Welcome to another week of Dear Duolingo, an advice column just for learners. Catch up on past installments here.
Hi there, learners! This week's question is about one of my favorite ways to practice the language you're learning—but it can be more difficult than it first seems 👀 Let's take a look.
Our question this week:
It's true that movies (and TV and music, too) are a great way to practice what you're learning: You can learn new vocabulary, slang, idioms, and tons of cultural information… but it's not always easy, especially at the start!
Here's why media in your new language can feel challenging—and why you should stick with it. 💪
Spoken language is harder than written language
For nearly all learners, in nearly all situations, it's harder to understand spoken or signed language than the written version: Speech disappears quickly (literally into thin air!), so you have to process it immediately to understand it (and by then, something else has been said). Also, there are no spaces between spoken words. Spoken language is a continuous flow, making it hard for learners to figure out where one word ends and another begins.
Why you should still try
Having live, in-person conversations is the goal for many learners, so it's definitely worth practicing this skill! Movies, TV, and music can actually be a really comfortable way to hone your listening abilities—because you can always replay what you didn't understand. 😅
How to make it easier
- That's right: repetition! Replay scenes, dialogue, or sections of songs that you didn't process right away, until your brain can catch up with each word.
- Turn spoken language into written language. Ok, maybe this is cheating, but especially with new artists, actors, or just a new language, this can help your brain to cut up that long string of speech into smaller parts. Read along with lyrics or turn on subtitles until you feel it click… and then re-watch or re-listen without them!
Media uses more casual language
The language you hear in movies and TV and in song lyrics is often more casual than what learners first study—and that's true for Duolingo learners as well as those attending classes or working with tutors! And there's good reason for it.
Learners generally start with language somewhere in the middle of formality—not super formal, but not too casual—since you need to acquire the vocabulary and grammar for all sorts of situations… and you'll get there!
It's also true that in all languages (including the ones you know best), how people interact naturally looks really different from what we'd want a learner to know about the language. The next time you're talking with a friend, pay attention to how often you use full, grammatically complete sentences—they show up less than you might expect! For example, Hungry? is a normal way to ask Are you hungry? in English, but you'd want English learners to know the more complete rules for forming questions.
And that's not to mention the slang and idioms typical in media, too!
Why you should still try
When you interact with speakers of the language you're learning, you're bound to hear this casual language, too! It's useful to recognize and understand casual language, even if you won't be using it yourself right away.
How to make it easier
- Start by watching media that you're already familiar with. That could mean watching your favorite movies or TV with dubbing in the new language (that way, you already know the plot and character dynamics) or finding programs about topics you already know a lot about. It'll be easier to keep up with what's going on, which will give your brain a chance to integrate the new linguistic information!
- Follow content creators who post in the language you're learning. Watching short video content (while doing your daily scrolling) gives you a little dose of casual language. Look for accounts that post their videos with subtitles, or try setting the language of the automatically generated subtitles (like on TikTok—click “Captions” on the right!).
Media combines everything all at once
Real media in the language can also be a challenge for learners because it requires drawing from all the grammar and all the vocabulary you've learned, instead of neatly focusing on just a particular topic or verb tense. That's why it's so important to keep doing new lessons in your Duolingo course, because those new lessons include more and more vocabulary and grammar at once—you'll notice the same combination of language in Stories, DuoRadio, and Video Call, too. (So doing just the earliest lessons to extend your streak won't get you the same exposure! 🫣)
Why you should still try
To communicate in your own life, whether understanding the people around you or expressing things yourself, you'll often be using vocabulary from across topics and switching tenses a lot!
How to make it easier
- Keep moving forward in your course by doing new lessons!
- Do more reading in the language, which gets you that same combination of more simple and more advanced language but without the time pressure of spoken language.
Media is filled with cultural references
Even if you know all the vocabulary and grammar (and accents!) for a particular movie or song, there's a lot more to language. How we use language and what we say is filled with cultural references, whether to pop culture from our childhoods, current events, and mentions of places and people from movies, books, politics, and more. Being able to grasp all the nuances of a movie or album will rely on knowing a lot about the community, its history, its values, and important conversations they have.
Why you should still try
Even if you don't “get” all the references right away, this is probably exactly why you're engaging with media in the language in the first place: to learn about the community! It's ok that you won't be using the same kinds of references on your own for a long time, but knowing more about common cultural references will help you understand people, ads, humor, and more.
How to make it easier
- Look it up! Is there a Wikipedia article about a person or place that's referenced? A Reddit conversation about favorite kids shows from the ‘90s and ‘00s? A news article (even in your own language) with the back story?
- Unless it's crucial to the plot or core meaning of the lyrics, it's ok to not understand everything you're hearing. It probably happens in your own language, too, that your parents or younger siblings make references that you don't totally get 🤷🏻♀️ You're not being quizzed on the language, so let yourself enjoy the media more casually!
It may not be the dialect you're familiar with
All music, movies, and TV will be in a particular dialect and accent—there is no truly “neutral” dialect, so you'll inevitably be hearing a particular version of the language! And some dialects will be easier for you to understand, and that's ok: Even speakers of the language have this experience, that some dialects and accents are more familiar and thus easier than others. (Did you know U.S. English speakers commonly watch shows like The Great British Bake Off with subtitles?)
Just like in your own language, there will be some dialects and accents that you get to know better than others. Maybe there's a particular community you interact with the most, some director you end up loving, a favorite travel destination, or a country-specific genre of music you can't stop listening to—and you'll get to know that dialect (and its rhythm, cultural references, and slang) better than others. And that's not a bad thing! It's one of the beautiful and surprising parts of learning a language: You become part of a new community. 💚
Why you should still try
Even if you expect to mostly travel to one place or mostly talk with people from one dialect group, inevitably you're going to interact with all kinds of people. Paris is a cosmopolitan city, New York doesn't only have New Yorkers, people from all over the world flock to Rio—and you'll be adding to that linguistic mix yourself!
How to make it easier
- Use different combinations of dubbing and subtitles, depending on your comfort with the dialect, to help you understand.
- Focus on a particular dialect or accent, by choosing other movies, TV shows, or musical artists from the same region or background. That'll give you (and your brain) the chance to adapt your listening skills!
Bring that ✨ movie magic ✨ to your learning
Don't be deterred by media in your new language! It's a worthy challenge, and one that's good for your learning, your brain, and your motivation. 🎬
For more answers to your language and learning questions, get in touch with us by emailing dearduolingo@duolingo.com.