Does watching American TV shows really help foreigners learn English?

OK, so my friend, who is Finnish, loves to watch TV, especially Nickelodeon sitcoms such as The ThunderMans and Henry Danger, animated series such as Adventure Time, Rugrats, and Pokemon, and superhero TV shows such as Gotham, The Flash and Supergirl. She lives in California and is having trouble in her 9th grade ESL (English as a Second Language) class, and uses her iphone in Finnish. She loves, and i mean LOVES these shows, yet does not quite understand yet what is going on. Sometimes, an episode will play twice or more on TV, or she would play the same episode twice a week or so on Youtube, while I try to look for more episodes for her, in the case of Rugrats and old Batman/Spiderman cartoons. Does this process really work? Have you experienced it yet? No rude or off topic answers please. I appreciate you trying to answer! Happy 2016!
-Phoebe

OK, so my friend, who is Finnish, loves to watch TV, especially Nickelodeon sitcoms such as The ThunderMans and Henry Danger, animated series such as Adventure Time, Rugrats, and Pokemon, and superhero TV shows such as Gotham, The Flash and Supergirl. She lives in California and is having trouble in her 9th grade ESL (English as a Second Language) class, and uses her iphone in Finnish. She loves, and i mean LOVES these shows, yet does not quite understand yet what is going on. Sometimes, an episode will play twice or more on TV, or she would play the same episode twice a week or so on Youtube, while I try to look for more episodes for her, in the case of Rugrats and old Batman/Spiderman cartoons. Does this process really work? Have you experienced it yet? No rude or off topic answers please. I appreciate you trying to answer! Happy 2016!
-Phoebe Foreign language programming can help someone learn a language. True. Yes shows do help but she should watch educational shows like Arthur and between the lions etc which are on the P B S. They are free and very informative. Calliou, Martha Speaks, Barney are all good. Then Nature, science guy etc are also great.

Best to visit with the ESL teacher and ask for guidance, based on her skill set the teacher will provide some books to read which will focus on her weak points and extend her strengths in ESL.

Reading is hard work but it is best especially with a kindle which has a dictionary at the ready.

Best of Luck to you and your friend My mom has tried watching movies on Netflix, which are not TV shows, but she admits that she doesn't see how these movies can help her, so she only watches them whenever she wants to watch a movie. She also says that she can't get any help from them because the characters talk too quickly. No, American English is bad, so full of slang, ghetto, sexual innuendo and Ebonics. You need to learn the queens English yes i know so many people that learned english as a second language that way especially tv shows for little kids She must *speak* and *read* English daily in addition to listening to it, to get a good all-round exposure. Yes, especially if they come with good subtitles in your native language.

I learned a lot of my English and German vocab that way. Unfortunately there's very few programmes in other foreign languages on dutch TV

Yes shows do help but she should watch educational shows like Arthur and between the lions etc which are on the P B S. They are free and very informative. Calliou, Martha Speaks, Barney are all good. Then Nature, science guy etc are also great.

Best to visit with the ESL teacher and ask for guidance, based on her skill set the teacher will provide some books to read which will focus on her weak points and extend her strengths in ESL.

Reading is hard work but it is best especially with a kindle which has a dictionary at the ready.

Best of Luck to you and your friend

My mom has tried watching movies on Netflix, which are not TV shows, but she admits that she doesn't see how these movies can help her, so she only watches them whenever she wants to watch a movie. She also says that she can't get any help from them because the characters talk too quickly.

No, American English is bad, so full of slang, ghetto, sexual innuendo and Ebonics. You need to learn the queens English

Yes i know so many people that learned english as a second language that way especially tv shows for little kids

She must *speak* and *read* English daily in addition to listening to it, to get a good all-round exposure.

Yes, especially if they come with good subtitles in your native language.

I learned a lot of my English and German vocab that way. Unfortunately there's very few programmes in other foreign languages on dutch TV