The Perks of the Cartoon Network

Twenty years ago, just after the fall of communism, one of the first stations to show up on the freshly freed television waves here was the Cartoon Network. I am continually amazed at how well many of the young people here speak English and am often reminded that I should thank Tom and Jerry for the English impact they had on the students here. Whenever we talk about their first exposures to English, the students I work with speak about Tom and Jerry with reminiscent little smiles, remembering their tot days in front of a colorful slew of mischief being emitted from the tube. At first, I thought it very bizarre that the first station brought in would be the Cartoon Network, but it was probably the safest, least informative and ideally influential station possible. I wonder if they foresaw the learning benefits of this for the children growing up during that time. One boy from my drama group told me that the first word he learned in English was door. He was four years old and was watching Tom and Jerry and one of the characters complained about the door slamming and Gabi put two and two together and from that point on regularly picked up new English words through cartoons. There's a special generation here of kids from about 13 to 20 years of age who acquired a set of vocabulary, albeit interesting, at a very early age and are now excelling at their English studies. Unfortunately, they recently started dubbing the cartoons instead of subtitling them and all the kids groan about the lack of original language in their cartoons. I must agree, subtitles are hands down better than dubbing. You actually get to learn something about a different language and perhaps if we all grew up with a foreign Cartoon Network teaching us new languages, the world would be a bit better off.

Alright, I'm stealing internet time from my favorite tea shop and I really don't want them to hate me. Hopefully I'll have internet next week. Later!