Why you CAN’T understand TV and movies without subtitles (and how to fix that)

let's talk about a problem we all experience  when we try to watch TV in a foreign language  

we don't understand what we hear it's probably  one of the biggest things I struggled with when  

I first started learning English I would turn on a  show in English I would start watching it but then  

the problem was I could not recognize the words  the words the actors were saying without turning  

on the subtitles and for me at that time it was a  big problem because I thought that I was supposed  

to understand every single movie every single  TV show without any subtitles because I had an  

opinion that using subtitles was a bad thing now  I really think that subtitles can help you improve  

your listening skills at least they really helped  me they really helped me start understanding more  

words in English and I'm using the same approach  right now while learning Spanish so this video  

will be a reflection of my personal experience  all the shows and movies that I watched and all  

the different things that helped me improve my  listening skills and my listening comprehension  

so why was it so hard for me at the very beginning  to understand TV and movies in English and why is  

it hard for you guys so I have discovered that  the one thing that I struggle with the most is  

the speed and pronunciation because native  speakers talk extremely fast and when you're  

just learning the language especially when you  have just started learning this language it's  

really hard for you because they're talking so  fast and you have no idea what they're saying  

they're blending all the words together you  have no idea what's going on and obviously as  

a language learner you just feel very confused  native speakers and movies and TV shows often  

speak at a natural conversational pace which is  usually significantly faster than what we're used  

to this rapid Pace can make it difficult for us  language Learners to catch individual phrases or  

maybe words and understand different new nuances  and pronunciation so how did I fix this problem  

what did I do when I was watching a show and I  couldn't understand anything because the actors  

there were speaking too fast well in reality I  just stopped watching that show because at the  

very beginning I understood that I was not going  to be able to understand everything and especially  

I was not going to be able to understand native  speakers as easily so what I did was I just went  

to YouTube and instead at the very beginning  I just watched a lot of educational YouTube  

videos obviously they also by native speakers  or by people who have a very good level in this  

language but for me it was important to watch  something more so educational maybe like a story  

like a person is telling you a story but then they  share all the vocabulary they maybe explain like a  

grammar Rule and this way I was actually learning  because when I was watching shows and movies I was  

realizing that the level was a little bit too  high for me so I think it's also important to  

understand that sometimes you will probably have  to stop watching something just because it's a  

little bit too hard but it doesn't mean that you  will never be able to watch this show no you can  

make this your goal for example right now my  goal is to read a whole book in Spanish like  

a book for adults in Spanish and I know that  my level is maybe not that high to be able to  

accomplish this goal right now but I know that one  day I will do it and for me to be able to do it I  

have established a system of oh let me read this  short articles for non-native speakers or let me  

read this book which is a lot easier for me and I  can understand it a lot better and basically this  

way I built out this system for myself a system of  just watching YouTube videos watching educational  

content on YouTube in this language and then  slowly but surely I was increasing my vocabulary I  

was watching more and more complicated videos and  then one day I was like you know what I think I'm  

ready to watch friends because believe it or not  guys but friends is actually a hard show I feel  

like a lot of people always recommend friends as  like the first TV show you should watch in English  

but I think it's pretty challenging at least this  was my experience at the very beginning you know  

all the actors there were speaking extremely fast  for me they were using a lot of slang and I was  

just like what is going on yeah and that's why  I decided to pause for a second and just go to  

YouTube and continue watching educational videos  so now we're slowly moving on to the second reason  

why it was hard for me to understand shows or  movies in English it's because usually actors  

there use a lot of idioms and slang and it's  not something that you're gonna learn super fast  

TV shows and movies often incorporate different  idioms and slang that you're honestly not taught  

in your traditional language class and they can  be pretty perplexing for many language Learners  

because sometimes we'll look at this expression  we're like What does it mean you know I have no  

idea I need to Google it I need to memorize it  and only later I will be able to actually use  

it myself and it's totally okay I just want to let  you know that this is something that I experienced  

too in the past and obviously right now my English  is a lot better I know a lot of Expressions a lot  

of idioms in English so you can do the same thing  I feel like now I'm struggling with this problem  

a lot in Spanish because my level in Spanish is  not that high yet and so every time somebody is  

using an expression I'm like what does it mean  oh my God it's another idiom or you know it's  

like slaying and I'm like no it's too hard I  don't understand can you please not use slang  

but in reality they can't like that's the truth  about how native speakers speak the language they  

always use slang they always use idioms and for  us language Learners the difficulty is knowing  

which idioms are actually useful and which slang  to actually learn so how did I fix this problem  

first of all every time I was watching a show in  English I made sure I used subtitles subtitles  

in English for example if I was watching something  in English I used English subtitles right now when  

I'm watching something in Spanish I use Spanish  subtitles my experience when it comes to using  

subtitles is that they helped me a lot because  this way I could see all of those expressions  

and idioms I wanted to learn later on so I will  be watching a show and then I would see a phrasal  

verb in English for example I would pause I would  make sure I understood the meaning of this phrasal  

verb if I didn't I would Google what it meant and  then maybe I would create a flash card for myself  

to later memorize this phrase over because at  the end of the day if this is something that you  

actually need and this is something that native  speakers regularly use if you consume content  

in this language you will come across this word  time and time again but obviously providing the  

fact that you actually consume a lot of content  in this language because oftentimes we get lazy  

we get busy and we practice languages only once  a week which is definitely not enough and when it  

comes to tackling the challenges of understanding  TV shows and movies in foreign languages there's  

one platform that helped me so much and I am still  an active user of this platform it is called lingo  

pie it is designed specifically for language  Learners who want to watch movies and TV shows  

and improve their language skills this way with  lingo Pi you're not just learning you're delving  

into the heart of real native conversations  slaying Street language and popular culture  

on their platform you have the chance to learn  Spanish French Italian German Portuguese Russian  

Korean and Japanese their content is extremely  interesting and includes various genres from  

Comedy to romance mystery to drama and everything  in between but what I love about lingo pie the  

most is their interactive features the show  I'm currently watching a lingo pie is called  

special Mexican food tour and I love it a lot  you can watch your favorite show with interactive  

subtitles that provide instant translations with  a mere click on unfamiliar words and what's even  

better is that they're built-in flashcards and  auto-generated quizzes help me internalize what  

I've learned it's like turning into language  learning into a game reinforcing vocabulary and  

phrases as effortlessly I always tell you guys  how flash cards have changed my life and that's  

also why I love lingo pie because if I don't  know a word I can just click on it and I can  

create a flash card and I can review all of these  flashcards after I finish watching an episode of  

my favorite show so lingo pie can really help you  save a lot of time and effort and only for you  

guys lingo pie is offering a seven day free trial  with an exclusive 55 discount for a limited time  

just follow the link in my description and watch  shows and movies with the help of lingo pie the  

next thing I struggle with is the fact that when  you're watching a show there are usually people  

who have a lot of different accents and dialects  and for a language learner it's kind of hard to  

understand all the differences and all the words  we all know that many languages have multiple  

Regional accents and dialects and it makes it  harder to comprehend the spoken language even  

native speakers can struggle with understanding  unfamiliar accents so guys as language Learners  

we just have to relax breathe out and I feel  like a lot of people are just way too harsh  

on themselves yes you don't understand this accent  and now what it's not the end of the world you can  

always practice it can always improve and yeah and  then you'll be able to understand this accent so  

how did I fix this problem to be completely honest  what I actually did from the very beginning is I  

only focused on one accent I feel like it's not  something that a lot of people recommend usually  

people always tell you try to surround yourself  with a lot of different accents and dialects and  

everything but for me I'm a language learner and  I feel like I just feel overwhelmed especially  

at the very beginning when my level is not too  high yet for example it's something that I'm  

experiencing with Spanish right now if I were to  follow this advice of you know surrounding myself  

with a lot of different accents and dialects I  would probably quit because I would realize the  

Spanish is way too complicated but that that's not  my goal I don't want to quit so I decided to only  

focus on Mexican Spanish for now because I live in  Mexico and that's my priority because in truth the  

more you practice the language you know the higher  your level gets the more confident you will feel  

you will feel like you're ready to expose yourself  to a different accent and try something new but  

not at the very beginning just you know relax  a little bit stick to one accent with English  

what I did is I decided to stick to the American  English I decided to master the pronunciation I  

mean I'm still trying to do it even to this very  day because I'm not a native speaker but anyway  

I focused on the American accent because it's  something that I wanted to work on I started  

watching a lot of movies and shows where people  only spoke with American English because that was  

my focus and then after I started speaking better  after I improved my listening skills I was like  

you know what I think it's time for me to listen  to British English right now and then a whole  

new level of difficulty began but I was ready  for it and that's the most important thing the  

next difficulty was movies and shows is cultural  context and references movies and TV shows often  

include cultural references that are very specific  to the country or even region where this content  

was produced and obviously as language Learners  we're often not familiar with this region or a  

country because we just didn't grow up there and  because of that we might miss out on a lot of  

jokes and puns and cultural references in reality  it's actually pretty hard to fix this issue  

because basically fixing this whole problem would  mean that you have to learn everything about this  

culture and it's quite difficult to do if again  your parents are not from this country you were  

not raised in that country you never traveled to  that country before you never lived there before  

but it's possible the first time I traveled to an  English-speaking country I was 20 years old and by  

that age I could already speak English pretty well  and I knew some things about you know the American  

culture for example obviously I was not like super  Advanced I didn't know everything but I knew some  

things so how did I learn those things first of  all I was watching all the shows that Americans  

were talking about at that very moment if I saw  online that this show is very popular in the Alexa  

stop if I saw online that this show was very  popular in the United States for example I was  

like I have to watch it I have to figure out  what the show is about I have to familiarize  

myself with you know the show and the content of  the show because to be honest what really shapes  

the culture is a lot of things it's the history  of this country it's you know it's like cultural  

things like music and books and movies and you  can't like learn everything but you can kind of  

give yourself this goal of focusing on one thing  at a time so first I was like okay I want to watch  

this show and then it was like oh I want to watch  this movie because it's a classic and then it was  

like oh maybe I should listen to these songs at  least for a little bit because I know that they  

are extremely popular among Americans but I think  what really helped me here is just realizing that  

I'm a person from a different culture and it's  absolutely okay there are going to be jokes that  

I am not going to be able to understand and it's  okay but I will learn all of those things and my  

language skills will become better and on this  note I would like to wrap up this YouTube video  

thank you guys so much for watching don't forget  that if you like watching movies and shows and  

for languages you absolutely have to give lingo  pie a try it's an amazing platform and I use it  

almost every single day to study Spanish right  now remember they have a lot of languages there  

so make sure to click the link below and check  them out if you like this video don't forget  

to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my  channel and I'll see you guys in my next video