Language learning with movies: it worked like a charm for me

Hello guys! This is going to be a long article. I truly believe that the best helper in language learning is passion. I don’t mean you should be passionate by nature; what I mean is that you should find something that you are very passionate about, that you truly like. Let me tell you my own story. When I was 17 I was a linguistics student. I studied English and German (frankly speaking, only English).

At first I believed I was about average, but as time went on, I found myself much closer to the bottom of the class. It wasn’t because I was lazy or skipped classes, no, I wasn’t and I didn’t. The main reason for it was my total disability to comprehend English speech when the teacher played audio recordings. No matter how I tried, I just couldn’t recognize the words and understand what people in these recordings were talking about. The more audio our lessons included, the more I dropped below the other students.

Have you ever experienced the humiliation when a teacher doesn’t bother to keep to herself that she thinks little of your abilities? I don’t know if I will ever stop feeling hurt about that.

Being a student of linguistics was much like a competition.

So two years passed with a constant falling off of my studies. I was 19 at that time and I made three decisions. First, that I am ‘deaf’ to languages. Second, which derived directly from the first, was that languages are not my thing and I shouldn’t spend time on them any longer. Third, that I’d better take up journalism. And all these decisions were implemented. My family totally despaired when I gave up my English studies. So did I. I thought that I had lost two years because I had picked up the wrong thing – language learning. How could I talk to a foreigner if I could understanding ANY audio lessons? I was hopeless.

Five years passed. My English studies were buried deep in the ground and nothing would convince me to bring them back to life again. Nothing, but a sudden chance!

My younger sister Maria who fell for The Vampire Diaries.

My younger sister Maria fell for ‘The Vampire Diaries’. Not having had a single glance at it, I was nonetheless sure that the show was for teens only; but Yan Somerholder was one of the actors and he reminded me of ‘Lost’, which I used to be a huge fan of. So I decided to give it a try. And then… Well, to cut the long story short, both my husband Evgeniy and I totally fell for the show. Luckily for me, the Russian film dubbing was an amateurish, so soon enough I started watching the episodes without Russian dubbing but with subtitles. And that was the turning point! Here is what I did.

Language learning with movies: four simple steps.

1. I watched an episode for the first time – with Russian subtitles.

2. I watched the episode for the second time – with English subtitles. Whenever there was a new word, I pressed the pause button and looked it up in a dictionary.

3. Then I read the list of new words two or three times.

4. The last and in my opinion the most important step was that I put the episode on my laptop and listened to it over and over again. Yes, LISTENED not watched. I used it as a background when I was preparing meals, doing some work about the house and so on. Since sometimes there could be a several week break between episodes, I played some of them up to 8 times!

At first I was sure that the show was for teens only.

And then a miracle happened. My comprehension abilities improved so greatly that they went from my weakest point to the strongest! I began to understand about 80% of English oral speech wherever it came from – radio, podcasts, TV-shows, music, YouTube videos. Once and for all the problem was solved. How long did it take me? About four months. Four months compared to those two fruitless years – what a stunning difference!

From that moment I took my 80% to a higher level.

Two years later my husband and I decided that we should have more speech practice and find a tutor. Gosh, I can’t express how afraid I was to talk to an English native-speaker in the flesh! It was kind of a test for me. Passive listening is one thing and active communication is completely another. Before the trial lesson I was holding my computer mouse very white knuckles. I was so wound-up that was ready to dump the call if we didn’t understand what a tutor was saying.

So we got prepared and started talking. My voice was trembling and my hands were sweating. But I understood what she was saying immediately, and for every moment after! And I understood EVERYTHING that she said during our free 20-minute trial lesson. To say that I was excited means an understatement. I was so happy I couldn’t sleep that night.

That’s how we met lovely Kellie and started our amazing journey into the English speaking world. I would never trade our Skype lessons for anything in the world, they played such a great role in changing my life for the better.

So let’s get back to where we started, shall we? 🙂

We were talking about language learning with movies and TV-shows. If you ask me, whether it should be a TV-show, or a radio show or a TV-program, my answer will be ‘If you want great and fast improvement – then yes, it should be a TV-show.’ But the core thing is that it should be your FAVOURITE one. Remember, we started this article talking about passion!

If you learn with a favourite TV-show you will be engaged for hours.

If you have a passion for a certain TV-show…

a) you will never get bored watching it and that means your brain will be fully involved;

b) you won’t be tired even if you spend three hours in a row studying the show’s witticisms and slang;

c) you can watch or listen to episodes as many times as you want or need to improve your language – could I listen to the same episode for 8 times if I wasn’t in love with it?

d) you won’t be able to help reading or watching more about the actors and the show, simply because you love it! And that will also greatly contribute to your progress. Would you read more about radio programs? Unlikely.

Oh, I can talk about language learning wit movies for hours 🙂 I hope my little story might be inspiring to you. If you have these comprehension problems, don’t give up, don’t let others convince you that you are incapable of doing it. You can, you absolutely can do it.