I bet many of you like to keep up to date with the latest news and events that happen every day. So why not start watching the news in your foreign language that you are trying to learn regardless of the level of your advancement?
In fact, watching TV news on a daily basis can help you learn and generally understand a foreign language. I used to follow my television news strategy when learning Spanish. I started with 24Hours and its News (link can be found online). At first, it was difficult to catch up with all the information. To be honest with you, during the first week I could barely understand a few words, but over time, as my vocabulary level and my knowledge of grammar increased, I was able to understand more.
As we watch, we will always hear more than we can really understand (at least at first). You can deal with that by watching the entire news feed and then going back to those bits that were hard to understand to watch again. Don’t give up if the news seems to be coming in fast motion. This is very common for Spanish and Italian news, as presenters tend to speak very fast. If you are just starting to watch the news, try answering some basic questions such as when, where, who, why, and how it relates to the news.
Well, world news and events are always broadcast on major television news services. In this way, you can first follow the news in your native language to get a general understanding of what is happening around the world. This general knowledge of current events will help you better understand when you watch the news in your target foreign language and your anxiety level will decrease significantly.
Yes! Finding the news channel of your choice would be the first step. Well, of course you can find your own TV channel and choose whatever News Service you like.
Any benefit from watching TV news? So what do I get?
Another good thing is that following the news will allow you to get used to both the sounds of a foreign language and different accents. By following the news, you will generally get multiple speakers and newscasters who are speakers with good diction and pronunciation to follow. In addition, the news presented will give you a good idea of what is happening in the country where the target language of your choice is spoken.
In addition, television news often have so-called news tickers (also known as “crawlers” or “slides”) that are placed in the lower third of the television screen space on television news networks dedicated to presenting headlines. or news. News tickers often differ between television stations. In this case, Sky News always displays a black indicator with white text throughout the broadcast day. This indicator turns yellow with black text to highlight the latest news.
News tickers can also be a good source of new vocabulary for you, as while watching the news you can write down all the new words that appear in the news. Broadcasting or TV news service. When I started learning English (my first foreign language I wanted to learn) I tuned in to the latest news from BBC Radio. The thing about radio news is that it is more difficult to follow as you do not have visuals (images) to support your general understanding of the news that is presented in television news images. In fact, it is exposed to sound; This can also improve your listening skills and the sounds of a foreign language and is not distracted by images.
Very often, radio news services also offer podcasts – MP3 files with the news that you can download and listen to later. You can then play the downloaded recordings as many times as you like to better understand news that might otherwise have been missed.
Don’t have time to follow the usual TV news?
Hmm … there’s an option for you too. You can install an application that will help you follow the latest news on your computer, iPad, or mobile phone (for example, Breaking News). It is up to you to follow the news in the way you choose.