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

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