Hello, everybody! This is Jack from tofluency.com and welcome to this video
lesson where I'm going to talk about watching movies in English. I see so many comments
on my YouTube channel, my Facebook page and elsewhere from learners who tell me
that they find it difficult to watch movies in English.
And I'm sure if you're learning English that you find this difficult too.
So, firstly, what I want to say and to help you feel better is that when I'm
watching certain movies,
I don't always understand what they say.
Movies are difficult to understand - they use slang terms; they use very strong
accents; and sometimes the audio is very low. And when the director is making a
movie,
he's not thinking about the dialogue so much -
it's more about the artistic appearance of movies.
So, know that native speakers have problems understanding certain movies
too. But I know how annoying this can be because if you like movies then you want
to watch them in English to practice.
So, what I recommend you do is a couple of things: firstly, watch movies that you've
already seen
in your native language. Doing that helps you understand the general idea of what
is happening.
So, when you know what is happening in the movie, then you can guess the dialog;
you can work out what they're saying
from your experience and from the context.
So, think about movies that you've seen - movies that you've enjoyed - in your
native language and watch them again in English.
Secondly, look for the transcript.
So, if you really do enjoy watching movies, then I recommend getting the
transcript, finding this online. Now, you can also turn on the subtitles too but
sometimes these aren't entirely accurate.
So, search for the movie transcript in Google,
ok, then you'll be able to read what people say.
Now, you might not want to read the entire transcripts but it's useful to
maybe even have it on your phone while you're watching the movie and then you
can pause and read what they say.
Now, I also have a method that you can use to help you learn the new words and
phrases that you learn from movies, so be sure to check out the description where
I talk about this.
This is called the sentence method. Finally, what I want to say is that if a
movie is too difficult to understand, and you feel stressed, then watch something
else instead.
This might be another movie or maybe, even better for you,
a TV show. Now, I recommend TV shows because the dialogue is easier to understand and
also they repeat certain words and phrases over a few episodes, so if you
used to watch Friends or if you watch it now,
you'll understand that the different characters all say similar things over
time.
So, for example, Ross'll say certain things in every episode - but you also get
used to the accent.
You get used to their voice so that you can better understand what they're
saying.
Now, I have two things that I want you to do:
firstly, please share any movies that you've seen in English that you think are
good for English learners - so, leave the movie title in the comments section
below. And then, secondly, tell me what you do when you watch movies:
do you read transcripts? Do you have the subtitles on? How many movies do you
watch?
So, please share your experience with this.
And if you have found this video useful, please share it with your friends.
So, thank you for watching and I'll speak to you soon!