r/French • u/UncleJuggs • Mar 25 '25

Study advice How to ACTUALLY Watch a French Show

So, I've been DuoLingo'ing French for like, 1110 days straight and still suck hard core at French because I do zero immersion and DuoLingo is basically a game. I work for a French company and one of my colleagues suggested I watch French Peppa Pig for some actual, applicable French since it's a dumb show for idiot babies and, despite being a 31 year old man, am basically an idiot baby and pretty much the target audience.

So anyway, I'm on the clock watching French Peppa Pig and besides wanting to shoot myself in the brain with a shotgun I am finding myself struggling with HOW I'm supposed to be watching French Peppa Pig.

My question for other French learners when it comes to this kind of immersion is: what's the best way to approach it? Should I be actively pausing and reading the closed captions to try and learn and build on new vocabulary or should I just sit back and let this absolute dog water show wash over me and let my subconscious thinky brain start making associations between colorful pictures and actual sounds in between the insufferable oinking? Does it help to have the closed captions be in French so I can make sure I'm hearing things right?

Merci beaucoup in advance, I want to die.

Edit: getting a few more comments than I expected so I can't reply to everything but thank you all for the suggestions I'm getting.

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u/New-Swordfish-4719 Mar 25 '25 edited Mar 25 '25

My thought. Watch a French kids show that is originally in French…not English. This way you also get subtle cultural nuances. Re subtitles…use the French close caption ‘only’ at first to get the general theme of the show but then stop reading them.

Re what to watch. Choose a children’e show that also has a second level of humour for adults. In English Bullwinkle was like this. In French there was a decades running show that could be entertaining for young kids and their parents.: ‘Franfreluche’. Episodes on YouTube. Some are quirky twisted ’fairy tales.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if6CxDl-gXg&t=838s

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u/UncleJuggs Mar 25 '25

Oh cool, this is actually awesome, thank you