## Tangible vs. abstract Media targeted to kids is often more tangible, focusing on visible objects and direct actions, such as "a happy dinosaur playing with the red balloon". Adults often enjoy more complex topics, that focus on layers of abstract concepts, such as "Bob's coworker got a promotion because of their higher performance this past quarter". When learning a new language, we all start back at square one. One must be humble and give up on complex, abstract topics for a while. --- ## Understand what you can, when you can Kids cartoons are engineered in such a way that even if you do not understand the words spoken, you can see the action on screen and follow along no matter your language proficiency. The main story beat will probably require no language understanding at all, you'll still see who the bad guy is, what is done to deal with them, and how everyone is happy at the end. Meanwhile, any bits of language you'll understand will add bonus details and jokes that make the adventure more fun, but these are optional and missing them bears no consequence on you being able to continue understanding the plot of the show and watching it. --- Similarly, episodes are often structured in a "daily adventures" format, where each episode is a self contained mini story where the intrigue is explained at the start of the episode, and everything is resolved by the end of it. That means that all the cool details and jokes of an episode can be enjoyed as is, without requiring prior understanding of past episodes. So if you for example become fluent enough to understand a few jokes by episode 168, you won't be left in the dark because you didn't understand some super obtuse detail that was explained in episode 23. --- So you'll never be required to give your 100% attention to each individual episode, they can act as background filler no problem. This is ideal for putting on a few episodes while cooking or doing chores. This is the perfect use case. It makes your activities less boring, and gives you the opportunity to move forward on your language learning goals without feeling like it's a big time sink. --- ## Tip of my tongue As you'll be learning a language, you'll have a few words that you can *nearly* remember but not quite. It can be very frustrating to come across that word in a a show, and have it on the tip of your tongue, but never end up knowing what it meant. This is demoralizing and doesn't teach you anything. However as discussed above, kids shows often have more tangible topics, therefore, you might hear that word which is on the tip of your tongue, and immediately after, see the object or action on screen, giving you the answer your brain needed. The more times you see the word and its meaning side by side, the stronger memory of it will become. This is the core of language learning. --- ## Be a kid again I am currently learning Japanese by watching Pokémon in Japanese without subtitles (among other things). Recently, after so many times of hearing the intro song, I can play it back in my head, **including** all of the syllables, even if I don't understand what they mean yet. And as I play back the syllables in my head, I'm like "hey I know what that word means !" And suddenly I understand the meaning of one part of the song ! Then, as I rewatch the intro song, and hear those words I deciphered, I get a lot of satisfaction repeating after them. --- Hey ! That seems eerily familiar to what I did back as a kid, singing along with my favourite kids cartoons' intros ! That's right, I'm currently at the stage of a 5 year old singing along the Pokémon intro, and I couldn't be prouder. Judging your target language proficiency by retracing the steps you did as a kid is the best way to know where you're at on the road to being fluent. You've been down this road before, this is your second run and you're already experienced. You just need to realize it's that same road and remember the big landmarks. The nostalgia is a good motivator and will keep you going. So don't be afraid of kids shows. We call them "familly shows" for a reason. There's no age where you stop being able to enjoy them. :P