an additional subject. So either way, you are learning English even though the former one is more effective than latter. And I’m from the latter one.
I wouldn’t say that I’m as good as native English speaker now. But 3 years ago, my English was way worse than this. I used to try to form every sentence in my head before speaking which caused me to stutter and leaving the listener bored or distracted.
Anyway, the easiest way to learn a language is to stay in the environment where you only have to speak in that language. But I wasn’t in that ambience as so many.
Later, I read an article, that explained about a totally different approach towards learning a language. “Learn it like a toddler”. I, as many, used to learn the words first and tried to string them together to form a sentence which was difficult. Think about how the babies learn a language. They learn by whole sentences. Wow! A total turn from what I had been doing.
But still, I couldn’t find a source to learn by sentences. I tried newspapers and TV news. They were too formal and couldn’t help me to know day-to-day sentences. And more over, that was boring.
At that time, my friend introduced me to Sitcoms. I had never watched them before. He shared me the all-time classic “Friends”. I was too addictive to watch it, even multiple times, and of course with subtitles. Finally I found a source that has common phrases and also was never boring.
I could see that my English was improving. But not enough as I didn’t have the environment to practice it. Then I came to know about this, “Think in English”. Who wants all those people to practice with? Do all the thinking in English almost all the time, so that you wouldn’t have to string the sentence in mind before speaking. It eliminates the stuttering a lot and also adding the fluency.
I kept on watching Sitcoms. From the all-time favorites like Friends, Seinfeld, HIMYM to the ongoing TBT, Modern Family, Mom, Silicon Valley and more. I started watching other genres as well especially Game of Thrones. Wow!!
Now I’m a lot better than how I was. Now I’m working abroad and communicating in English all the time. I still continue watching the shows and keep on practicing. I know I still have a long way to go. But it’s the journey I love.
This is my experience. This may or may not suit you. But you’ll never know unless you try. :)
