Can I learn a new language just by listening or watching videos?

Question

The question is a bit more specific than title would suggest, but I was not creative enough to put it so specifically into compact form. Let me explain.
When I was a kid I was learning English in elementary school, but I've also watched lot of Cartoon Network which drastically expanded my vocabulary (at least, that's my impression), so in that case it definitively helped. But in that case, for one, I was a kid, second I already had some basic knowledge, which we constantly upgraded.
The present situation is that I want to learn Norwegian. I did acquire some very basic knowledge, like saying "I want something to eat" or "Where is Parliament street?" by listening to Pimsleur Norwegian lectures. But when I watch a Norwegian movie or show I practically don't understand anything.
The question is, should I expect this to change all "by it self", will I, if, for example I watch 1h per day of some Norwegian show, start to understand the language, acquire vocabulary, understand it completely?
I'm sure that listening to a language helps in situations where you have some basic understanding and you understand every third word and your brain then connects the dots and you acquire new words as the time passes.
But does that happen, even if you don't understand a single word in most of the sentences (ok, I understand "are" , "you", "yes", "I"... a very basic set of words)? Is there some threshold of needed vocabulary so you can build on just by listening?

Here is a similar question, but it was asked in context of kids.

EDIT: I would make a distinction of interaction and listening without interaction. For example, if you put me in some Chinese village, we couldn't understand each other a word, but by interacting with people, using hands etc, as time passes I could pick some words and as time passes I'd probably understand the language. This question is in context of passive listening/watching.

Answer 1

Anecdotally, I'd say yes, even after the (hypothetical) critical period for language learning I've experienced passive hearing as very helpful in acquiring a new language.

Empirically, there's a study that says that simply hearing a language is helpful in learning to understand it.

Theoretically, this makes sense. A basic problem involved in language acquisition is the Segmentation Problem: the sounds you hear are physically continuous, but you need to break them into discrete segments (separate sounds) in order for them to be intelligible. Also, as opposed to written language, spoken language doesn't necessarily give a clear signal as to where one word ends and another begins. This is one of the main stumbling blocks to acquiring a new language: you have to learn to segment what you're hearing on two levels. Now, the more you hear a stream of sounds composed of a given set of building blocks (morphemes, themselves composed of phonemes) the more information you have with which to figure out where one of them starts and another begins. Think of it like this: a sound is physically (phonetically) different depending on what sounds it is in between. By hearing it again and again in different environments, your brain can better figure out what exactly makes that sound different from other sounds, and what's just the effect of neighboring sounds.

I'd guess that passive hearing with no instruction is more effective than reading a good language-teaching book but not hearing the language. You might be able to learn how to read and write Norwegian from a book, but unless you know exactly how letters like O and R sound in Norwegian (not always quite like English!) you won't get very far in understanding it when you hear someone speak.

Answer 2

If you want to do this, I'd advise you to watch the same movie over and over again. You may notice that children like their caretakers to read them the same story each night, and modern children like to watch the same movie again and again. My theory for why they like this is that they like hearing the story or watching the movie because they are able to understand what is being said, whereas just listening to ambient conversation of adults much of it goes over their heads. So according to my theory, you can do it, and the way to do it is to watch the Norwegian version of The Little Mermaid, or Sesame Street, every day for one month, and maybe sing along. After a year or so of this you can switch over to slightly more challenging programs which still have clear speech, then go on to films for regular adults.

Answer 3

I've been in the exact opposite situation, being raised in Norway and wanting to learn the English language.

In my belief, the key factor was watching English speaking programs with Norwegian subtitles. After sufficient exposure I gave more attention to the speech and not the text, and you begin to 'draw lines', as you say, between your native language and the one you are trying to learn.

Playing games also proved useful, although a lot harder. It was basically blindly trying, and trying to understand the effect my actions had on the game. As a small child at the time, playing Pokémon can be quite the challenge when you do not speak the language. Another problem I've struggled with is words that I've only read. RETRY was a word I read as Rettry, basically just because I was eleven at the time, and I still pronounce it that way, if I'm not aware of what I'm about to say.

This is all based on personal experience, and I wish you all the best in learning Norwegian. Or; Lykke til med språket !