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STUDY ONE
and stated that she watches gameplay videos on YouTube and follows many
famous gamers, such PewDiePie, a Swedish internet personality. In her words:
[I usually] watch gamer videos, for example, I used to be a fan of PewDiePie. There
are lots of Hungarian gamers who use English commentary in their videos, or
[there are] many games that are not in English, and it’s easier to [learn English and]
comprehend them.
She also adds that at first, she had difficulties understanding PewDiePie, but
then she got used to “the way he [PewDiePie] talks,” and it became easier for
her to understand him. She explains this as follows: “In the beginning, a few
expressions were not clear, and I wasn’t sure what they mean, but then I got
used to the way he speaks, and it was easier to understand [everything]” (Val¬
entina). This again resonates with the literature and supports that watching
videos may familiarize viewers with the different accents of an L2 (Mitterer—
McQueen 2009).
Finally, it seems that when it comes to consuming visual content, similar
to the findings of previous research (Regueira et al. 2020, Wegener et al. 2020),
there are some gender differences between the online video consumption
habits of boys and girls, and both genders consume more content tradition¬
ally associated with their respective gender; as for video sharing platforms,
however, both boys and girls prefer all kinds of websites.
4.5.5 Listening to music in the English language
The next theme was listening to music in English. All participants reported
that they listen to music in the English language; some of them even said that
they have an exclusive preference for songs in English which, besides being an
enjoyable EE activity, can also provide learners with an extensive amount of
L2 input (Fonseca-Mora et al. 2011, Schwarz 2013, Sundqvist 2009).
When asked about the lyrics of the songs, Paul stated that he checks the
lyrics but never tries to translate them into Hungarian. In his words: “I don’t
bother too much with translating lyrics into Hungarian because songs are
sometimes impossible to translate. The meaning is lost.” Other participants use
a variety of strategies when they do not understand a line in a song. Luna, for
instance, checks the meaning of unknown words herself. Her explanation was
as follows: “I check the lyrics, and I usually understand everything, if not, I just
look up some definitions or look for a translation.” Lucas uses a similar strategy
and points out that songs usually contain everyday vocabulary and are easier to
understand than movies, which is the conclusion made by Murphy (1992) as
well. In his words: “I usually comprehend most of the lyrics. Songs are usually
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