Stan
How to use TED talks to learn English

In order to use this approach, you need to view the TED talk on the TED website - www.ted.com, not Youtube.

Here is what to do (For this example, I will use Japanese as the student's native language):

Bring up the TED talk you wish to view.

Select English for the subtitles language. (at the bottom of the video screen, click on the subtitles button just to the right of the volume control)

Select Japanese for the text language for the transcript of the video. (just below the video screen, you will see five things to select from. Choose TRANSCRIPT. Then click on the down arrow for languages to get a drop down box of possible languages to use for the transcript). Not all TED talks will be transcribed into the language of your choice. I would look for the most popular TED talks. The talk by Brene Brown on vulnerability, for example, has been transcribed into 52 languages.

Then as you play the video you will see the English subtitles displayed at the bottom of the video screen. If you don't understand something, hit pause and give yourself more time to understand the subtitle. If that isn't enough, scroll down to the Japanese text below the video display, you will find the phrase being spoken in the video translated into Japanese and highlighted with a light blue background. Isn't that great? If you try this out, let me know on this discussion, what you think.

May 12, 2018 2:27 PM
Comments · 3
I often watch it. It is a great speech show to get English as well as other knowledge.
May 21, 2018
I also like to watch TED talks in Spanish and French.
May 12, 2018

Thank you Stan. I tried it out and it's much better than watching videos on Youtube. 


May 12, 2018