This article will try to guide you through a fun and useful way of using videos for language learning, offering some helpful tips on how to use the Yabla platform for maximum effectiveness. Read on to discover how to most effectively use Yabla to enhance your learning!
The Best Video Player in Town
If you are already familiar with “Learn German with videos via Yabla” and would like to know how to work efficiently with it, just scroll down a bit until you get to the list. The vocabulary for the Yabla preview video “Der Himmel” with Piggeldy and Frederick you will find on Memrise here.
Yabla is a German language learning platform that uses different kinds of videos as the main means of teaching or learning. They offer several languages and although I’ll focus on how to learn German with them, you certainly will be able to use the following approach for all their other languages. The problem with Yabla is that it doesn’t give you any guidance.
There are over a thousand videos on that site that you can roughly sort by level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) or that you can browse by category (e.g. Documentary, News, Travel). I would lose interest very quickly in being thrown into Yabla without knowing what to do with it. I see the immense potential of this platform, so I would like to guide those who are interested in improving their German skills to the hidden gems of Yabla.
The Transcripts (English and German Subtitles)
Each video comes with a printable and switchable transcript in German and English. You have to check the transcript before you click on the video button. It’s a bit umständlich (=inconvenient) but with a bit of practice, you will resist the temptation to click on the video link first.
I suggest that you open the transcript and click on the “printable version” button. Here’s a step-by-step introduction to using the transcripts:
- Below the video description, you’ll find a blue menu bar. Click on „Transcript“.
- Once you click on the “Transcript” button, you’ll get the option to access a “Printer-friendly version” offering you three options that you will need for my approach below.
- Click on any word to get a word-per-word translation. I recommend using the “Both German and English” option in the dropdown menu for better results.
Learn German with Videos – the Video Player
The video player is extremely efficient and easy to use. The two loveliest features are the “loop” and the “slow play”.
The “loop” repeats a sentence or element of the spoken text infinitely and the “slow play” button slows the audio down while you will still be able to understand what is being said. Just try it yourself. Here’s a link to their free preview.
I suggest that you make yourself quickly familiar with its shortcuts so that you can smoothly skip back and forth through each video and activate respectively deactivate the subtitles and transcriptions quickly. This will come in very handy soon. “Transcript” means German text and “translation”: English text.
das Dosentelefon / Image from Pixabay
Piggeldy and Frederick
“Nichts leichter als das.” is what my clients often reply in their emails, when I ask them to do something for their homework. This phrase is taken from the “Herzstück” (=centerpiece) of Yabla, the animated series “Piggeldy und Frederick”, two pig brothers. The younger brother always asks the elder one to explain things to him.
While this is a show for children, it is just lovely. The language is fine and useful and its repetitive elements make it even more remarkable and memorable.
You should certainly go for that series with the SmarterGerman technique that I will explain now. There are also plenty of episodes available.
How to Improve Your Listening Skills in German
Here’s how to use Yabla to improve your listening skills and to work on your pronunciation. I’ll start with listening, as it is the most crucial skill to master when learning any language.
Pronunciation will follow soon. I will first provide you with an overview of all steps and then explain the benefit/reasoning behind each step afterward. If you are not interested in those, you can simply skip that part and hop over to the conclusion.
(Did you know you can also learn German through the power of music? It’s true! If you don’t believe it, see for yourself).
12 Steps for a better listening
- Read the English transcript to get an idea of the content (you might want to print it out)
- Skim the German text and highlight/write down all (!) unknown words.
- Read German text to understand it. Highlight unknown important (!) words
with a second color or in any way different from those you found the first time. - Create a memrise course and enter the new vocabulary there.
- Study the video’s vocabulary until level on memrise is completed.
- Read the German text again. Circle still unknown important words.
- Watch the video once with English subtitles.
- Watch the video with German subtitles. Pause after each sentence. Note unknown important words.
- Watch the video without pauses but with German subtitles.
- Watch the video without subtitles but with pauses after each sentence.
- Watch the video without subtitles and without pauses.
- Repeat each step as often as you feel comfortable with it.
An Explanation of Each Step
STEP 01
We seek to understand the world. Watching something without knowing what it is about is much less efficient in regards of German learning than knowing what you are dealing with as your brain is constantly trying to figure everything out. By feeding it at least the context of what you are about to work with for the next coming hours is not only a smart move but also a gentle gesture towards you most important organ.
STEP 02
You need to know where you are when you work with texts or videos. By quickly going through the German transcript (see the part about the transcript in the beginning of this article) and marking (!) all unknown German words, you will quickly get a clear impression of where you are regarding your possible understanding or not-understanding of that video.
In any case please mark / highlight the new words with a colourful marker. Do not use a pencil or some ball pen. By highlighting the new words, you will instantly get an impression of the difficulty of the text. A pencil does not leave any significant impression on your brain.
Don’t judge the words that you highlight yet. This step shouldn’t take more than five minutes. If you start thinking too long whether you should mark a word or not, you will waste time. And you should definitely mark any word at this stage that requires you to think as you haven’t mastered it yet.
STEP 03
Now it is time to read for understanding and to separate the useless words from the useful ones. An important word is one without which you can’t make sense of a sentence or element of a sentence.
Of course, in the beginning this is rather difficult as there might be several words in a sentence that you don’t understand. In that case, don’t worry. Just mark them all as important. You will get better at picking out the good words very quickly. Also don’t worry if you don’t get too much of the text yet.
Depending on your motivation, you might be fine working with a text that you only understand 50% of. Others have a lower frustration limit and should better work with texts that they understand 70% of. Hardcore learners don’t care at all and work even with a seemingly hopeless text. My suggestion is trying not to be too hard to yourself and also challenging yourself a bit every now and then as without leaving your comfort zone you can’t make progress.
STEP 04
All these new words need to be learned. And there’s no better tool than memrise. I personally don’t like Anki, but others just love it. I won’t discuss the differences here. Memories is just much simpler, more beautiful and as effective as Anki, hence my clear recommendation. You don’t have to agree with me. You can even use paper flashcards if you like.
On memrise create your own course. Call it the “Nichts leichter als das”-Kurs and create one level for each video/transcript that you work on. Be careful: there are courses and levels! Do not just enter vocabulary into your freshly created course. That will become messy very soon!
STEP 05
To learn quickly you need to understand. You could listen to Chinese radio for every minute of your remaining life and would not learn any significant amount of Chinese unless you are already an intermediate learner. But even then your progress will be extremely slow as you still lack context. So, study your new words with memrise until you have completed that level which means all the vocabulary of that video.
I understand you might want to watch it right away but this would be like eating the desert before the main course. Behave. It will pay off soon. One last thing: Yabla has a built-in vocabulary trainer which I personally find very sluggish and cumbersome to work with. It is also not really appealing nor do I understand its structure. I suggest staying away from it until they upgrade it significantly.
STEP 06
After you have learned your German vocabulary, try to read the transcript again and see how much you understand now. Hopefully, your understanding has increased. It will still require a lot of thinking and be pretty slow but that’s just the beginning and totally ok. Circling the remaining unknown words -now you might already be able to distinguish whether a word is useful or not- will help you visualize your progress. You will have a comparison to your former performance and a visual representation of your progress which is rare in German learning.
STEP 07
Now you may take a look at the video. Be gentle with yourself and turn on the English subtitles while watching it. Turn off the German transcript though. This way you will associate (and understand) the context to the individual scenes of the video. This enhances your understanding in the long run and is a very smooth approach to watching movies in German.
STEP 08
Watching the video with German subtitles (i.e. the German transcription) will help you to understand what is being said. I mean which words are actually pronounced by the persons or pigs in the video. You will also improve your ability to write what you hear which is helpful whenever you pick up words in movies or on the street and want to note them down or want to look them up later on. At the same time, you will be able to guess the pronunciation of a word that you read more accurately. The pause after each sentence (!) is crucial in the beginning as it gives your brain the time it needs to process the new and abstract information.
If you don’t take these little breaks you will create something called “retrograde Lernhemmung” and “anterograde Lernhemmung”. A “Hemmung” is an inhibition. The other two words simply mean that the new stuff that you are learning will hinder the old stuff to settle and the old stuff you have learned will disturb your brain from taking in the new information. Or in simple words: Just take those breaks.
STEP 09
Once you are through the video in a stop-and-go manner. Take a short break and after that break, you may watch it in one piece with German subtitles still activated. This way you will realize where you are standing now after only an hour or two and see or rather feel your progress.
STEP 10
Die Generalprobe. You might now be ready to watch the video without any further help. But I still suggest holding the video after each sentence for a few seconds to process what you have just heard. “Eile mit Weile” is a saying that proves true when it comes to language learning. smarterGerman is an approach that teaches German very fast but also strongly pays attention to quality. Learning done consciously is far more time efficient in the long run than any quick-quick approach.
STEP 11
Die Königsdisziplin. Now you can eat the cake. Watch the video in one piece and without any breaks. Note how much of it you understand by now. You will most likely still have room for improvement and will have to repeat a few of the steps above in the coming days as review is the mother of all learning.
STEP 12
You won’t have to repeat each step over and over again. Just pick the steps that you think you could have performed better in. You will also become much more proficient in this procedure after a few videos and will be able to optimize a few steps as you proceed. Don’t change the order though. Order matters a lot here.
Final Thoughts
Once you have mastered this approach after a week or two, you will feel the difference in your German learning and can’t imagine anymore how you could have worked any other way. They are working on a major improvement of their platform at the moment and I had the honor of peaking into one new exciting feature that will help you immensely with your listening and writing skills. So stay tuned.
If you want to try Yabla, you can use this link and support me and my work as I will get a provision from them if you subscribe via this link. It does not cost you anything more but I can create the next app and online course faster or maybe even the long awaited B2 German grammar course.
There is much more behind smarterGerman than the naked eye can see but this is not the place for philosophy. Thank you for your time and for making a difference in this world.
You can try a limited part of Yabla for free or simply invest ~10 USD in your first month. I promise you if you work according to my instructions above you’ll get a lot out of it.
FAQs about language learning with videos
Here are some of the questions people ask about language learning methods using video content on Yabla and YouTube.
Can you learn German just by watching TV?
Yes, immersion through TV can enhance language skills, but active learning methods are crucial for comprehensive proficiency.
What is the best YouTube channel for learning German?
“Easy German” is widely acclaimed for its clear, real-life language usage and engaging street interviews.
Does watching German movies with English subtitles help you learn German?
This method can help you with vocabulary and listening skills, but for optimal learning, try switching to German subtitles or none as proficiency grows.
Summing Up: Learn German with Videos via Yabla
So, whether you’re a beginner or an advanced learner, Yabla’s immersive German learning experience can be a great asset to improve your understanding of the language and your overall performance. The platform’s extensive video library and user-friendly video player, transcripts, and innovative features transform learning into an engaging adventure.
As subscribers can access this array of excellent features, Yabla emerges as an indispensable tool for a school teacher and language learners alike. If you’d like to improve your German even more, come sign up with us at SmarterGerman!