1. Choose an interesting movie.This probably sounds obvious, but if you choose a boring movie, you’ll bebored. And if you’re bored, it will be difficult to pay attention…for more than one and a half hours!
选择一部有趣的电影。这或许听起来很容易理解,如果你选择一个无趣的电影,你也会感到枯燥。如果你感觉枯燥,那对你而言很难集中注意力…尤其是超过一个半小时的时间。
I remember when I was a child, I had to watch hours and hours of really old movies like “Singing in the Rain”, “Mary Poppins” to learn English. If you don’t know these films – you’re welcome to check them up – they’re really old! I didn’t exactly hate them, but I didn’t feel excited at all when watching these films.
我记得小的时候,我不得不看几个小时的老电影来学英语,例如《雨中曲》、《欢乐满人间》。如果你不知道这些电影,欢迎查询一下,真的非常古老!我不是讨厌它们,但整个观影过程真的没有兴奋感。
And because of that, I highly recommend you choose movies you like. To do this, you can go to a website called Rotten Tomatoes, which is a website with many great critics and reviews on many tens of thousands of movies.
因此,我强烈建议你选择自己喜欢的电影。如果想选电影,你可以去烂番茄网站,那里有成千上万的电影,还有许多很棒的影评。
2. Select a movie that matches your currentEnglish level.For example, for beginners in English, I usually recommend you learn English through animations. The main reason is because the English is usually very friendly, nice and easy to understand.
选择一个符合你英语水平的电影。例如,对英语初学者而言,我通常建议你们看动画片来学英语。主要的原因是因为里面的英语通常很亲切美好,容易理解。
On the other hand, if you try to watch something like “Romeo and Juliet”, you will be very confused. Shakespearian English (which is English used many centuries ago) is very difficult to understand on screen, evenfor advanced English learners.
另一方面,如果你尝试看《罗密欧与朱丽叶》这类的电影,你会一头雾水。莎士比亚式的英语(几个世纪前使用的英语)很难通过荧幕来理解,即使是高水平的英语学习者。
3. Bring your dictionary.Maybe I’ll add point 3.5 too – choose a film with subtitles! So when you hear a word you’re interested in, check it up! Because you went through the trouble to understand it…you’ll be able to remember that word for a long time too!
拿着你的词典。或许我要补充一点——选一个有字幕的电影!所以当你听到一个你感兴趣的单词时,用字典查一下。因为你理解它会有困难……之后的很长一段时间都会记住这个单词。
4. Repeat short phrases!Some times, you might hear something cool in the movie. For example, some short phrases, or slang like, “hell yeah!”, or “sure thing”, or “you betcha!” that are commonly used in English. If you like how it sounds, it really helps to repeat it! After saying it out loud a while, you will be able to remember it for a longer time! It’s a great and enjoyable exercise – one of my personal favourites.
重复短语。有时,你或许会在电影里听到一些很酷的表达。例如,有些短语或俚语,比如“Hell yeah!”或者“sure thing”,或者“you betcha!”(都表示“当然,没错”)在英语中很常用。如果你喜欢它的读音,多重复会很有帮助。大声朗读一会,你能记住更长的时间!这是个很棒又让人愉悦的联系——我自己的最爱之一。
5. Without subtitles.I know it can be really challenging to watch a film in a foreign language without subtitles. So here’s my recommendation. When you watch a film the first time, just turn on subtitles. But if you get the chance to watch it a second time, try turning off subtitles.
不要字幕。我知道不带字幕看一部外国电影会很有挑战性。这里是我的推荐。第一次看这个电影时,打开字幕。但如果你有机会再看第二次,尽量把字幕关掉。
This way, you already know the story from the first time you watched it. And this time, you can try listening to some individual words that you might have checked up last time. Or you might try to see how much you can understand the film without subtitles.
这样,你已经看过一次,知道了故事的梗概。那么第二次你可以试着听一些上次查询过的单词。或者你可以试着看看没有字幕,自己能理解多少电影的内容。
6. VLC player.This is actually a video player I recommend for watching films on your computer. This is one of my favouritetools. Most people use it just to watch movies, but I use it a little differently.
万用播放器。这实际上是我推荐用来在电脑上看电影的一个视频播放器。这也是我最喜欢的一个工具。大部分人只用它来看电影,但是我的用法不太一样。
Here’s what I do – if you download a movie online, and you play it, you know how you don’t understand English sometimes? VLC Player allows you to play back movies at half speed or quarter speed. So if there are parts you don’t understand, you can play these back at a slower speed and try again! It’s very helpful to practice your listening.
我的做法是,如果你从网上下载了一个电影并且播放,你知道有时候不理解英语。万用播放器可以让你慢速回放电影。所以如果有你不明白的地方,你可以慢速回放,再尝试一遍。练习听力很有帮助。
7. It’s okay to miss words…just let it go.Last of all, remember what we said in the start? Watching movies should be fun…so if you miss a word, a phrase, or even many sentences, that’s okay! Just follow along the subtitles and learn that way. Don’t make yourself feel bad…watching films is supposed to be fun!
错过某些词没关系……错过好了。最后一条,记得我们在开头说的话吗?看电影应该是件有趣的事……所以如果你错过一个单词,一个短语,甚至许多句子,没关系!跟着字幕学习就好了。不要让你自己灰心丧气……看电影应该是有趣的。