Using Movies to learn spanish

[Paul_Moechner2022]

I once met a man from Mexico who speaks good english. I asked him how he learned english. He told me that when he studied english it was his first time learning a foreign language and didn't know what to do, so he streamed american movies with english subtitles turned on and expanded his vocabulary and explored the verbs, pronouncs, etc that way.

I've been experimenting with duo lingo, occasionally taking lessons from spanish teachers form italki, and now I'm really curious about this method.

I am now going through the Matrix series, starting with the first movie. It is not on Netflix and on amazon prime there is no spanish audio and spanish subtitle option, so I'm just watching it in english and in english subtitles, while using google translator and deepL translator to help me come up with spanish translations and expanding my vocab/grammar that way to see how this affects my spanish learning.

But I'm putting this post here just out of curiosity, because I have a question:

Has anybody found a way to watch the Matrix movies online, in spanish audio or spanish subtitles? I haven't been able to found a way, so I'm doing it backwards on amazon prime.

[DaveAgain]

But I'm putting this post here just out of curiosity, because I have a question:

Has anybody found a way to watch the Matrix movies online, in spanish audio or spanish subtitles? I haven't been able to found a way, so I'm doing it backwards on amazon prime.

Following the "streaming" link from sensacine.com HBO Max and Amazon Prime are offered.

Theres a Spanish language TV series made for language learners called Destinos that often gets mentioned.

EDIT
There are some threads where forum members mention Spanish language series they've enjoyed:

Non-pirate series accesible for free in Spanish
"Official" Telenovela and Series (in Spanish) Reviews and Recommendations

[jeff_lindqvist]

Recent topic about Spanish through movies (with subtitles):
How not to learn Spanish: Building too much stuff, not studying enough

[emk]

Recent topic about Spanish through movies (with subtitles):
How not to learn Spanish: Building too much stuff, not studying enough

While I'm having a lot of fun personally, it can be a lot of work to set up Subs2SRS-style deck. I'm slowly chipping away at the various difficulties, but it may take a long time.

I do, however, think that the Latin American version of the original Avatar cartoon is great. Clear pronunciation, plenty of episodes, good writing, and lots of dialog about travel and meeting people. The first two seasons can be found as alternative audio tracks on some US editions. (My older copy has accurate subs for episodes 01.01, 01.02, 01.05 and 01.06.) There are also, of course, tons of telenovelas.

In general, I prefer TV series because if you're trying to learn from input, TV series will offer dozens of hours of content with the same vocabulary and voices. This allows you to understand more than you would otherwise, which makes the whole process work better. When you finish a series, start a new one, and it will be easier. Repeat several times (and work on reading to help with vocabulary), and you should be able to watch lots of shows. And easy movies should be in reach at that point, too.

The point where I was able to get this process rolling for French was 40% listening comprehension (but with decent reading comprehension of an episode transcript).

Films are tougher, because you change actors and vocabulary every 2 hours.

[iguanamon]

I once met a man from Mexico who speaks good english. I asked him how he learned english. He told me that when he studied english it was his first time learning a foreign language and didn't know what to do, so he streamed american movies with english subtitles turned on and expanded his vocabulary and explored the verbs, pronouncs, etc that way.

I've been experimenting with duo lingo, occasionally taking lessons from spanish teachers form italki, and now I'm really curious about this method.

I am now going through the Matrix series, starting with the first movie.... Has anybody found a way to watch the Matrix movies online, in spanish audio or spanish subtitles? I haven't been able to found a way, so I'm doing it backwards on amazon prime.

It's funny how second-language speakers will tell you how they learned a language in a simplified way and often gloss over important details along the way. I've done it myself in Brazil when I told people I watched the "Sai de baixo" series. I left out DLI Portuguese Basic Course; Pimsleur; NHK Portuguese News; reading; listening to podcasts with transcripts; a conversation tutor; etc. Sure makes it look easy.

Films are tougher, because you change actors and vocabulary every 2 hours...

I agree with emk. You'll only get about six hours with "The Matrix" series. I'd switch to a series with at least 75-100 hours of episodes. When I was learning Catalan, I started watching "The Wild Kratts" dubbed into Catalan. Of course, I have an advantage over you in that I've watched series before with other languages and learned other languages before.

... This series now takes the natural appeal of animals and harnesses it towards the goal of teaching science concepts to children ages 6 to 8. Focusing on science concepts, Wild Kratts:
Teaches 6 to 8-year-old viewers natural history and age-appropriate science by building on their natural interest in animals. ...

Of course, prior to learning Catalan, I had already learned related languages- Spanish; Portuguese; Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol; even Haitian Creole. This helped a lot!!!

If you are a programmer/computer geek, I think emk's substudy/subs2srs would be an ideal way to learn with a series... but I can't work with it. It's above my pay grade. If you'll have a look at what I wrote in the signature link below this post, there's a better explanation of what I have done/do.

In my opinion, there are far easier ways to start training listening and learning new vocabulary than trying to watch films. Destinos is a 52 episode, half an hour, tv course designed to teach beginners Spanish progressively using the format of a telenovela. It is free and legal. If you are geoblocked because you are outside the US, it's up on youtube somewhere and probably elsewhere. There are companion coursebooks and audio out there too.

I'd pair "Destinos" with the Pimsleur audio course and a textbook/audio course of which there are a blue million available. Then, I'd start tackling a non-learner-intended series. Why re-invent the wheel?!

[Paul_Moechner2022]

WOW!!!!

Thanks for introducing me to Destinos! After exploring that, I've decided to experiment with using Destinos as my "main way of studying spanish" for now. I just completed lession#1!

Also, I learned pretty quickly that the textbooks, workbooks and cassette tapes are no longer made but doing a simple google search, I was able to download the texbook, workbooks, and even digital versions of the audio tapes FOR FREE. Which is a relief because the texbook alone is like 70 something dollars on amazon.

There is where I found the free material that is now out of print, and overpriced on amazon lol: https://destinostelenovela.wordpress.com/

[M23]

WOW!!!!
Thanks for introducing me to Destinos! After exploring that, I've decided to experiment with using Destinos as my "main way of studying spanish" for now. I just completed lession#1!
/

One more piece of advice: when you finish Destinos try to find a program that you can watch that has enough Spanish vocabulary that you look up, but not so much that it makes the process not fun anymore. My current learner program is watching Pokemon in Spanish. The voices can get a bit fast, but for the most part it is composed of vocabulary that I more or less know and is spoken at an understandable rate. After Destinos my next series was Pocoyo, to give you an example of where I was at. In other words, gradually consume media at young ages that challenge your level of understanding until you can handle stuff that is made for adults.