Learning spanish through movies
Hi,
I've been learning spanish for 2 months now. I've began with words and then went to verbs. I've started watching spanish movies (2 so far) and realized that the verbs tenses are a giant pain in the neck^^. To add to that when people speak they obviously speak pretty fast so most of the time I have to pause the movie to read the subtitles, then translate them in my head so I can understand what is being said. I had the exact same situation when I learned english around 10 years. My question is, do you think I should keep watching Spanish movies with Spanish subtitles to improve and if so, how many movies do you think it would take? Or more simply how much time until I can have fluent conversation without having to think about the words and then translate them? I'm watching 1 spanish movie a day, do you think it's a good idea to continue?
4 Answers
Hi Welcome to the forum. Why do you want to learn Spanish? Are you teaching yourself, or do you have a teacher?
The reason I ask why you want to learn Spanish as it may help in structuring how you learn eg are you interested in culture, films or books, do you want to travel?
2 months is very new to Spanish. I don't think you will learn much from watching films as you must have very limited vocabulary and still be puzzled by many of the verb tenses.
Listening to Spanish is good to get used to the rhythm of the language.
I suggest you use some podcasts as a guide like Notes in Spanish or spanish podcast I don't know where you are based, or your native language, but I find Veintemundos a free electronic magazine very good. It has written and audio work and features articles from all Spanish speaking countries. Veintemundos
The podcasts I have suggested are based in Spain.
In addition, if you are self teaching Vertaal has a variety of exercises with answers.
I would suggest you listen to music. Find something you like. You can keep replaying and look up the lyrics or play a recording with the words. Me gustas Tu by Manu Chao is catchy and reasonably easy.
Here is an earlier thread with lots of suggestions
You can also find short films eg 10 minutes or less to listen to. I can give you links to some, but I do not know what interests you.
This site has a lot of information and a list of cortometrajes 1001 reasons to learn Spanish
The BBC has an interactive video called Mi Vida Loca which may be good for you.
I think motorcycle diaries is a beautiful film. You could just enjoy the film without understanding the dialogue, but here is the theme tune sung by Jorge Drexler. Watch it and sing it to get you in the mood.
If watching films worked for you learning English and you enjoy it, continue but at your early stage of learning it may not be your best use of your time.
Hi,
Thank you everyone for your answers, they are much appreciated.
To answer the questions I'm actually french so learning spanish is pretty easy for me since the sentence construct, expressions and verbs are very similar. Another thing that's great is that the ''gender'' of words are 95% the same as in french (la table = la mesa).
I'm learning spanish because I'm planing on travelling to south america and also just for pure knowledge in general.
Thank you very much for the podcast and the music recommandation, I'll start doing that from now on.
As a teacher, I believe that movies are okay to get your ear used to Spanish rhythm, however, I don't think it is likely that you can master conversation by only watching movies. And for sure that is something that can't be measured (nobody can say that if you watch X amount of films then you'll be able to start thinking in Spanish). You can keep watching films, but I encourage you to find a conversation pal or a teacher to improve your conversation skills.
As a plus, check this website: http://radioambulante.org/
It is an online radio with accents from all over South America and Spanish transcriptions that are also translated into English.
Hello!
These links from 2012 & 2013 might be the answer to your question.
Hope this helps.
Regards!
