Why you can't understand movies in English *without subtitles* (and how to fix that)

hello guys and welcome back to my channel i know  that a lot of you have tried watching a movie in  

English without subtitles only to realize that  everything sounds like complete gibberish like  

you know the words you've been studying English  for years but for some reason when native speakers  

talk in movies it feels impossible to keep up so  in this video we're going to figure out why this  

happens and how you can fix that this video is  brought to you by Squarespace but more about them  

later as always I have prepared a free document  for you guys for this video called the movie  

ear training guide in this guide you will learn  why movie dialogue is so hard to understand how  

to actually practice shadowing and some common  phrases and connected speech patterns you will  

also get TV and movie recommendations by level  and my favorite tools to understand slang and fast  

speech the link to this guide is going to be in  the description it's completely free to download  

all you have to do is share your email address  with me and I will send you the guide straight  

to your inbox okay so let's start and talk  about the first reason why it might be hard  

for you to understand movies in English without  any subtitles the sound quality and speech clarity  

i think when we talk about TV shows in English  movies in English we really need to talk about  

the way movies are made when you're learning  English with a textbook you're listening to  

some audio exercises you're doing all of the  grammar drills the speech there is going to be  

clear and slow because this material was created  for nonnative speakers but movies are designed  

for native speakers and that means that actors  don't always articulate very clearly sometimes  

they speak really well like it's very easy for you  to understand every single word but sometimes they  

mumble sometimes they whisper or speak extremely  quickly and honestly guys to make you feel better  

even native speakers sometimes struggle to  understand certain actors and so for you as  

a non-native speaker it is absolutely natural  to feel like sometimes you cannot understand  

anything also sound mixing plays such a huge role  you know in movies there are sometimes background  

effects like boom ba they often drown out dialogue  and because of that it becomes so hard to catch  

every single word this is especially true for  action films and for thrillers and also real life  

speech isn't robotic like yes we're so used to AI  right now to chat GPT where if you ask AI to speak  

super slowly it is going to pronounce every single  word super well for you separately so that you can  

understand everything but in real life it doesn't  really work like that all the time native speakers  

don't really speak like this hello my name is  Veronica their words tend to flow together hello  

my name is Veronica what you can do here is just  be patient with yourself like knowing all of this  

information that movies are designed for native  speakers that sometimes even native speakers  

can't understand what certain actors are saying  that's why they need to turn on subtitles it might  

be hard to understand movies but it doesn't mean  that your English is not improving let's move on  

to the second reason why it might be hard for you  to understand movies without subtitles in English  

and that is because how native speakers actually  talk because yes one of the biggest challenges  

for language learners is often connected speech  the way native speakers link words together and  

reduce sounds there are honestly so many examples  probably the most basic ones are instead of saying  

I am going to go people say I'm going to go  because it's going to take a while for me to  

pronounce this full phrase instead I just say  I'm going to go it's so much faster instead of  

did you eat you will often hear did you eat very  very fast i know instead of what do you want it  

sounds like what do you want and the problem that  I often see here is textbooks don't really teach  

you that but fortunately right now we are starting  to get so many new resources like YouTube videos  

new updated textbooks that do try to teach you  connected speech because more and more people are  

realizing the importance of that and as a language  learner it honestly doesn't matter which language  

you're learning for example right now I'm really  actively learning Spanish and a lot of people who  

are learning Spanish say the exact same thing  native speakers of Spanish speak extremely fast  

it's really hard to understand them but the reason  why is because we're just not used to it and that  

is absolutely okay with enough exposure with  enough practice you're going to start getting  

more and more used to the way native speakers link  words together to the way they speak their pace  

their accent and guys if you're currently working  on embracing your own unique voice you have to  

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dream project okay now let's move on to reason  number three why you can't understand movies in  

English without subtitles and that is because of  cultural references and humor you already know a  

lot of the vocabulary you know pretty much all the  grammar so now you start noticing different things  

maybe different jokes or cultural references that  you just don't understand you will still feel lost  

in all of those cultural references just because  you weren't born in that country i still remember  

when I was like 19 20 I was in college and I was  watching Friends at that time i was obsessed with  

Friends and there was one episode where they were  talking about the ball dropping and when I first  

heard that expression I was like what do you guys  mean the ball dropping like what ball is going  

to drop and why like what is happening here i was  so confused i'm telling you guys and it was still  

at that time where there was no AI so I couldn't  just go to chatbt and copy the phrase paste it to  

chatbt ask all the different questions and it will  give me like a response in a second so I found  

this forum where people were discussing different  Friends episodes and I found an explanation it  

was connected to this New Year Eve celebration in  New York City and obviously I had no idea i never  

had the cultural context of that place so if you  never grew up in an English-speaking country you  

might not know all of the inside jokes and all  of the traditions and that's okay like it's just  

something that you're going to learn eventually  step by step also humor is often super hard to  

understand because it often relies on puns and  slang that don't translate easily and movies  

often reference some past events celebrities or  trends that are just unfamiliar to non-native  

speakers the solution I want to give you here is  just use AI if something in the movie doesn't make  

any sense to you just copy this phrase and paste  it into Chad GBT i mean right now you can even  

take a screenshot very easy paste it to chatbt  and ask it what does it mean in this context I  

have no idea is it a cultural reference if it's  a joke why is it funny like chatbt will explain  

everything to you and honestly this understanding  is also something that will come over time I  

know we all want to fix all of our language  problems super quickly but sometimes that is  

just not possible sometimes we need to trust the  process and realize that over time we will start  

to understand more and more cultural references  all right moving on to reason number four why  

it might be hard for you to understand movies in  English and I think it's all because of accents  

because people speak English in so many different  countries in the world sometimes I struggle with  

understanding British English depends on a show a  movie sometimes it's okay i can understand pretty  

much everything and sometimes I rely heavily on  subtitles it doesn't mean there's something wrong  

with me it just means that this accent is a little  bit hard for me to understand in this particular  

context so when I personally realized that it  was kind of hard for me to understand British  

English what I did is I increased exposure  if it is important to you you can do the same  

thing you can start watching shows or videos on  YouTube shows from the UK Australia and Canada  

and eventually you will start understanding all  of these accents also I personally always use  

subtitles i don't think it's such a big problem  i know a lot of people really want to stop using  

subtitles when they're watching movies i don't  think it's a problem like as long as you're using  

the subtitles in the same language let's say  you're watching a movie in English so you're  

using subtitles in English i see so many language  learners use subtitles in their native language  

and please don't do that because in this case  what's going to be happening is you're going to  

ignore English absolutely 100% and you're just  going to be reading everything in your native  

language because our brains are lazy they choose  the path of least resistance and in this case it's  

going to be your native language so instead  of developing your listening skills instead  

of learning some interesting phrases and words  and improving your pronunciation you're going  

to be reading text in your native language okay  so finally after mentioning all of the reasons  

why it might be hard for you to understand movies  in English without subtitles I want to share some  

tips with you guys how you can actually train your  ears what you can do to improve your listening  

skills to improve comprehension and actually start  enjoying all of your movie watching experiences  

one technique that a lot of polygots and  language learners often talk about is shadowing  

and uh I am that person who practices shadowing  super regularly something that I hope is going to  

help me improve my accent in Spanish and just my  listening comprehension the way I understand and  

memorize information i'm going to explain super  quickly for those of you guys who might not be  

familiar with this technique the way it works is  you choose a movie or maybe a video or maybe a  

vlog on YouTube where you know you can understand  most of the information that is extremely  

important like don't try to choose something super  complicated something where you don't even like  

the accent and try to practice shadowing while  watching this boring movie pick something fun  

something you like where people speak naturally  where they're having natural conversations and  

play the video sentence by sentence pausing  after each phrase or maybe after each sentence  

depending on how much you can remember and then  you're going to repeat after them you're going  

to copy their intonation their pronunciation  their accent and the idea behind shadowing is  

not to sound a 100% like that person because we  all want to stay authentic we're not trying to  

copy someone so that we become like them no we're  trying to practice shadowing so that we can notice  

more of the language notice some interesting  expressions connected speech practice all of this  

so that later all of this information all of this  knowledge helps you when you start speaking the  

language and talking to people second try to watch  content that you actually enjoy this is something  

that is super important to me if I'm watching a  movie a video anything that I don't like I'm not  

going to pay attention to it i will never forget  how I learned the word loofah in English i only  

heard this word once in a video a vlog by some  American YouTuber and I remembered this word I  

think forever it just happened naturally because I  was watching a video I really liked by a creator I  

really liked because when you're enjoying what  you're doing in language learning the actual  

learning will happen effortlessly and finally use  subtitles wisely again I really want to repeat it  

in this video because so many people think that  using subtitles is somehow cheating it somehow  

means that your English skills are not good enough  guys absolutely not if you want to use subtitles  

when you're watching something in English please  use them just make sure that those subtitles are  

in English as well the simple rule is the language  of the content should be the same as the language  

of your subtitles that's it so guys I think it's  going to be it for today's video if you liked it  

please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and  subscribe to my YouTube channel make sure to  

get your free movie ear training guide all you  need to do is click the link in the description  

and I will send it straight to your inbox if you  guys are looking into creating your own website I  

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my channel I have a lot of videos where I talk  about improving your listening skills and your  

speaking skills but if you want some actionable  tips five things you can do to speak better in  

any language I highly recommend this video right  here just click right here and keep on watching