Good Movies for Learning English
If you’re tired of textbooks and revising difficult grammar, then take a break and watch some good English movies!
Learning a language is much easier when you’re enjoying yourself. Can’t think of any good movie? No worries, we have your back and have prepared a list of recommendations for you to improve your English.
However first, take some time to understand why watching movies is important for learning English. Watching movies in English is an awesome way of improving your English — especially your English speaking and listening skills. Particularly from a linguistics point of view, learning a new language needs to start with listening. Here are 3 reasons why watching movie is useful for learning English.
- Introduce you to expressions of everyday use
Textbook and classroom English is not enough! After learning the basic stuff from your teacher, it’s important to complement your studies by getting real-life conversation. The English used in movies is natural. It’s also very close to what you’ll hear if you speak with native English speakers too. You will learn the daily terms that will not be covered in your textbooks. This will help improve your listening and speaking skills.
- Educate your ear, familiarise yourself with intonation and different accents
Feeling frustrated when you learn English for a long time, but then suddenly you can’t understand a single word that someone is saying? I know it can be hugely disappointing. It is common for students become accustomed to their English teacher’s voice, accent and speech patterns. Then when they communicate with others, they have problems understanding what is being said. Therefore, watching movies is a good way to educate your ear, and let yourself familiarize with different phrases and accents.
- Speak like a native
Watching English movies will expose you to real English pronunciation and speaking styles. You can also listen for stress and rhythm in native English speaking. Sometimes you can try to repeat the dialogues in the movies. One of the methods I used before was printing out the movie script and replaying the scene several times. After that, I would read out the script loud until I could speak the dialogues fluently and naturally. The process was tedious, but really useful!
So now, it’s time to introduce 5 good movies for learning English.
- Hunger Games
Katniss Everdeen (played by Jennifer Lawrence) voluntarily takes her younger sister’s place in the Hunger Games: a televised competition in which two teenagers from each of the twelve Districts of Panem are chosen at random to fight to the death. The Hunger Games is an adaptation of the 3 fantasy books aimed at younger readers by Suzanne Collins. The movie is intense, entertaining and thought-provoking. If you haven’t watched them, take the chance to enjoy this wonderful story while improving your English!
- Twilight
The Twilight Saga is a series of 5 romance fantasy films based on the 4 novels by Stephenie Meyer. Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner captivated the world by their romance story between vampire, human and wolf. The movie story was simple and the English used there was plain and direct. It is a good movie for beginners to start with.
- The Social Network
It is a movie about the founding of Facebook. By that time Mark Zuckerberg was still a Harvard student. At the 83rd Academy Awards, the film won 3 for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Film Editing. The film also received awards for Best Motion Picture — Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Original Score at the 68th Golden Globe Awards. If you are interested in business and technology, this is certainly a good movie for you to enjoy and learn English.
- Da Vinci Code
The Da Vinci Code is a 2006 American mystery thriller film directed by Ron Howard, and based on Dan Brown’s 2003 best-selling novel of the same name. Tom Hanks was the leading actor and the film was shoot in Paris and London. The movie started with a murder in Louvre Museum and Tom Hanks needed to solve the puzzles from Leonardo da Vinci’s paintings in order to find out the truth. It is certainly a good movie and you can learn a lot of English phrases about religion, art and culture.
- Pirates of the Caribbean
Who’s never heard of Captain Jack Sparrow? The disney movie series were very successful worldwide and Johnny Depp was simply amazing! Watch the movies series was very good for you to practice your listening skills as the movies were played with lots of actors and actresses from all over the world. You can take this chance to learn different accents as well!
How to learn better English with film and movies? In our next article, we’ll introduce you some tips and techniques that you can make use of while learning English through movies. Let’s stay tuned! Want to brush up your English step-by-step with qualified teachers? Book a free trial lesson now via FluentUp!