> I don't believe that most swedes learn English by reading subtitles before starting school.
It's not about learning the language per se, it's about familiarizing yourself with the sound of the language, which then makes formal learning feel much more intuitive. English becomes an easy subject because you always feel a little ahead of the material. When faced with a "fill in the blank" type of questions, you're able to answer them by what feels right, even when you can't quite explain why it feels right.
It's why #1 rule of language learning at any stage in life is always gonna be immersing yourself with the language you want to learn, and by far the most effective way to immerse yourself (excluding moving to another country) is to consume content in your target language.
They probably meant before they start learning English in primary school, not before they start school.
This used to be the case in the Netherlands too; I picked up a significant body of English from British TV series watched with subtitles as kid. Nowadays this advantage will probably be missed by most children, because the streaming services offer a lot of dubbed content, and you get to pick what you watch unless someone guides you. Subtitles can be avoided for longer.
I think you're native English and have the associated bias concerning how it works in practice?
Since kids first learn their native language ( write, read and speak) in school and only years after then ( mostly), learn foreign languages.
When they learned to do it in their native language, they hear English spoken on tv with eg. Dutch subtitles and pick it up. Sometimes before they have English lessons.
Most kids, as such, know a fair amount of English before they have it ( = English) in school.
The Dutch subtitles isn't always a requirement though. Kids will pick it up in some shows, eg. Pokemon would be a good example if English spoken.
Are you saying that kids of age six can understand and speak English at a basic level - say half way to A1?
Or is it just a basic familiarity (like a couple of most common words) and awareness that English exists?
EDIT: I see from a reply below by Freak_NL that it probably means before the kids start learning English at school. That makes more sense, as they would be older at that point.
I don't know about The Netherlands but here in Norway children start learning English as soon as they start school at the age of five or six. But quite likely many of them will have at least some English already because of English language television, computer games, etc.
My 6 year old has been watching 20 minutes of cartoons every night for the past two years. This is the only exposure to the English language that she has ever had.
She has learned to understand what is said in the cartoons. Of course she misses some things, but it's surprising how much she gets.
Like, when I ask her "what did Bluey just say?", she can explain it.
Children's brains are awesome.
But actually, grown-ups can also pick up quite a lot if they actually immerse themselves.
Young kids don't even need subtitles, their brains are wired to figure out spoken languages, after all that's how we all learn our mother tongue initially. Last summer my then 3.5 years old, to my huge surprise, started talking in (simple, but correct) English with some tourist kids she met in the park. We never spoke English in home with her before, so I presume she picked it up from youtube and her older brother, but I had no idea she can form full sentences - including conditionals and past tense. And at first she was a bit slow to express her self, but after a few hours of play with those kids she sounded totally relaxed and fluent.
Subtitles in a foreign language? Probably not. Subtitles translated into their original language? I think it's probably an exaggeration that people have learnt it before starting school because it implies a lot about what learning it means, but picking up a number of words, sure.
Reading speed at that age will vary greatly. Reading subtitles while also having to follow the picture takes away focus and that makes it hard much harder for an inexperienced reader. My daughter, who picked up reading very naturally would have been able to follow sub-titles at age 7 without much trouble. My younger, 7-yo son on the other hand, who is more average in reading ability wouldn't be able to keep up with subtitles yet.
Average reading speeds at age 7 seem to be 60-100 words per minute where subtitles are more at the 100-150 words per minute range. So for above-average readers, it will be possible but for the average, they won't be able to keep up consistently.
No, they wouldn't.
I don't believe that most swedes learn English by reading subtitles before starting school.
> I think there's a pretty strong correlation between countries' average English proficiency and how common dubbing is.
That I agree with.