4 ways to use films and series to improve your English

You’re not learning or practising effectively if you’re watching

series and movies in English with subtitles in your native language.

So what do you need to do to actually make this

a practice and learning activity?

Follow these four steps and you’ll start improving your

English while enjoying your favourite series and movies.

What’s going on, people? It’s great to see you all here once again.

Welcome to Learn English with Cambridge.

This is Vladimir, Vlachy for my friends.

And on today’s video we’re going to learn how to use

series and movies to learn and practise your English.

So make sure you hit that subscribe button, and, action.

We all enjoy spending some time watching our

favourite movie or even binge-watching some series.

But what if, while you do this, you can also learn and practise your English?

But wait, first thing first.

You’re not learning or practising effectively if you’re watching

series and movies in English with subtitles in your native language.

It might get you used to listening to people talking in English,

but as you’re not engaged actively with the activity,

you won’t have any real outcome in the short-term.

This is called passive listening.

So what do you need to do to actually make this

a practice and learning activity?

Follow these four steps, and you’ll start improving your

English while enjoying your favourite series and movies.

Number 1, choose the right genre.

I know genres like fantasy and fiction are really fun to watch,

but when it comes to learning and practising your English,

you should pick something that has language you could actually use on

a daily basis.

So, unless you’re living among warriors and dragons, you should pick something

like a sitcom.

My all-time favourite series to practise English are The Office,

How I Met Your Mother, and of course, a teacher’s favourite, Friends.

What about yours?

Let me know in the comments section, what are your favourite series to

practise your English.

Number 2, choose two or three scenes,

ones you like the most, or ones you find more interesting.

Just make sure you focus on those two or three scenes.

Get something to write on, and play the scene without subtitles.

Play it one more time, but this time, try to write

down the English words you understand.

It doesn’t matter if at first you don’t get any words,

you will get better by practising daily.

Finally, play the scene one more time with subtitles in English.

Check how many words you get and write down the words you still don’t know.

Keep practising with different and more complex scenes,

to learn new vocabulary.

Step number 3 is called shadowing.

The idea between shadowing, it’s really simple.

You listen to some sentences in English, and then you repeat

them along with the actors in the scene.

You listen to some sentences in English, and then you repeat

them along with the actors in the scene.

Shadowing will also get your mouth muscles

moving in the correct way, and improve your pronunciation and articulation.

And the fourth and final step is, translate the subtitles.

Translate the subtitles to your native language and write

down the words you didn’t know.

You can also do this with news programmes, TV shows,

documentaries or interviews.

Just make sure you choose something that you enjoy.

Don’t forget to practise consistently, to reach your goal of improving your

English skills.

But most importantly, don’t forget to have fun

while you’re learning.

And that’s my time for today, guys. Thank you all so much for being here.

Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button, so you

don’t miss out on any video.

And I’ll see you next time. And, cut.