[vintermann]

Sitcoms are a tried and true language promotion tactic. I remember when I was young there was a French teenage-sitcom, "Helene", which my mother would watch because her students watched it religiously (she was a language teacher). It was outrageously soapy, but even I noticed the relatively accessible language. My mother told me the show was a subsidized export of France's language evangelization program. Apparently teaching French was a lot easier when that show was popular.

Friends wasn't that, but close enough. I think I recall Simone Giertz saying that she learned English from it, and I can't be the only one who has noticed that there's something uncannily Lisa Kudrow-like about her stage persona.

[dustincoates]

You can find a lot (all?) of the Hélène et les Garçons episodes on YouTube, too.

Another good "sitcom-like" that you can find on YouTube is extr@. It's cheesy, but it's entertaining enough for what it is, and they have it for French, German, and Spanish (and English). Interestingly, it's the same main actor for French, German, and Spanish, a Dutch actor playing an American, while the rest of the cast changes around him.

[vintermann]

There's something charming about old language learning shows, both overt and "covert" ones like Hélène et les Garçons. I remember Muzzy in Gondoland, BBC's English language teaching cartoon from the 80s.

I wonder why language learning apps aren't more into making entertainment in the language they're proselytizing these days.

[bluGill]

Videos are expensive to make and expensive to host. Hard for an app to make money off them.

[vintermann]

That makes sense. These old shows probably got government funding for their language promotion mission.