Why are movies so hard to understand (and what can you do about it)?

Question

I have been learning English for many, many years now and think I have acquired quite some mastery. Yesterday I saw just another English (American) flick and thought it was a different language, but definitly not English. I had to turn the (English) subtitles on... :-( Why is it so very hard to understand movies - and do you have a panacea to it?

Answer 1

I love movies. But because they have to cover a certain length in a fixed amount of time, there is a chance that speakers will move quickly and their speech will seem to run together.

Then there is the issue of informal language, including casual address and colloquialisms - among Americans there are almost as many varieties of colloquial language as there are national backgrounds of speakers. We learn most of our speech at first at home, and speak like our parents, siblings and other close relations. That tends to be pretty far off from the more formal speech and writing we are taught in school.

And movies are very informal. Lots of neighborhood-related idioms and speech among friends, which especially may have crude language.

Then, movies might also be full of technical language (such as in sci-fi) or professional jargon (especially in films featuring police, lawyers, and professions that work with money).

If you want less of that sort of thing, you may want to concentrate on films made in the 40s, 50s and 60s. The language in those films was a little more formal, and the speech a little slower, than much of what we see today.

Or, on the other hand, immerse yourself in modern films and learn the parts of informal or technical English you didn't get to use often in school. If you do that, try when possible to get the book the film was made from and use it as a companion to your viewing.

Answer 2

This can be very frustrating, especially given the high level with which you asked this question. There are a number of strategies available to overcome this but the way to figure out which are best for you would be to schedule a lesson with an experienced ESL teacher, to see what might be the best ones for you.