If when you think about learning Spanish, you think about 1:1 lessons, conversation exchanges or classes and grammar books, and the prospect sounds a bit arid, think again.
I am all for unconventional learning. I am also about adapting the learning to the specific needs of my students because:
One size doesn’t fit all.
The learner’s needs and desires are the keys to their success.
You, dear Spanish language learner, know the best way for you to learn. However, you may need to give more credit to your whims and desires when it comes to learning a new skill. We have been schooled out of our individuality.
This article is for all of you who enjoy watching shows and series in your native tongue. Because you already like doing that, it requires less energy to start watching a show or series in Spanish. It’s all about energy expenditure and the path of less friction and more pleasure!
I’ve already written about the six best movies on Netflix for Spanish learners. But you may wonder about the best way to improve your Spanish through a film in Spanish. That is a super valid and important question! It’s not enough to watch a movie in Spanish with subtitles either in your mother tongue or Spanish. It doesn’t harm, but it doesn’t do much, either. You need further assistance when you don’t have the vocabulary before watching the movie or encounter a word or expression that doesn’t make sense. Sometimes you may want to listen many times to the same word or sentence to discriminate the different words or to pick up the pronunciation, and pausing to go back with your remote is not always easy.
3 Tips to learn Spanish through movies or songs.
- Choose a movie you have already watched in your mother tongue.
Bonus points if you loved that movie and watched it multiple times! - Choose a movie filmed in Spanish.
You can have fun and experience the different varieties of Spanish. - Focus on sections of the movie.
I’d recommend concentrating on a 5 to 10-minute fragment, ideally an entire conversation, and re-watch several times, paying attention to:- The words: taking notes of new ones
- The pronunciation and intonation
- Complete sentences: exploring the grammar structures that appear in context.
One study tool that works for this purpose is Lingopie, a language-learning application that uses real TV shows and movies to help you learn a new language. Disclaimer: This is a sponsored recommendation, but one I am happy to make because after exploring the app, I was so pleasantly surprised with the materials, the variety and how the application works that I’d be recommending it anyways.
How watching movies in Spanish helps you improve your Spanish.
This activity falls into passive and active learning, which is excellent! But the principal value for me is that it allows learners to identify gaps in their learning in the enjoyable context of doing something they like, watching a movie or show in Spanish.
An essential part of the language learning process is moving from “unconscious incompetence” to “conscious incompetence” or, in other words, not knowing what one doesn’t know to knowing what one doesn’t know. And this happens through mainly two channels:
- Conversations: Actively making mistakes
- Passively, being exposed to things, one doesn’t know (i.e. watching a movie)
That’s why one of my first pieces of advice when recommending my students to spend some time “passively” watching a movie in Spanish, listening to a podcast or reading a book is to have a notebook with them and jot down new words and whole sentences to explore later on. This is where the learning happens. And then, once the exploration and deepening in the understanding of that new word, idiom or grammatical structure occurred, I’d recommend going back to watch, listen or read the section where the new thing appeared to anchor and recontextualise that knowledge.
And remember, learning Spanish. can be a pleasurable and fun experience.
Follow your interests, where your attention goes, energy flows and learning ensues.
