Have you ever felt like movies and TV shows in English seem to be spoken in a different language that is not English? Maybe by now you have already mastered having everyday conversations with people, but put on Netflix and then there you go. It feels like everything you hear is gibberish.
By the way, gibberish is a word that you can use to refer to something that is inaudible, incomprehensible. It's just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is gibberish.
Do you feel like this when you watch movies in English or TV shows in English? Well, you are not alone. In today's episode, I want to explain to you why this happens, why you feel like, while you can understand maybe some teachers, some podcasts, when it comes to movies and TV shows in particular, it seems almost impossible to understand them.
And more importantly, I want to give you some tips and some guidance on what you can do to finally start fixing this and depend less and less on subtitles. Hey guys, how's it going? Thiago here and welcome to another episode of the podcast.
So I want to start by talking about this disconnect that we all feel at some point as learners when it comes to English in movies and TV series. Think about maybe when you were studying English at school. Do you remember the type of English that you used to hear at school?
Or even nowadays on YouTube, if you follow my channel here, you know that I speak a certain way. After all, I am a teacher. If you follow other English teachers here on YouTube, other English teaching podcasts, you might realize that the sentences are usually neat.
know, we teachers, we speak in a clear way most of the time, not too fast, not too slow. We speak at a regular pace. It feels comfortable.
It feels easy to understand this. Right. I mean, I get comments like this all the time here on my channel, how people can understand according to to what they say.
Ninety percent of what I say, ninety five percent of what I say. Right. Because, as a teacher, I tend to speak a certain way that is a little bit more clear, slowly paced, that kind of thing.
But there is a disconnect when you turn on Netflix, Amazon Prime. and you put on a movie or a TV show, suddenly it feels like the actors there are not speaking English, they're speaking something else. It all happens so fast that it's almost impossible to understand what they're saying.
Not only about the speed, but they might use a lot of slang as well, a lot of words and expressions that maybe you have never heard in your life before. That happens a lot. And even mumbling.
Some actors might just be mumbling in those scenes. When you mumble, you don't articulate your mouth as well. You don't articulate the words, the sounds as much as you should.
This is more like mumbling when you don't move your mouth so much, you know? So this could definitely be a factor in preventing you from better understanding this type of medium. A great analogy for this that I like to tell people about is learning to drive.
Imagine you are learning to drive in a parking lot, an empty parking lot. That is one experience. But imagine you are thrown into the heavy traffic of the big city and I have to drive in the middle of the traffic during rush hour.
there is this disconnect, right? Maybe driving in an empty parking lot or in a peaceful, quiet neighborhood is one thing. Now, driving during rush hour in the middle of the traffic in the big city is another thing entirely.
So when you listen to me, for example, to other English teachers here on YouTube, you might have this feeling that, this is easy. I understand these people. I understand these teachers.
Yeah, amazing. It feels like driving in the parking lot, right? But then when you watch those actors in movies and series, speaking that way is like you are in the rush hour, right?
So I know there is this disconnect, OK? The key point here that you have to remember is that native speakers, especially in that type of media, movies, TV shows, they connect words when they speak, they drop sounds and They also use expressions and words that you have probably never heard before. Okay.
So let's jump in the culprit. Let's talk about, let's identify the main culprit in this situation. A culprit is someone who is responsible for something.
It's like, who is the guilty one? Who is the guilty party here? I can't understand movies and TV shows.
Who is to blame? You know, so who are the culprits? Let's say the first culprit, the first enemy, let's say the first villain that you have to go up against is pronunciation and connected speech.
All right. I talk about this all the time here on the channel. Talking about connected speech a little bit.
Native speakers of English. Especially in media such as movies and TV series, they use a lot of connected speech. And a connected speech is basically the art, I call, of cutting sounds, reducing sounds, and joining sounds in a sentence.
All right? Let me give you some examples here. Instead of, do not know, you hear quite often, in media, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't know. don't know.
don't know. I don't know. Really fast.
Really reduced. I don't know. Instead of, I do not know.
Instead of what are you doing? Many times you hear what you're doing. Hey, what you're doing, what you're doing over there.
All right. It's not what are you doing? What about this one?
I really like this one. Check it out. I got to go to the drugstore and buy some pills.
Let me say that again. I got to go to the drugstore and buy some pills. So it's not.
I got to go or I have got to go to the drugstore. It's more like I got to go to I got to go to yeah I got to go to the drugstore and buy some pills. That's what you hear.
I got to go in. I got to go to bed. OK.
How about this one. I'm going to stop by and say hello. I'm going to stop by and say hello.
Instead of I'm going to stop by and say hello. I'm not saying I'm going to stop by. I'm not even saying I'm gonna stop by.
I'm saying I'm gonna stop by. I'm gonna stop by. I'm gonna stop by.
Yeah, sure. I'm going to stop by and say hello. This is more the type of English you hear.
in movies and TV series. Sentences with lots of connected speech in them. So the words blend.
They make some sounds even disappear and vanish altogether. And it all happens at lightning speed. That's another key point.
Because, even myself right now, as I'm giving you these examples of connected speech, Yes, I am using connected speech in these examples, like I'm going to stop by or I got to go to the drugstore, but I'm not speaking as fast as you hear some actors speaking. Now, pick this, pick what I'm telling you, what I'm showing to you right now. This the same sound and double or triple the speed.
I just said I got to go to the drugstore. OK, now triple the speed on that sentence. That's the typical type of English.
you hear actors using, like a lightning speed. Okay. So this is definitely one culprit.
right. Pronunciation, more specifically, connected speech. Okay.
That's why, guys, I have my pronunciation course, by the way. If you have never heard of my pronunciation course, this is a course I have where I teach you the main sounds of the English language and also the main connected speech patterns. that you hear native speakers in movies and TV series using.
Why is it important for you to know this? Because the more you learn about these patterns, because they are patterns, they happen quite often, the more you are aware of them, and the more you practice them, the better it is for you to recognize them when you hear the actors using them in that type of media. And if you are able to not only recognize these patterns in listening, but also apply some of these patterns in your own speech, you're going to sound much more fluid, much more clear, much more natural.
OK, so I would like to invite you to learn more about my pronunciation course. This is a course that is ongoing and evolving. You know, there are already some really cool lessons there that you can start watching right away.
OK, but I'm constantly updating the course with new lessons on different sounds, different patterns. So I'm constantly updating it. So.
With one single payment, you have access to the materials indefinitely. Okay. So don't worry because the course doesn't expire with one payment.
You can have access to this material and the future updates. So do check it out because you know, learning more about connected speech is definitely something that's going to help you better understand movies and TV shows. Okay.
But aside from the connected speech and the pronunciation aspects here, Another reason why it's difficult, another villain, another culprit here, is the vocabulary that is used in movies and TV series. Many times in movies and TV shows, you hear lots of idioms, a lot of slang. For example, spill the beans, piece of cake, break a leg.
These are colorful phrases. They add flavor to your conversations, but they can also leave us learners Confused, right? Like what?
Spill the beans. What is that? Spill the beans.
By the way, to spill the beans is to reveal information that you are not supposed to reveal. You spill the beans. But you see, there is also the vocabulary component.
One reason why you cannot understand might be because of the vocabulary used. So that's why it's important for you to be consuming content in English constantly. And also important for you to be constantly improving your vocabulary range, the number of words and expressions you know and understand in English.
On top of that, we can also add the phrasal verbs. For example, run into, look up to, put up with. These can also be confusing.
One thing that I find very interesting about phrasal verbs, is the fact that if you look at the phrasal verbs word for word, You realize that the words themselves are very basic. For example, look up to look up to the individual words here are super basic. OK, look up to.
But the secret is knowing the combination, knowing the meaning that these three words together. Carrie. So when you look up to someone, you admire that person.
But you see, as a learner, you might be hoping or expecting to hear in a movie, admire. yeah, I really admire my friend. But many times you don't hear admire, you're going to hear look up to.
yeah, my friend is great. I really look up to him. OK.
Or run into. To run into someone means to meet someone unexpectedly. But chances are in a movie or TV show, you're not going to hear An actor going, yeah, I unexpectedly met my friend last night.
They don't talk like that. Another culprit, another villain, yeah, that usually prevents you from understanding movies and TV series without subtitles. But let me just add a little parentheses here and let me also add another point here that might make you feel more at ease and not be so harsh on yourself.
Because guys, there is also the sound mix of the movie and of the TV series. The sound mix, you the way that they record the audio, the dialogue in those productions. OK.
For example, one thing that is very common in movie production is the dynamics in audio, you know, because in a movie, for example, you have the dialogue that is one type of audio track, right? But you also have noises like car explosions, bombs, guns firing, and other type of sounds and noises. So in order to create more dynamics between the dialogue and these explosions, sounds, usually what they do is they compress the dialogue track quite a lot sometimes.
So it becomes really low. in terms of volume for you to hear it, you know, so that you have this, this feeling of when there's a car explosion, the explosion has to be louder than the dialogue. Got it?
And I've experienced that many times here at home when I'm watching something, especially at night, you know, when I'm watching something at night here, I usually don't watch it with the volume on the TV too loud because, know, I don't want to disrupt my neighborhood, you know. So what happens is if there's only dialogue going on, it's very hard to hear the dialogue because the volume is just too low. So I usually have to turn up the volume in order to have something more audible for me to actually see what the actors are saying.
But the minute there is music, you know, playing or an explosion or a sound like that, it becomes way too loud. Then I have to turn down the volume. Have you experienced this?
Like. . .
When there's only dialogue, you have to turn it up. When there's cars, explosions and music going on, you have to turn it down. This is the dynamic.
So this can also be one reason why you feel like you can't understand movies without subtitles. It might not be related to your English level, to your knowledge of connected speech vocabulary. It might just be.
The way they mix the sound in those productions, so don't feel too bad, OK, because. The truth is guys that even I myself, if I'm watching something that is a little bit more complex or it's late at night, I don't want to watch it with a high volume on the TV. I'm going to use the subtitles.
And I have no shame, no shame, excuse me. I have no shame to say this, you know? Yes, I am able to watch it without subtitles.
I don't need them. But depending on what I'm watching, you know, or on how low or loud the TV volume is. Yes, I'm going to use it.
OK. So don't feel too bad about this. But the other points that I mentioned, definitely they are factors.
so pronunciation, knowledge, connected speech, knowledge and vocabulary, idioms, slang and phrasal verbs. OK, all right. So now that we have identified the culprits or the villains, right.
What is the solution here? How can you start to fix this and how can you start to to depend? less and less on subtitles.
It's important that you reframe the way you think about this because you might be trying to catch every single word you hear, but that's not the right mindset. It's not about understanding every word. So be okay with that.
Be at peace with this. Don't try to understand every single word. Even native speakers, they don't do that, you know?
They don't catch every word either. And I have met also many native speakers who actually use subtitles. When they watch their movies and TV shows, because remember, sometimes the way the actors speak might not be the most clear way.
There is the sound mix that I just mentioned, you know, so your goal here is to train your ear to recognize key information, even if some bits. are missed. So it's okay if you don't understand every single word, but you got to be training yourself to get main pieces of information.
Okay. So do devote time to improve your pronunciation in English to learn more about pronunciation. But here's the thing.
Pronunciation is not only about individual sounds, it's also about recognizing rhythm, stress, intonation. Okay. The stress of the words.
This is a really important topic for you to also focus on. OK, because. If you place the stress on a word in the wrong place, the word sounds completely different and completely wrong.
OK, so word stress and sentence stress. Is also very important for you to pay attention to. OK.
Now, what else can you do to start? depending less and less on subtitles. You can practice shadowing or mimicking, right?
So when you shadow some media, for example, you imitate, you repeat out loud what you're hearing. And you also try to shadow or to copy the feeling the actor is using there, the intonation. If the actor is angry, you also try to sound angry when you say that.
the actor is afraid, you also try to sound afraid when you say that. This is shadowing. Mimicking is the same thing, but usually there's a delay there.
You can pause the movie, for example, and it can play it back. You can listen, it can repeat. OK, so shadowing and mimicking, these are great exercises, great strategies and techniques you can use to improve your overall speech.
OK, because If you can start bringing your speaking, your speech in English, you know, closer and closer to that type of speaking that you hear in the movies and TV series, the easier it will be for you to start understanding those actors without the subtitles. OK, because another reason why it might be difficult for you to understand right now is because you might be speaking English in a very different way. Maybe the complete opposite way.
to that type of English that you hear in the medium. OK. One specific.
Point or topic when it comes to pronunciation for you to study about is also the minimal pairs. Minimal pairs are words in English that they they sound different, but the difference is in just one sound. And English is full of words like that, that the difference between one word and the next It's just one sound.
We call these minimal pairs. And they can be confusing. So you also have to take time to learn them.
Some examples here of minimal pairs. have berry and very. The only difference here is the B and the V.
Berry, very. Or, day, they. Free, three.
You see? The difference between these words is just one sound. Dare, there.
Got it? So, make sure you also become familiar with these minimal pairs in English because many times the difference in pronunciation between the words is one sound and it's a very subtle difference. So you've got to train your ears to also identify those subtle differences.
So if you do this, you know, if you take time to learn more about connected speech, practice connected speech, learn more about pronunciation, individual sounds of English, word stress, intonation, minimal pairs. And if you also take the time to apply shadowing and mimicking, yeah, you repeat out loud what you hear. I guarantee that with time, your speaking skills will become better.
You will have better pronunciation, clearer pronunciation. And for the topic of the video today, you will start to understand movies and TV series much more easily with time. But remember that this is like a muscle that you have to develop and grow.
OK, the more you practice, the stronger your listening comprehension gets. So it does take time. Now that you know the topics you have to learn about and study, start studying about these things, start learning about these things, and be patient because it will take some time for your ears to become accustomed to this.
Again, I want to invite you to check out my pronunciation course. My pronunciation course can be a great ally in this case, can be a good friend for you in this case. But now before we wrap up today's episode, It's time for the learner's corner.
And for the learner's corner today, I have one email to read for you and one comment here from YouTube. So first of all, I got an email here from Susan. And Susan says, Dear Thiago, I hope this message finds you well.
My name is Susan and I have a question. I am struggling to remember words without any context. Is this normal or am I the only one experiencing this?
look forward to hearing from you. Best regards, Susan. Susan, thank you so much for sending your question and for writing.
I have to point out the phrase you use here. I look forward to hearing from you. Great job.
Some learners might forget to place the ing at the end of the verb here after look forward to and then you hear something like I look forward to hear from you. but this is not correct. So you were really precise here in using the ING.
So great job. I look forward to hearing from you about your question. Yes, it's normal.
And I would also say that it might not be the best way. Actually, it's not the best way for you to improve vocabulary, like trying to memorize words without any context. think the best thing you can do, Susan, is always Practice vocabulary in context.
Don't focus on learning or memorizing the meaning to individual words and expressions but Write down the sentences where you see those words being used in and pay attention to the context Let me give you an example here. Let's pick the phrasal verb to hit it off Okay to hit it off with someone One approach is trying to learn or memorize the isolated meaning. Okay, so to hit it off with someone means to start liking someone right away.
It's when you meet someone for the first time and in the first minutes talking to that person, you develop a very good relationship, very good rapport, and you say you hit it off with that person. This is one approach. Can it work?
Yes, it can work. But you see how troublesome it is? I think it's much better for you to just focus on the context and using that in sentences.
For example, I went to a party last night and I met this person and this person was so nice to talk to. We hit it off right away. You see, if you memorize the context and the situation like that, it might be easier for you to grasp the meaning, you know, of that phrasal verb.
Because I many times, guys, that's all you need. You know, you just need the context and to grasp the meaning of that phrase. You don't have to learn how to explain that unless you are a teacher.
You know, as a teacher, I have to come up with ways to explain vocabulary like I just did with hit it off. But if you don't intend to be a teacher, you know, maybe you don't have to worry about that so much like the isolated meaning of words or how to explain words. Just make sure you understand the meaning inside the context.
And I think it's going to be much easier for you to internalize it. OK. And now I have another comment to feature here, which is a comment from Alessandro.
Hey Alessandro, how's it going? Alessandro is a member of my private community and you know he shares a lot of cool stuff there and lately, actually recently, he left a comment here in one of my latest videos saying a very focused and visual lesson. It really helps in understanding pronunciation difficulties.
I also want to emphasize how much a pronunciation course with detailed connected speech analysis and exercises is helping me. Thank you, Thiago. So, yes, I forgot to tell you that Alessandro has also bought my pronunciation course and he's been enjoying it.
So, Alessandro, thank you so much for the nice comment, for being an ongoing supporter of my work here on YouTube, and also for being a member of the community. And guys, do it just like Alessandro. You know, check out the pronunciation course.
I'm sure it will help you a ton. when it comes to learning connected speech and the sounds of the English language. Okay.
Now, before I leave you, I'm going to remind you that if you want to leave me or send me an audio message, you can do so on this link, speakpipe. com/englishwiththiago. That is speakpipe.
com/englishwiththiago. Send me a 90 second message there in audio and I'll be happy to feature your message here in the show. Or if you prefer, can do it just like Susan and send me an email at hello.
teachertiago@gmail. com. hello.
teachthiago@gmail. com. Guys, I'm Tiago, I'm signing off.
Thank you so much for listening. Remember to subscribe to the channel here on YouTube, leave me a like and also leave me a comment. Maybe if you want to share more about your struggles with pronunciation, with understanding movies and TV series.
Make sure you leave me a comment, leave me a five star review as well on Spotify and Apple podcasts. And I'll be talking to you very soon in the upcoming episode. Bye bye.
