Top Songs, Books, TV Shows and Movies for Learning English

I want to start this English lesson by saying thank you

to everyone who filled in the survey from last week's video.

Over 1500 English learners filled in the survey

and let me know what song they're currently listening to

in English, what book they're reading,

the TV show that they are currently watching,

and about a movie that they've recently watched.

I'm sure though, that you're really curious

to know what the results are.

I've already seen them.

I made some nice graphs to show you.

So in this video, what I'll do is I'll show you

all of the results of the survey from last week,

so that you know about the most popular book,

the most popular song, the most popular TV show,

and the current most popular movie

that people are listening to, reading, or watching

in order to improve their English.

(upbeat music)

Well hello, and welcome to this English lesson

where I'm going to show you the results of the survey

that many of you filled out last week.

Before we get started though,

if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button

and give me a thumbs up if this video helps you

learn just a little bit more English.

Well, it was interesting when I looked at the responses

to the question what your favorite song was

because all of you mentioned your favorite artist

and your favorite song.

So let's look at the top five artists

before we look at the top three songs.

At number five, we have Olivia Rodrigo,

and many of you mentioned her song "Good 4 U,"

kind of an angry song, but it has a good beat,

I really like it.

At number four, we have Lady Gaga.

And many of you mentioned the song "Shallow"

that I think is a duet with Bradley Cooper.

At number three, the third most popular artist,

Justin Bieber, who by the way is Canadian,

and you mentioned a variety of songs from Justin Bieber.

At number two, we had The Weeknd, and most of you mentioned

either "Save Your Tears" or "Blinding Lights."

And at number one, this was no surprise to me,

the number one artist that you chose was Ed Sheeran.

And you mentioned about 11 or 12 different songs

from Ed Sheeran, he is a very popular artist.

But let's look at the most popular songs.

At number three, we had "Shallow" by Lady Gaga,

again, I think a duet with Bradley Cooper,

a very nice song, very, very cool.

At number two, we had "Love Yourself" by Justin Bieber.

This was kind of a surprise to me.

It's not a happy song.

It's probably a great song though

to listen to when you're learning English.

He sings very clearly in the song

and you can understand the words.

At number one, we had "Save Your Tears" by The Weeknd.

This came as no surprise to me.

This was a very clear winner above all of the other songs.

And it was no surprise

because this song is actually quite popular.

It's on the radio all the time.

It's in the top 10, I think, in Canada right now.

It's just a really, really cool song.

So there are your results for top artists and top songs.

I'm sure you're curious to know what the top choice was

for book from the survey that you filled in last week.

And instead of making you wait, I'll just tell you,

because there was a clear winner.

The book that came out on top

is a book called "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho.

This is an author from Brazil, and it doesn't surprise me

that an author from Brazil was the top choice in the survey.

There are many people from Brazil

that watch my YouTube videos,

so maybe they swayed the results a little bit.

This book is a book that I have not read,

and I promise you, I will read it this winter.

It looks very, very interesting.

There was no clear second or third place choice,

but what did show in the results was

that many people read the Harry Potter books,

so that's a series of books,

and many people read the books from Jeff Kinney

called "Diary of a Wimpy Kid."

So the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling,

written for teenagers and young adults,

is a very good series to read if you are learning English,

great books, interesting stories.

And "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" is actually written

for younger children, but there is no shame

in reading kid's books when you are learning a language.

"Diary of a Wimpy Kid,"

my kids read almost all of those books.

Between the age of seven and eight to about age 11 or 13,

they would read those books, and they were very interesting.

They're about a little kid in middle school.

It's just a good little picture,

a humorous picture of American life for kids in school.

So top choice, "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho,

second place-ish would be the Harry Potter series,

and third place-ish would be "Diary of a Wimpy Kid."

When I say ish, it means, you know, sort of,

it's not really a specific book that got second or third,

it's kind of a book in a series,

but those are your top three.

I have to be honest,

the results for top TV show kind of surprised me.

There were a few titles in there that I was expecting,

but there were a few that were a surprise.

At number five, we have a show called "Breaking Bad."

This was a surprise to me.

It's about a high school teacher

who begins to lead a life of crime.

It's an interesting show, I have watched it.

I should warn you though, it's very violent,

and you'll see a lot of criminal activity.

In fourth place is a show called "How I Met Your Mother."

I have not watched this show,

but it's about a guy named Ted, I think,

who lives in New York City, and it's a story about

how he met the person who he eventually married,

so that's kind of how the title came about.

The third most popular show,

I have to check my list, is "The Office."

This did not surprise me.

"The Office" is a very popular English television show.

There's actually two versions, by the way.

There's the original British version

and there's the American version.

The American version is much more popular.

In second place, this surprised me,

was "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

I've watched this show.

It is called a daytime talk show,

and it's hosted by Ellen DeGeneres.

And it's on, I think here it's on around 4:00.

I don't watch it very often, maybe once every few months,

but it's a good show to watch

because you'll see natural English conversations.

And the number one show, this show being chosen number one,

this did not surprise me at all, the top show is "Friends."

"Friends" is a show about a bunch of friends

that live in New York City.

It's actually starting to seem a little bit old.

If you do watch it to learn English,

there's a few things that they say or do

that just aren't common anymore.

But "Friends" was the top show out of all the TV shows

that people mentioned when they filled out the survey.

The top choices for movies were not a surprise to me at all.

They almost mimicked the box office

or the most popular movies of 2021.

At number four, we have "Black Widow,"

starring Scarlett Johansson.

This is a movie from the MCU.

MCU stands for the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It was a pretty cool movie.

I watched it with my kids a couple of months ago.

We really enjoyed it.

The third most popular movie is "No Time to Die,"

the most recent James Bond movie.

No surprise to see that on the list.

At number two was the movie "Free Guy,"

starring Ryan Reynolds.

This, of course, was no surprise either.

I myself just watched this movie a few weeks ago.

It's really good, it was really funny.

The top movie though came as a bit of a surprise.

The top movie is the movie "Dune."

This movie just came out in the last week.

It's a movie based on a book by Frank Herbert called "Dune,"

which I read a long time ago when I was a kid.

I would suggest you do this.

If you haven't watched the movie,

read the book, and then go see the movie.

So in reverse order, once again,

number four, Scarlett Johansson in "Black Widow,"

number three, Daniel Craig in "No Time to Die,"

the most recent James Bond movie,

at number two, Ryan Reynolds in the movie "Free Guy,"

and at number one, a whole bunch of actors,

very, very good actors, in the movie "Dune,"

based on the book by Frank Herbert.

Well hey, thank you so much

for watching this little English lesson

where I gave you the results of last week's survey.

Don't forget that listening to music in English,

reading books in English,

watching TV shows and movies in English

are all really good things to do.

A quick recap, listening to music is awesome

because you can learn all of the lyrics.

You can print out the lyrics, and memorize them,

and then listen to the song hundreds of times.

Reading books are awesome

because you can read fast, you can read slow,

and you can learn a lot of new vocabulary.

Watching TV shows, awesome because you can hear

the same people speak episode after episode,

and you can really train your ear to understand them.

And then movies are just awesome

because you kind of forget about life for a while

and you immerse yourself in what's happening.

So do take the time

to do all four of those things regularly.

It will really, really help you.

Thanks again for watching.

Remember, if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button

and give me a thumbs up if this video helped you

learn a little bit of English.

And if you have the time,

why don't you stick around and watch another English lesson?

(upbeat music)