How to Improve Your English Skills Watching Movies
Anyone who English isn’t their first language has had a moment of “I didn’t understand what they said there?” when they are watching a movie. They have also had a moment of “what does that frame mean?” even if they have studied English in school.
If you want to improve your English massively, watching movies is certainly one of the best ways. The question now is how can you improve your English skills by watching movies, below are several ways.
You get to hear authentic English
When you are a student, you will come across new words all the time. Some of these new words you might come across when you use a pro essay writing service like AdvancedWriters.com to get your papers done or in textbooks.
While this is good and you will get a good mark when you let a professional do it, some of the words that might be in your content, you might not know how to produce them properly. Watching classic movies especially the ones from the ’50s to the ’80s lets you hear authentic English and proper pronunciation of words.
This is because there is no use of slang or street languages to confuse you. Words are pronounced the way they are intended to and this is a good way to improve your English skills.
Whatever they say in the movie, you can have it repeated by rewinding
Although the average person will be able to watch hundreds of movies in their lifetime, chances of coming across new words are very high. The same applies to reading content whether online or in books. What’s set reading and watching something apart is, of course, the audio. Reading has no audio while watching videos has audio unless it is muted.
You can hear how words are pronounced and if you hear something new in a movie, you can always rewind it to hear it again. The good thing about modern technology is we can watch films on smart devices like tablets, laptops, and phones. We can learn new words while we are on the go as well as rewind when we hear something new to us.
Watch a movie with subtitles
These days we have the privilege of watching movies with subtitles on. If you want to improve your English, watching a movie with subtitles is highly recommended. Not only will you be able to see how the words are spelled, but you will also be able to hear how they are pronounced in real-time which is good for improving your English.
If you don’t know the meaning of any word, you can purchase an oxford dictionary and search for the word. You will be able to get the official definition of the word and learn how to use it in a sentence as well.
Try to do what is known as “shadowing” with the subtitles still on
This is the same as the point above but with a little twist. What you do here is, you watch a movie with your computer or a sheet of paper nearby, and you either copy and paste or write down what you hear very quickly.
Repeating this process will make your brain understand intonations as well as how words are pronounced. This is a technique that isn’t used by many students who are in their first year of English but it is very effective for their improvement when they get a grasp of the language.
Try to repeat new phrases you hear over and over again
repetition is the only way one can massively improve their fluency, intonation, and pronunciation of words. If you incorporate this as part of your learning every day, it will do wonders for your English both short term as well as long term.
When you notice improvements in your English, try watching movies without any subtitles
As pointed above, subtitles will help you know how words are spelled but you can try to watch without them. This will help you improve your spelling and grammar as you will focus more on how words sound and push yourself to learn how to spell them.
Always watch a movie that interests you
If you are going to improve your English while watching movies, you might as well have fun with it. Never pick a movie that is boring or of little interest to you. Doing so is a waste of time and you should always pick a movie you love or one that interests you. This is the only way to not only learn quickly but also fun at the same time.
Try to break the movie you are watching into small 25 minute blocks
There is no denying that watching a full-length movie can be time consuming especially Sci-Fis. If you want movies that are short and not very lengthy, comedies and dramas are highly recommended. These are the movies that should be on your list and you can break them down into 25-minute blocks.
If there are words that are complicated in the movie, you can skip them
Understanding every word when you are watching a movie to improve your English is nearly impossible. There will be words you will hear that you won’t be able to understand and some of the jokes might be on another level to yours due to cultural differences. Skip them temporarily and get back to them when you feel that you have made massive improvements.
Great! Just what I need!