Learning with movies
The website Lifehacker is a fantastic place to go for tips on all sorts of things to make running your life easier.
Recently a writer posted about using movies to learn Spanish. This is his method:
First, watch the movie a couple times with the English subtitles. Don’t memorize the subtitles but watch it enough times so that you know the plot and can get into the movie. After a while, leave the subtitles on for comfort but start trying to follow the target language, only looking down to the subtitles every now and then. After you’re relatively comfortable with the plot of the movie, as if you could watch it with the sound off and still get a basic idea of what’s going on, switch to subtitles in your target language.
Spend a lot of time watching this movie with the subtitles in your target language. Watch it a billion times. A billion trillion times. Watch it with your language buddies with whom you should be in regular contact and practicing with anyway. Watch it until you can pretty much say the lines along with the actors, even if you have to read along with the subtitles. Watch it until you say to yourself “Man, I don’t even need subtitles!” Turn the subtitles off. You should now be able to watch the movie and understand it without subtitles and for the most part, understand exactly what they are saying. Watch it again with your language buddies (if they want to watch the movie again for the trillionth time) so they can tell you what some of the idioms really mean, and clarify any cultural context or references, etc. Watch it until you know the lines, just like you know the lines to Toy Story or Cool Runnings (both movies I know by heart). (Source: Lifehacker)
Over the course of all this movie watching, you’ll pick up a ton of language skills, including being able to understand native speakers when they talk at their usual speed (not slowed down for learners). You’ll also have picked up lots of vocabulary, including slang terms. Another benefit: Impressing your friends with all the world cinema you’ve been watching lately!
To start you off, here are some of my favourite German language movies:
What are your favourite movies?