movies can teach you

Today I would like to start with something which is not directly connected with any particular movie or series but - for my point of view - is very useful: learning languages by watching movies.

So, this is one of my favourite ways of learning a language:  foreing movies. At the beginning it can be diffucult - plenty of new words, expressions and you don't have time to check their meanings. Even if you are trying to look for the translations and you begin to understand what's going on, the movie may become just a type of lesson, not a pleasant entertainment any more.

But it is not a reason to discourage! I can give you one piece of advice: start with movies that you have already watched with subtitles or - like I did - a tv series which you know and which you've seen many times. Then there will be no need to check the words because the plot is familiar, you roughly know the dialogues so you can just watch and learn new expressions whose equivalent in your own language you've just known.

My "private english teacher" is a series Friends. I know all the episodes, I can quote the dialogues so I watch it without any subtitles. It's a big pleasure to learn english with my favourite characters (for example with Ross and his sophisticated language).

But Friends is a topic for another day :)

To sum up, try to combine the pleasant with the useful and watch movies without a translation. Listen to actors, not to voice-over :)

maybe the foto is beside the point, but it's always good to see a piece of Friends :)

maybe it is strange, but I like it

It’s been a long time since I’ve written my last post, but I’m back with a bunch of ideas. Today, I’ll face a TV series again.

July 2016 was one of the best moments for science fiction and horror lovers – it was a release date of the first season of Stranger things created by Matt and Ross Duffer, known as The Duffer Brothers. I must admit that I wasn’t so enthusiastic about it, because it is not one of my favourite type of movie. I’ve never enjoyed horrors, on the contrary, I’m rather afraid of them. However, taken into account all the opinions of my friends or just film critics, I finally decided to watch at least one episode – Everybody watches it, so I have to watch it too! Even though it could finish with insomnia or nightmares... I didn’t know yet, that it was one of my the most baseless fears.

I started watching the first episode while ironing (to combine the pleasant with the useful, yes...), with my younger sister. I must admit, that I didn’t even know who is starring in this series, so I was glad to see Winona Ryder, who I’ve loved since I first time saw her in Beetle Juice. After a few minutes I realised, that I wouldn’t be able to iron and watch at the same time – the plot was just too interesting to share the attention with something else. I felt like completely enchanted and surprised with the story, with the idea of combination of a science fiction plot with some almost magical scenes and of course with great young actors. 

Each of these qualities made me watch all the season in nearly one day. What is more, my younger sister was watching with me all the time, so I would like to notice, that it is not a production aimed at any target audience. 

So, I would like to encourage everybody who is scared of watching this series - there is nothing to be afraid of! Maybe there are some qualities of horror, but at the same time it's worth to overcame the fear and enjoy this excellent production :)

Stranger things, dir. The Duffer Brothers, 2016