How I Learn 1000s New WORDS in English Watching MOVIES and SERIES

Today we're talking all about TV series. I was  just actually thinking about this yesterday. I'm  

rewatching Dragon Ball Z in Catalan - Bola de Drac  Z, but sometimes there's like really nice lines  

in it, and I like to repeat it and, and kinda  like play around with it. Like, uh, there's one,  

for example, now it's in the, the part with, with  Boo. So he says like, <speaking Catalan>. And so  

it's like really nice to repeat some of these  epic lines from Dragon Ball. So I thought that,  

you know, it's perfect that today we're  doing a podcast talking all about you're  

really like the master, I think of,  uh, referring to lines that you still  

remember from when, back in the day when you  were maybe more of an intermediate learner,  

right? With different series, Two and a Half  Men, for example. So, uh, I'm really excited  

today to be able to pick your brain and  learn some of your, some of your secrets. 

Nice expression, by the way. What does  that mean to pick someone's brain? 

To pick someone's brain, it means you want to talk  to them and learn the knowledge that they have.  

So, anytime, I guess any, someone that has more of  a, more knowledge and a skill that you don't have,  

you know, maybe you have a friend who is really in  shape, like they're really strong and you want to  

pick their brain about what are the things  that they, what kind of diet do they have,  

what are the different routines that they  do at the gym and so on. And of course,  

Thiago being an incredible English learner, no one  better to pick their brain on how, how, how did  

you do it? And we've done a few of these lessons,  right? Uh, people should definitely check out the,  

actually the first lesson that you ever did  on the RealLife English YouTube channel, where  

you talked about your whole journey. But today  we're kind of zooming in because we had a lot of  

requests of people asking, you know, you used TV  series, right, to learn English. So people were  

asking - Thiago, how did you do that? I thought  though, even before we get into talking about the  

specific method, maybe you could just share a bit  about what was the, the mindset that helped you to  

be successful doing this. Because I think a lot of  where a lot of learners tend to sort of fall down  

where they tend to, uh, fail is because they're  just getting frustrated with themselves. You know,  

they're watching a TV series, maybe they try  to take off the subtitles, they, they get  

completely lost, and so they just give up. And  that obviously isn't what happened to you, right? 

When it comes to using movies and TV series to  improve my English, I always had the mindset of,  

uh, consistency and quality rather than  quantity. Meaning that I would focus on  

just watching sometimes a 20 minute episode  of a sitcom or even a 5 or 10 minute clip. Uh,  

so it was small bits, but I did that frequently.  Uh, I tried to do it daily back then,  

and also the mindset was every time I sat down to  deliberately work with a movie or TV show clip,  

my mindset was, I gotta learn, I gotta extract  at least one thing from this. I gotta learn one  

thing, at least, you know, a new word or a  new way, or how to pronounce something that  

I didn't know how to pronounce before, or a  new way of saying something in this or that  

situation. I gotta extract something. So that  was my mindset, always extracting at least one  

thing from that clip that I was working with. And,  being realistic, that's why it's important for you  

to be consistent, because it's better for you to  do it every day and just focus on one thing that  

you learn per day than maybe trying to memorize  10 words, uh, in one sitting, or 20 words in  

onesitting. That's not realistic. And you, you're  just setting yourself up for disappointment. Yeah. 

Yeah. You said an interesting word there. You,  your goal was to extract at least one new thing,  

one new piece of information. What  does it mean to extract something? 

To get out from,to, yeah. It's like a takeaway,  I like to call it too. Uh, you watch something  

and then you go, what is the takeaway from  this? What do I take with me in my life,  

in my English? What do I take? Yeah. What  do I, uh, extract or get from, you know? 

Exactly. Well, we have a lot of takeaways for  listeners today, and, uh, I love what you were  

saying just about setting the bar really low  for yourself. That's something we've talked  

about a lot before, right, is not trying to be  like, oh, I need to learn 10 new words from this  

series I'm watching. It's like, lower the bar,  you know, at first, like, learn one new word,  

two new words, or just focus on learning an  interesting way that they pronounce something,  

some connected speech, or something along those  lines. And the other reason we're talking about  

series too is because as you said, it's something  that you could do every day. It's fun, natural,  

convenient, as we say in the RealLife  Way, our method for learning English,  

it's something that's fun, natural, convenient,  and that you can do every single day. So if you're  

able to find things like this, things that you're  really passionate about, it just makes the journey  

so much easier than if your, if your goal is to  study out of a book, out of a grammar book, maybe  

if you really love grammar, then that's, that  can work great for you. But for a lot of people,  

that's the first thing they go to, right?  Because it's, it's what they did back in school,  

and they might fall down because it doesn't  have for them that aspect of being fun, natural,  

and convenient. So I'm really curious to hear  about the actual steps of this method. But first,  

I wanted to let learners know that if they're  looking for a way to make their English more fun,  

natural, and convenient, you should definitely  check out the RealLife English app, because,  

you know, with this podcast, uh, you can listen to  the full episodes with a interactive transcript,  

and we pick out, you know, the most difficult  vocabulary for you. We use vocabulary memorization  

software that you can, you know, use every  single day so that you never forget the new  

words that you're learning. And it really makes  the things you can extract outta those podcasts,  

you can extract so much more, get so many more  takeaways than you are by just watching the video  

or just listening on a normal podcast player.  So highly recommend you check that out. We'll  

link it in the description of the podcast  episode or in the description on YouTube.  

And so let's go for it, Thiago. Let us, let us,  (Alright) let us in on your big secrets about. 

So, yeah. Uh, this is my personal method for  working with movies and TV series, and while it is  

simple, I found it quite effective. It's a series  of steps and, uh, let me introduce step one.  

First of all, I have an idea already of what the  context is, what the situation is about. And you  

can do that in one line, just a one-line sentence  to tell yourself what that clip is about. Just to  

give an example. You start watching it, and then  you, you tell yourself, or you realize that, okay,  

in this clip, a lawyer is defending three  young people who did something wrong.  

You see, it's a one-line sentence that describes  the situation that contextualizes, it already,  

sets the scene. Or in this clip, uh,  there are six friends at their coffee  

shop talking about their job. You know. I wonder what series that could be. 

What could that be? So, yeah, that's important  to do. So you can do that as you watch the  

clip. Yeah. For me, nowadays it's, it kind of  happens even intuitively. I don't even think  

about it anymore, but I kind of, I know what  the situation is, but if you are new at this,  

maybe you can even watch the clip first, you  know, uh, 15 or 30-second clip, and then stop,  

and then tell yourself, okay, what is the one  liner here? What is this about? Yeah. Why is  

that important? Because it's important that you  understand the situation first from the get-go,  

because if you don't, you tend to panic more.  I, I find that learners sometimes, they,  

they tend to focus right away on the language that  is actually being shown to them in the subtitles,  

on the words. And the minute they see something  that they don't, they don't understand,  

they start panicking and then, oh my  God, no, I don't understand anything. Uh,  

this is not for me. So first you wanna watch  the scene from above, as I like to call it,  

like, uh, you are looking at a forest to see  the big picture first. Okay, what is this about? 

I think that makes perfect sense. And even, it  might not always be that it's really obvious,  

like in a courtroom or even in a coffee shop or  something, but there's a lot of other cues too  

that you can look for to try to get that context.  Like maybe if you watch it first, it's really fast  

and you couldn't pick up any, anything at all,  let's say. But there's a lot of environmental  

cues. So you can pay attention to the, the  characters in the scene's faces. You know,  

are they, are they angry? Are they happy?  Are they excited? Are they sad? You know,  

what's kind of going on there? Or you could look  around the environment, the surroundings and  

stuff. Like where are they? Are they in a big  city? Are they in a small town? Are they in a  

farm? Are they up in space? And so on. And I think  all these little things can help you to already  

gather a lot of information that even just taking,  it's probably like a 2-second thing. You can even  

once you get used to doing it, right, it could  even just take a couple seconds, and then you're  

already a lot more prepared to, you've got the  context, so then you can understand the details  

a lot better when you actually get into trying to  better understand the language that's being used  

there. So how about step two? Let's keep it going. Oh yeah, let's keep it going. So step two, for me,  

would be actually learning the pronunciation  first, focusing, focusing on the sounds first.  

It's important that when you watch a short clip,  you deliberately select maybe some words that you  

wanna focus on, or even some sentences that  you wanna focus on. It could be words that  

you don't know, and you're gonna have to check  the meaning later. Or it could be things that  

you know already, but you just wanna practice.  Let's say you see a nice phrase and you wanna  

focus on that phrase, at, on that sentence, focus  on the sound first. So play back a little bit, you  

know, uh, listen, repeat, play that line a couple  times, repeat with the, with the series, or with  

the movie, with the clip, because you know, it's  important that you get your mouth around it first.  

Yeah. Because it's one thing for you to read the  sentence to yourself, you know, like silently in  

your mind. It's another thing when you actually  have to speak it out loud, you know? So get your  

mouth around the word or the phrase first,  physically practice articulating those sounds  

and making those sounds with your face, with your  mouth to know how it feels also. How does it feel  

when I repeat, repeat it like that, and trying to  copy the way you hear it. Imagine you are watching  

a clip and you see the question, What is going  on here? What is going on here? But you realize  

that the actor is frustrated and he goes, What is  going on here? Imitate that. Not just the sound,  

but the feeling. You know, imagine you are  the actor - What is going on here? You know.  

So get your mouth around it first, the feel of,  uh, the word or the phrase you're focusing on. 

And even if it's really difficult for you, like  there's, maybe there's a lot of th's in there,  

or a lot of schwa sounds or, you know, choose your  flavor of, uh, pronunciation in English. That's  

hard for you because it doesn't exist in your  native language. There's a lot of those who you,  

you even have trouble articulating them. You could  even start out by humming it, for example. So,  

uh, Thiago gave the example, right, of "What is  going on here?" You could just try humming that,  

like, hmm. Like really capturing that music of the  language, because how exactly you might articulate  

that same phrase in your native language, in  a frustrated way, the, the emphasis might fall  

on different parts of the phrase, right? So if  you can even just start listening when you're  

listening to a podcast or you're watching a TV  series just kind of humming along with that,  

kind of capturing the musicality of it, you're  going to tune your ear to how those sounds are  

produced in English. And even that's going to help  a lot, even before getting into the technicalities  

of the pronunciation of individual sounds. So  that's something I recommend that, uh, people  

give a go. And I also really liked what you were  saying because, uh, it just reminded me of this  

clip I just saw of Ana de Armas who's from, she's  a, uh, Oscar nominated actress from Cuba. And she  

was talking about, it was, it was on Saturday  Night Live, and she's talking about basically  

how she got into acting. She, she was living in  the States. She said she actually learned English  

with Friends, which I thought was, was amazing. I was born in Cuba, came to America when I was,  

when I was 26, and I learned  English the way everyone who  

comes to this country does - by watching Friends. And she was taking some classes about acting in  

the United States. And they're practicing lines,  and one of the lines she had to say that she'd  

never heard before is, I beg your pardon. And so  she said that what got her into trouble is she was  

looking at the individual words in that phrase,  and she's like, oh, okay, so it's something I'm  

begging for something, I'm begging for pardon.  Like, literally, can you please, please, please,  

please. But it doesn't, it doesn't mean that as  a phrase, right? So she went into at the scene,  

she's like, I beg your pardon. Which  wasn't at all how it's supposed to be said. 

And there was this line, I beg your pardon,  but I had never seen or heard that phrase,  

so I thought this character was literally begging.  So when I did the line, I said, I beg your  

pardon. Give it to me. So, uh, it's kinda like sometimes paying attention  

to the individual words can get you into trouble,  right? You'll understand the wrong thing. And in  

case people don't know, I beg your pardon, just  means that you didn't understand something. So it  

should just be said like - I beg your pardon? Uh huh. With that tone of question, right?  

Like, Mm, (Exactly) could you say that again? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you can,  

you can see, I mean, just like saying that in two  different ways. It gives like a very different  

sort of, a very different sort of meaning to  it. All right. How about step number three? 

The third step would actually be the vocabulary.  So that's the part when you actually focus on the  

words you wanna learn from that clip. So if you  don't know a word, you know, you can take notes  

and you can choose, you can choose to look up  the meaning right away. As you are watching it,  

you stop to check it, or you can maybe just  take notes to check it later. Yeah. In my case,  

I, I preferred to do it while I was watching  because it was a study time for me, you know,  

it was study time, so I was doing that already.  Yeah. But maybe you are watching something not  

for studying, per se. You are just having fun,  and then you see a nice word that you find  

interesting. You don't have to stop to check then,  just take notes and then you can check it later.  

But if you are applying this method, now that  we are explaining with the intent of studying,  

I would recommend actually, you know, looking  up the word then. Yeah. Um, because no,  

you are studying with it, with the clip. Uh, and  I would say also just focus on checking the words  

that catch your attention the most. Don't  obsess over understanding every single word  

of the scene. Yeah. Otherwise, it's just too  overwhelming for you. So focus on the ones  

that you like, that you find interesting.  Maybe two or three here, and that's enough. 

Yeah, I would, I would have to take the other side  there though. I, at least for myself, I prefer  

when I'm watching something, it, it, obviously,  it depends to what level you have in the language,  

but I prefer when I'm watching something to watch  it and to, to enjoy it. But to have, you know,  

maybe a, a notepad on my phone or piece of paper  handy for people who prefer old fashioned and note  

down the words and then have a separate study  time where I, you know, look up these words,  

I learn the definitions of them, and then I would  put them in a spaced repetition software, which is  

one of the things we have on the RealLife app.  But if you're not using that, then you can use  

a tool like Anki - was one I used to use. Or if  you're on iPhone, the, for some reason Anki app is  

very expensive, so you might use like Memrise or  Flashcards Deluxe, or another app like this. But,  

uh, that the spaced repetition software is what  helps you to, uh, never forget these new words  

that you're learning. So that can be a really  life-saving tool. And that combination of first  

watching, kind of enjoying and stuff. And then  later for me, having my more official study time  

was something that worked really well for me. So I  think for each person they have to see what level  

they're at. And you know, maybe you're at a level  where you can't actually sit and enjoy the scene  

without looking up some of those words, right? Yeah. That is an approach that definitely works  

also. Uh, I tend to recommend looking up the  meaning of the words as you are watching the  

clip though, because, uh, many words in English,  they have multiple meanings. And sometimes if you  

leave it to check it later, you might forget the  context in which you saw that word. And then you  

might just roll with the first, meaning you check,  you know, uh, the cool thing about doing it as you  

are watching it, is that, you know, you can see  exactly the meaning that applies to that scene,  

because that happened to me sometimes, you know, I  was watching something, then I stopped, and then I  

checked the meaning of the word, and then I saw  that the first meaning the dictionary gave me,  

didn't really match with what was happening  in the scene. And then I kept reading the  

definitions. And then the third meaning actually  was the one that was more related to this. And ah,  

okay, so this word has this other usage as  well, you know, so because of that, but,  

you know, provided that you don't forget the  context in which you saw, maybe you can even  

take notes on a notepad or iPhone or phone, uh,  of the situation. yeah, to check it later. It's  

fine. Yeah. Like, oh, uh, this word here,  I wanna check later. And the situation was:  

this guy was eating something at the restaurant. Yeah. I would even write down when I was, you  

know, studying more, more serious, more seriously,  uh, I would write down even the whole phrase,  

and I would put that in the spaced repetition  software, (That's perfect) because then it, at  

least for me, it was like a trigger, right? That  I could attach this word to what was happening in  

that scene. And then anytime I need to recall  this word, I would just think of that series,  

that scene, and it would, it would come back  to me. And with what you're saying too, another  

great example of that is if it's an expression  or colocation, like what I was saying before with  

Beg your pardon, or before when I was disagreeing  with you, I could have also said, I beg to differ,  

which is an expression that means I, I have  a different opinion than you do, right? So  

if you just see that and you know the word 'beg'  already, and you see 'I beg to differ', you might,  

you know, not understand that unless you are  actually, uh, aware of that entire expression,  

right? You might be like a, I beg, I beg to  differ. Like what does, what does that mean? 

You know, just the parenthesis is there. I  gotta mention something about this, because,  

you know, imagine, I, I, I don't know that  expression that you just used, I beg to  

differ. My first instinct would be, okay, maybe  focusing on the, on the individual words. Beg,  

I know beg - great. differ, I don't know the  meaning. Let me check. And then I check the  

meaning of differ. But then putting it together  was like, that doesn't make sense. Beg differ. So  

that for me would work as a clue, as a hint  that, oh, this is probably an expression,  

you know? So when you try to put the, the words  together like that, and it doesn't make sense,  

very likely it's an idiom or an expression.  And then it's very simple nowadays, you can  

just go to Google "Beg your pardon - meaning".  Exactly. You type it, type in like that - "Beg  

your pardon meaning", and then you have the  definition. Oh, yes, it's an expression. Okay. 

Or just have chat ChatGPT open while you're  watching, your (Exactly) favorite series. 

Nowadays ChatGPT. Yeah. Okay, I think we only have  

a couple more steps, right? What's step four? Yeah. Uh, the next step would be, uh, analyzing  

the context more deeply. Remember the first  step was already looking at the context. What  

is the situation in the clip? Now you are even  more deliberate with that. Like, really analyze  

the context and situation, that word or that  expression you're focusing on is being used. So  

you can ask yourself some questions like, what's  happening here? Who's talking? Who speaks this  

phrase? Uh, how are the people feeling?  Why does this character say this phrase  

to that character? Yeah. So you, you spend some  time. Yeah. Uh, just thinking about that, like,  

you know, uh, understanding why that word  or that phrase was used in that situation. 

This is really interesting, it made me think of,  uh, actually imagine you're watching Friends and  

the character Chandler, he's, well, a lot of them  make jokes, but especially Chandler is always  

joking, right? Always being very sarcastic.  So, you know, in that that case, for example,  

that might be a place where you really have  to use your skills of deduction to figure out,  

because the literal meaning isn't going to make  sense. And usually it's like play on words, right?  

So you need to know, for example, two meanings  of the same word and kinda like figure out  

what was the humor there? And actually these old  series, so people criticize those laugh tracks,  

but if you're learning the language, those can  be helpful. Because if they're laughing a lot  

and you don't know what was funny, then it's  like, okay, there's something there I missed.  

Like, let me pull this apart a little bit. Exactly. Yeah. Uh, I like what you said about,  

uh, Chandler, you know, he's a sarcastic  character, so it's also important to focus  

on that, uh, when analyzing the context. Ideally,  you are watching a movie or TV show that you like,  

yeah, that you, you know, maybe you have already  seen it, but now you are using it to study  

English, so you probably know the characters.  Think, so think about that. Oh, is this  

character usually more serious or more, I dunno,  flamboyant or more sarcastic, like Chandler. Yeah. 

What does flamboyant mean? Uh, I like to, maybe extravagant.  

Like (Extravagant) extravagant, yeah.  Like full of colors and expensive. 

A big personality, right? Can you say that again? 

It's a big personality, right? Big personality. Yeah, extravagant. Yeah. 

All right. And what's the last step? If I'm  not mistaken, step five is the final step. 

And the last step is about contextualizing it  and making it relevant for yourself. In my case,  

I always like to imagine a real situation that  could happen in my life that would allow me to  

use that word or phrase I'm learning with the  clip. So just play with your imagination. Like,  

oh, imagine I'm going to the mall and then I  meet this person there, and then I can say this  

phrase to that person, orI am working, and then  like, I don't know how to do something. I can ask  

my coworker using this phrase. You know so,  uh, creating different scenarios that could  

potentially happen in your life for you to  use, uh, the new language you're learning. 

I believe I heard you mention too, even imagining  different situations that you could use it. So  

I dunno, let's go back to, I beg your pardon,  for example, that you could say it in a rather  

neutral way, right? Like, if you didn't understand  something, you could say, Oh, I beg your pardon?  

Uh, but you could also say it like, if someone  said something that you found maybe offensive  

or you found shocking, you know, you  could say, I beg your pardon? And like,  

kind of playing with these different, these  different emotions, right? These different  

ways that you can use it and everything that helps  you to, to gain more of an advanced use of, of the  

expression or the word or, or so on, right? Yeah, exactly. This is very powerful because,  

uh, why do we learn languages? To communicate.  And when we communicate, we wanna communicate our  

feelings, and we humans, we have many feelings. So  you can actually ask yourself, uh, how would I say  

this phrase if I were frustrated? How would I say  this phrase if I were angry, or if I were tired,  

or if I were extremely happy over the moon? So,  yeah, playing with different emotions is also  

a way of making it more concrete for yourself. All right. So people are probably listening to  

this. There were like five steps  there, right? It sounds maybe,  

it sounds like a lot to some people. So do you  have to spend like an hour every day doing this? 

No, no. I mean, the beautiful thing about this is  that it's super simple and you can do it with an  

hour if you have the time or just five minutes. It  sounds like a lot now that we are explaining it,  

but actually the practicality of it,  uh, the way you apply it is actually  

quite quick. Things happen quite quickly. All  these steps, they kind of happen sometimes  

even simultaneously as we're watching a  clip, we are just breaking it down here,  

dissecting it for you guys. But this is something  you can do for five minutes or one hour. Really. 

Amazing. So Thiago. I think we all want to  see you put your money where your mouth is. 

What does that mean, by the way? Oh yeah. So if you put your money  

where your mouth is, that's basically, if someone  is telling you, oh, I can do this amazing thing,  

then you might say, oh, yeah, like, put your  money where your mouth is. Show me! Show me  

that you can dothat thing. So (Okay.) now I think  everyone's itching for you to put your money where  

your mouth is to actually show us, you know,  in practice, how does this work? How does this,  

this method work? So we have today a clip from  Wednesday, which is I think, uh, you know,  

one of the most popular series that's come  out so far in 2023. So we thought it would  

be a good one to use. And it has like, pretty  good, uh, standard American English, right? 

It does, yeah. You recently did another lesson. It's  

actually one of our most popular lessons on Learn  English with TV Series. So if people are a fan of  

the show and they want a full lesson with that,  then you can check that out in the description,  

uh, of this podcast or in the description on  YouTube. Uh, do you want to give some context  

for the first clip or should we just roll it? Yeah. I just wanna say that, you know,  

I'm gonna approach the clip now, uh, imagining  that, uh, I'm learning actually, you know,  

I just like I used to do in the past. Yeah. So  imagining that maybe I, I wouldn't understand  

some things, what would I do? Yeah. So this is  what I would do if I had this clip here now in  

front of me. Yeah. So maybe we can watch the  clip first. Yeah. And even for the listeners,  

I can give the context later because, you know,  remember one of the steps is analyzing in the  

context, right? So, uh, don't worry guys, you,  you will know what it is, what it is about. 

You should know I'm waiting for  someone. Oh yeah. Who's the lucky guy  

or girl? What does it matter to you?  Didn't mean to interrupt. You're not. 

Okay, cool. So here in the situation, we can  see a boy and Wednesday, the main character,  

the female protagonist. And, there seems to be a  little tension between them because, you know, uh,  

if you know the show, the show is about teenagers  or pre-teenagers, you know, going to a special  

school for kids who have powers, uh, and who  are considered outcasts. Yeah. So, you know,  

there seems love interests - that's a common theme  in this kind of series. So there seems to be some  

tension between this first boy that spoke and  Wednesday. And, that's why she says, What does  

it matter to you? Because you know, he's, uh,  actually asking her, Oh, who is the lucky person  

who that you're waiting for? Yeah. Who's the  lucky guyor girl and, oh, what does it matter  

to you? So I can understand that this question  that she asks, she doesn't wanna answer him.  

She maybe thinks that he's being invasive. Yeah.  Now, the pronunciation here is interesting.  

Um, I would actually listen to that clip again and  focus on that question. But just to make it short  

here, imagine after a couple of times I will  get it down. Like, What does it matter to you?  

What does it matter to you? Uh, Ethan,  could you explain the connected speech  

in this question? What does it matter to you? So we have what there has a glottal T the end.  

So it's like what - uh, uh, uh, uh, as if you're  cutting it off at the back of your throat. And  

then we have What does, what does, we have  a flap D there, right - duh, duh, duh. What  

does it? And then the Does also links to It. What  does it? Uh, another glottal T at the end of It,  

right? What does it matter? Matter -  we have an American T - that matter,  

matter. So it's not matter, it's matter  to you, right? What does it matter to you? 

Awesome. So, uh, I wouldn't have to  check this question because, you know,  

looking at the context, I understand that she  doesn't wanna answer him. So I, now I can go to  

step five already. I can imagine myself using that  phrasing, real situations. Imagine somebody asked  

me about how much money I make, you know. Hey, how  much isyour salary? I could say, Hey, what does it  

matter to you? What does it matter to you? Why  do you wanna know? Yeah. So this is one example. 

I beg your pardon? I beg your pardon? With a second tone,  

right? Like, what? Excuse me. And then the  second phrase that I found interesting in this  

clip is "Didn't mean to interrupt", because  there is this first boy, there is Wednesday,  

and then this third boy comes in. Yeah, the,  the, the boy who Wednesday was waiting for.  

And thenhe says, Didn't mean to interrupt. So  looking at the context, you can understand that  

he walked in the situation and it felt like he was  interrupting the conversation or interaction that  

the first boy was having with Wednesday. That's  why he says, oh, didn't mean to interrupt. So  

sometimes looking just at the context is already  enough for you to understand what the phrase is.  

And, uh, this phrase here is also spoken with  some very nice connected speech, right, Ethan? 

And I, I was gonna comment on there too, that you  could pay attention even if you didn't understand  

the individual words, the phrases there and  everything that we explained, you could still  

by just paying attention to the emotions, like  Wednesday's being rather off-putting, she's, she's  

obviously not too happy talking to him. Then the,  the first guy is more curious, right? So you can  

see like he's maybe interested in her, he has some  romantic interest or at least some, some sort of  

fascination with her. So I think you can already  see the, the different dynamics here, even if you  

didn't understand, you know, what is it to you.  Uh, so the, the second phrase, what was it again? 

Didn't mean to interrupt. How would  you, uh, break it down the sounds? 

So we have a nice one there with Didn't, anytime  we have a contraction that -nt again, we,  

we tend to cut off the T sound. So it's like,  didn't, can't, couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't,  

and so on. So Didn't mean, and I, I what I heard  there, I heard an American T on To and it got  

reduced to a schwa, so Didn't mean duh, Didn't  mean duh interrupt, uh, and Interrupt as well.  

That's a word with an -nt and it's in the middle  of a word, the middle of a, of a syllable. So in  

that case, we dropped the T altogether. So it's  inner-, inner-, it almost sounds like a double N,  

like, uh, other words like this could be internet,  international, so - Didn't mean duh interrupt. 

Awesome. So now let's imagine a real situation.  Imagine you walk in, some people are having a  

conversation there. When you enter the place,  they kind of stop talking. And they look at you.  

You can say, Oh, sorry, didn't mean to  interrupt. Or didn't mean to interrupt. 

So if you enjoy learning with TV series like this,  then I just gotta tell you, we have a course where  

we help you to really take your English to the  next level doing this. We use the first two  

season of Friends. The reason we use this series  is because there's various academic studies that  

have shown that this is the best TV series out  there to learn English. And this is just because  

of the type of English they use, uh, has really  actually influenced the American English language  

and even now other accents. Uh, furthermore, we  do exactly like Thiago and I are doing here for  

full episodes. So you can just imagine you can  learn so much by doing this with a full episode.  

You have transcripts for every single episode, um,  the spaced repetition software like I was talking  

about earlier, so that you never forget the new  words that you're learning and so much more. So  

I highly recommend that you check it out. We'll  link it down in the description. Alright, Thiago,  

so we have another clip for them, don't we? We do, yeah, we do. Uh, have another  

one. Let's give it a go. You want a coffee? It's  

one of the many perks of this wonderful  assignment. I'm actually here for Tyler.  

I told you he was bad news. Twice,  but who I speak to is my business. 

All right. So first of all, where are they? They  are at a coffee shop. So that's important piece  

of information for you to keep in mind. They  are at a coffee shop. What caught my attention  

first was how he asks her if she wants coffee.  He goes, You want a coffee? You want a coffee?  

Like very quickly. You want a coffee? 

And that's cool because you know, you can work  with movies and series like this too. Uh, not  

necessarily to learn complex vocabulary, but, uh,  maybe different ways to, to say something. Maybe  

your default question in that case would be - Do  you want coffee or Would you like coffee? That's  

okay. But you see he goes, You want, You want, You  want a coffee? You want a coffee? Huh? So I can do  

the same. Yeah. If I'm talking to a friend and um,  I have some coffee with me, some extra coffee. Do  

you want a coffee or you want a coffee? I can do  the same. Yeah. So that was something that caught  

my attention there. Uh, it sounds very natural.  And then I would probably check the meaning of the  

words Perks and Assignment that he uses. I don't  know what a perk is and what an assignment is. So  

I would either following Ethan's suggestion,  I would, uh, take notes to check it later,  

or I would check it then as I was watching it. So a perk is a benefit of a job. So maybe,  

let's say a perk that you get with your job is you  get, uh, they include a gym membership. So a perk  

of your job is you get a, a gym membership.  It's not something that jobs typically include,  

but your job does do that to attract talent,  right? And assignment, it, it's kind of a funny  

word actually here, and this is one of the things  that might happen if you look it up. So maybe your  

English teacher gave you a homework assignment,  right? So that and a homework assignment,  

something that you have to do at home, right?  But assignments, you might hear it to the context  

that it makes me think of, for example, is an  assignment that a CIA agent gets, or, you know,  

James Bond gets assignments. These type of  people who do investigatory work get assignments.  

But people who are working coffee shops,  we wouldn't typical call it assignment. So  

my feeling here is that he's trying to, he he's  being playful, right? He's kind of flirting with  

her by being playful with the, the language.  This is my, I've never actually watched this  

series. I get, I, I know the Adams family,  so I know, know that this character is very,  

and you can tell by the way she talks, she's  very off-putting, right? Or very serious always.  

Um, but I can imagine just by seeing  these short clips that these two have  

some, some tension for sure. Exactly. Yeah. But you know,  

all that you get by watching it. So that's why  it's important to be observant of these things,  

the emotions going on there. Who are the people  in that scene? Yeah, because you, you, you pick  

up many things, even if you haven't ever seen the,  the, the movie or the series before. And finally  

one thing that he says is, uh, I think they were  talking about Tyler, another boy, I guess he was  

actually the first boy from the first clip we  saw. And uh, he says, I told you he was bad news.  

So for me that was like, okay, you are calling  a person bad news. I know the meaning of the  

word Bad. I know the meaning of the word News,  but he was bad news. See, intuitively for me,  

that sounds like an expression already because I  know the individual words, but still that doesn't  

make sense to me. It doesn't click. So nowadays  it's really simple to do that. You can just go to  

Google and you can actually, uh, I've already  tested it. You can type in exactly the phrase  

you saw in the movie. So in the clip here, uh, we  heard He was bad news. If you go to Google right  

now and go: He was bad news Meaning, the first  point there is gonna be that the definition of  

someone being bad news, what does it mean? Or again, like if you wanna do ChatGPT,  

because there you could ask it, you'll get the  definition that you could say, okay, give me  

five other, uh, example sentences of this or five  other contexts where I could use this or so on. 

And by the way, Ethan, what does  that mean when someone is bad news? 

Oh yeah. So if someone is bad news,  it's someone that you should look out  

for because they're a troublemaker. They, yeah,  I think that I, I imagine based on this, that,  

uh, well maybe the, the guy here is just making  it up. The guy with the long hair is just making  

it up to, because he's interested in her and  he doesn't want her to be interested in other  

guy. But it could be that this other person  does bad things. Maybe they're, they're into  

drugs or they're, I dunno, they do different  things they're not supposed to do, right? 

Yeah. Awesome. But you see, I mean, and the cool  thing, Ethan, that I find about this method is,  

uh, I think we only worked with under 30 seconds  of clip here today. It wasn't even 30 seconds, but  

you see how (you learn so much) much you can learn  in just 30 seconds of clip. So it's amazing!  

All right. So today we have an amazing  Big Challenge. Why don't you let it, uh,  

let it rip Thiago? Okay.  

So the Big Challenge we have for you guys today  is apply this method that we just presented to  

you. Follow these tips we shared, and then share  your experience in something you've learned from  

a movie or a TV series clip. Also, I wanna ask  you, do you have any other tips? Maybe do you  

do anything else to help you improve your  English with movies in series? Share your  

tips also here in the coming section below. Or you  can send us an email at [email protected]. 

And for sure, check out the comments below with  other tips that other learners left because you  

might find some juicy recommendation that  we failed to mention in today's podcast.  

Alright, and before we wrap up, we wanted  to also make sure to share some comments  

that we had from one of our recent episodes. Alright, so in one of our recent episodes,  

we asked you guys the question: what country would  you like to move to one day and why? So here are  

some answers. Raul says, "I would like to travel  to New Zealand. I wanna improve my English".  

Centynela says, "I wanna move to Japan cuz I  like its culture and its big cities". Uh, Haenz  

says that he would like to live in the US  for some time because they also like their  

culture. And then we have Cloudyxheaven who  says, "My dream is to go to South Korea for  

my studies". And finally Danny says, "Hi guys.  Thanks for this conversation. I love it. I'm  

from Venezuela. I lived in Madrid, Spain for  seven years, and now I'm living in Melbourne,  

Australia. I'm working and improving my  English and learning about this culture  

and it's an amazing experience". Thank you so  much for our comments, guys. That's amazing. 

So as always, thanks so much for joining us  here on the RealLife English podcast and we  

look forward to seeing you, hearing from you  next week. 1, 2, 3. Aww (Aww) yeah. (yeah.)