How to Understand TV and Movies Without Subtitles

What's up everyone? Can you understand TV  shows and movies with subtitles in English,  

but find it difficult to understand  them when you turn off the subtitles? 

Don't worry, you're not alone, lots of  people get stuck at this stage. Their  

vocabulary allows them to understand  media through reading subtitles,  

but their listening skills aren't quite there yet. So in this lesson I'm going to be giving you some  

tips and tricks on how to bridge the gap between  your reading and your listening comprehension.

In this lesson first I'm going to share a  method that's going to help you to understand  

your favorite TV shows and movies without  needing subtitles. Then we're going to talk  

about different types of listening and  finally I'm going to share two big ideas  

based on studies that have been done, which are  of great relevance to your goal of watching your  

favorite TV series and movies without subtitles. Because here at Learn English with TV Series we  

help you to learn fast English without  getting lost, without missing the jokes  

and without subtitles. Just like Hazmath,  who says he adores our teaching methodology.  

So be sure to hit that Subscribe button and  the Bell down below so that you don't miss  

any of our new lessons. Now, let's get into it!

Let's start with a simple 3-step method: watch  without-with-without. What this basically means is  

you're going to watch a scene or a clip first of  all without subtitles. This is going to give you  

a general sense of what's going on in the scene:  where it takes place, who the characters are,  

what their emotions are, etc. This alone will  give you a pretty complete understanding of  

what's going on in the scene, even if you're  not actually understanding many of the words.  

On the other hand it will give you an idea of  how much of the scene you actually understand,  

so if when you're doing this for the  first time you understand around 30%  

then by the time you finish trying this method  you might end up understanding around 70%. 

If in the first watch you understood  around 60% of what they were saying  

then by the time you complete this method  you'll probably understand around 90%. 

So now let's move on to the next  step of watching with subtitles.  

This will help you fill in the gaps of what  you didn't understand in the first viewing.  

You might or might not wait to pause to  check some definitions in the dictionary,  

it depends on how you approach the exercise.  By this I mean you could have an 80%  

of enjoying watching the show and 20% of English  practice. In this case you want to simplify the  

process and not interrupt your viewing too much.  If your mindset is to use the clip for practice  

and less so about enjoying the clip, you might be  more motivated to stop it and do some research.  

Agai,n it depends on your goal and style. Finally you'll watch it a third time without  

subtitles, you'll be surprised at how capable your  mind is of capturing the meaning and remembering  

it all from the second viewing so you're going  to understand it a lot better by this point. 

It's important to note that this system is highly  customizable to your goal, needs and style,  

and also your level of understanding. You could  do it in the way that I mentioned earlier:  

watch without subtitles, watch with, and then  watch without subtitles. Or you could 1. watch  

without, 2. watch with native subtitles, 3.  watch with English subtitles, 4. watch without. 

Or watch without, watch with, watch without x2. And finally watch without, watch with dubbed  

version, watch with subtitles and watch without. You can move things around in a way that works  

best for you. You have the choice here, however  if you do choose a more complex system then I  

highly recommend choosing a shorter clip  to make this a little bit more simple. 

If for example you decide to apply this  method to a whole episode of friends  

you'll want to keep it more simple. Do also  keep in mind that if by the end of this you  

don't quite understand 60% don't worry! You  have to have patience and be consistent.

There are different types of listening, and  knowing this information is great because it  

will help you to understand better what you  are doing. Listening for gist is when you  

are listening just to understand more or less the  main idea. This is what gist means: the main idea. 

So if you're watching a TV series, if  you're watching a clip, you don't need to  

understand specific details. You just want  to get an overall idea of what it's about. 

When you're listening for specific information  you actually want to note down specific details,  

for example keywords. After you've become  more familiarized with a particular clip  

you're going to start to understand  more of what the character has said. 

When you listen for detailed understanding  you want to understand everything involved,  

everything that you hear, so this is  mostly irrelevant to watching TV shows.  

You listen for detailed understanding, for example  if a friend is giving you instructions on how to  

get from one place to another, you really have to  focus on the details so that you remember them.  

However if you can't catch a particular  word or phrase for the meaning of the clip  

then you'll probably want to  repeat that part a few times. 

Did you know that Friends is actually known as  one of the best TV series to learn English with?  

This is why if you're struggling to understand  fast speaking natives, our Fluent with Friends  

Course would be perfect for you. In this 48-week  course you'll learn with the first two seasons of  

Friends. You'll receive PDF Power Lessons every  week. Vocabulary memorization software, access  

to our Fluency Circle Global Community and so much  more! And the best part is you can try right now  

for FREE with our 3-Part Masterclass. All you have  to do is click up here or down in the description  

box below to learn more and sign up now. Now let's move on to big idea number one.

Stephen Krashen is an American linguist  that has made many publications in the  

field of second language acquisition. He's most  famous for his theory on Comprehensive Input. 

"And now I'm going to share with you the most  important thing I have learned about language.  

Probably the best kept secret in the profession.  We acquire language in one way and only one way:  

when we understand messages."

This mostly applies to real life situations.  If your teacher makes you scared, you're not  

really going to learn a lot from them. The same  can be said for watching TV shows and movies.  

If you're not really interested in them, then  you're not going to learn from them. You have  

to enjoy watching them. Similarly you're going  to learn more by watching or reading topics of  

interest. This is also related to another big  idea put forward by Krashen: Narrow Listening. 

Narrow Listening is the activity of  listening to audios, or watching videos,  

based on a topic of your interest. If  you're interested in a particular sport,  

a certain artist or an area of science, for  example, you're going to have more knowledge  

of this subject. You're going to know more words  related to that topic, so what you actually listen  

to you'll be able to understand more of.Aand  in Krashen's terms this is Comprehensive Input.

If you're a Friends fan and would love to try  learning English with the series, then I highly  

recommend you check out this playlist where we  have a ton of lessons that you can choose from.  

You can click up here or down in the description  box below to choose your next lesson.

Big idea Nº2 is Zone of Proximal Development. This  idea was introduced by a very influential Russian  

psychologist, Lev Vygotsky. Zone of Proximal  Vevelopment is the gap between problem solving you  

can do on your own and what you can do with the  help of a teacher or a more experienced learner. 

This has a very direct relation to the method of  watching without subtitles, with subtitles and  

then again without subtitles. Let's see why. First you watch the clip without assistance:  

subtitles. This is the problem solving you can do  on your own. Understanding what is said in a clip  

is very much a form of problem solving. Then when  you watch the clip a second time you're not doing  

it with the help of a teacher, you're watching  it with subtitles and that's a very different  

form of assistance. Once having engaged in an  assisted activity, when you finally do it alone  

you're more likely to do it successfully without  help. This is why watching without subtitles,  

with subtitles and without again is so effective.  It fits in with how your brain is wired to learn.

I hope you found this lesson useful and that  it's improved your awareness of how to improve  

your listening comprehensio,n and break free of  subtitles. I'll see you guys soon, take care!