podcasts are ok too, of course.
You might have heard it many times, countries without dubbed movies have better english level.
No?
Never heard of it?
Well, believe it or not only few countries make the effort to dub movies.
Leaving the original language and just adding subtitles has many advantages.
The dubbing process can be up to 15 times more expensive than adding subtitles, I just googled it.
This economical aspect might not matter for you but you might be willing to consider the cost of taking an english course to learn something you can get for free, just saying.
I don’t want to start a debate on whether subtitles are a distraction from the scenes and a stain for your eyes or dubbing an abomination cause it takes away most of the acting skills from the original performance.
The fact is that people from countries without ”translated movies” speak better english.
In Sweden a few weeks ago I met an 11-year-old girl who spoke great english, she was confident and was able to have spontaneous conversations, her secret? Watching Stranger Things over and over again, and of course a solid school system.
Just a quick note on this one.
School system is not necessarily better, it is simply the fact that teachers have a better basic knowledge and so do students, allowing them to reach higher results faster.
Ok, some would argue that lnaguage similarities facilitate the learning process. True. However, Portugal, Greece, Indonesia and South Korea do not really have such advantage and still manage to score higher that those countries where students cannot do their homework on netflix.
I know that reading in one language and listening to another one is very energy consuming so my advice is: just listen.
If you come to think of it, listening doesn’t feel like doing anything at all.
It is more of a sensation than an activity, a dreamy feeling that stretches within our mind.
You are often not aware you are doing it.
We literally can do it without thinking about it.
So, just put some series on while you do the cooking, the dishes, the washing, a radio talk show when driving to work, you choose. Even when you are too tired to pay attention to what is being said, even if it doesn’t feel like listening at all.
The best way to get better at speaking is listening, you can focus on speaking too, of course, but first give yourself time to get used to the sounds of the language, learn a few common phrases and expressions, imitate what you hear. Yes, try to replicate the stress, accent, intonation, attitude and intensity ….maybe not on a train….
have fun!
