
Learning a language, for Netflix
Say I live in the US, and that physical access to other languages and cultures happens to be difficult. If I had time to learn a new language, which makes the most sense?
Here’s one way to answer that question. Many people start learning a language because of films they like, and looking at Netflix‘s foreign language film catalog, the top 6 languages by number of page listings are:
Cantonese | 23 |
Mandarin | 25 |
Japanese | 29 |
French | 34 |
Spanish | 43 |
Hindi | 61 |
So if Netflix was my primary source for movies, I should choose Hindi to:
- maximize the amount of content which will help me learn my new language,
- increase my enjoyment of this content (matters of taste aside).
My knowledge of Indian cinema is limited, so I was surprised by this; I had expected one of the other five languages on the list to come out on top.
A more interesting list is top languages ordered by amount of all cultural exports (film, TV, music, comics, etc.) based on that language. In that list, I would expect Korean to figure more highly.
Posted by Josh at 6:23 am
Posted in film, languages