I remember at one point, when I was a still trying to keep up my French, I spent a fair amount of time trying to track down some equivalent to what Friends has been (so I gather, anyway) for English-language learners—every option seemed much worse (far shorter, lower quality—which, Friends isn't even that high a bar) and even those were nearly impossible to get ahold of, because the rights holders just didn't care about foreign markets (since no-one who can speak English well is going to care much about a mediocre French sitcom, unless they're like me and trying to learn the language). Music's a little easier, but hell, even there half the time they sing in English. Maybe it's improved since about a decade ago, but at the time, there was just nothing.
Meanwhile there are dozens of shows with many, many episodes that could help provide daily exposure to colloquial, conversational English, that are relatively easy to come by (just don't pick The Wire—even Americans have trouble with that, between the authentic Baltimore accents and slang and the pervasive cop-talk).
I actually think another language that's got a huge advantage here, for foreign learners, is Japanese. It was hard not to be envious of the Japanese resources and media readily available, even back in the '00s (let alone now), compared with even a language as important and heavily-studied as French. Which is really surprising and impressive when you consider that Japanese is probably the most insular of the major world languages—one might expect French, German, and Spanish, at least, to do at least as well on that front, given that they're read and spoken widely on multiple continents by far more people than live in Japan, but no. I think it's in part because they've been able to resist the shift to preferring English media that other countries have experienced—you look at French TV schedules and there's a lot of translated English media on there, for instance, while I don't think the same is so broadly true in Japan, with the result that they have a stronger domestic media market than many other states.
Like I said, language is a tool. I have to wonder why you were learning French if you had no use for it. Can you imagine, say, picking a computer before you know if it will be able to run the software you need?
That said, you don't have to limit yourself to professional productions. I'm sure there are French-speaking YouTubers or streamers out there nowadays. That's even better exposure than high-budget productions because you'll hear a variety of local accents. And again, oral is only part of the story. You can get a lot of grammar practice by talking to people on forums and such.
>I actually think another language that's got a huge advantage here, for foreign learners, is Japanese. [...]
Japanese is actually my next language, and I've been half-seriously considering Korean because some of the artists I've been following lately happen to be Korean. Right now it's probably the best time in history to learn either of the two.
I don't think it's accurate to say that the Japanese have been "able to resist" English-language media. Like you said, Japanese culture is insular; xenophobic, to put it bluntly. It's a combination of Japan being hesitant to embrace culturally foreign media and thus producing more locally, and western cultures being more willing to embrace foreign things.
Right, that's... how they've been able to resist it. Even the French, probably the most infamously-jealous and protective of their culture and language in Europe (and against whom accusations of xenophobia are leveled pretty regularly!), haven't been anywhere near as successful, because they don't take it nearly as far as the Japanese. For all its other downsides, a strong culture of xenophobia seems to be the only way to resist this aspect of globalization—even top-down heavy-handed laws don't work, historically speaking, even before the Internet. A genuine (if somewhat cultivated) culture of reflexively dismissing the foreign seems to work, and not much else.
I do agree that Youtube has probably closed the gap somewhat, though that became a usefully-well-populated resource long after I gave up. Even with dedicated instructional material on Youtube, it's goddamn hard to maintain motivation when all the media you genuinely want to read/watch are "high" art and come with language/complexity barriers to match (Proust, Racine, Molière, Renoir, Godard, et c.), with little material to provide the sugary-sweet, approachable appeal of sprawling, crappy anime series, or American sitcoms. Best the French language has for that is comic books, and even that's got nowhere near the volume and selection of, say, manga.
About the only media I still consume in French is the occasional French news article, just because their slant on things or selection of what to cover is sometimes interesting—no coincidence that the ability to stumble through reading a French news article is currently where my French tops out, much reduced from where it once was.
I don't think it's a good thing overall, though. They get to maintain a very strong national identity, but when they do end up interacting with people from other places they appear disconnected. For example, if you've ever tried to interoperate with Japanese software, it's like going back to the '90s. They just do their own thing over there.
> For example, if you've ever tried to interoperate with Japanese software, it's like going back to the '90s.
Hey, I thought you wrote that it wasn't a good thing! ;-)
Nonsense. I live in Latin America and English is a second language for me. I'm not sure if there are even any land routes I could take to reach an English-speaking country, as I believe the Colombian jungle interrupts the road. Learning a language is about four things: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. With the Internet you can do three of those four things right from home. Hell, I've been learning English for 24 years and for the first 20 I had maybe one or two conversations with native speakers.
The question is not how far you need to travel to speak to a native, but whether there's anything in that language that interests you. Language after all is just a tool to move ideas between people's brains. If there's not then yeah, you would have no reason to learn a language. And I'm sorry to say that does make you provincial. Please don't take it the wrong way; I don't mean it as an insult, just as a statement of fact. You were born into your culture and you're satisfied with ignoring everything else. You've never thought "oh, I wish I could read this, but it's not in English" or "I love this book/show/movie/etc.; I wish I could experience it as a native would", or at least not to the point that it inspired you to learn.