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Is watching foreign movies with subtitles a good way to learn a language?

For instance, if I wanted to learn French, I would watch french films with the English subtitles on.

Public Comments

1. If you seriously want to learn a new language, this would be the worst way to go. It's about as effective as a "Daily French Word," gimmicky, but it won't cut it. You gotta start with the basics first, I think edufire.com might have a french class or two. Otherwise, try finding a class or even a book.
2. hmm never heard of anyone learning a language like that, but i think if you take a course of french (or whatev language) and you read subtitles it can help you learn faster becasue it will be a fun way to review and practice what you already learned.
3. You'll learn good pronunciation watching movies, and you might pick up an interesting word or two (maybe more than that if you whip out the dictionary), but you'll learn nothing about grammar. It's a good supplement to learning the ordinary way, but not a good substitute.
4. Yes and no. Yes because by the subtitles you know what they're saying. No because sometimes when your watching the movie you'll forget what they said in French so you'd have to go back to the part over and over again till you know it. Also you may not know how to spell it in French.
5. no. do you have any idea how hard it is to listen to one language while reading another? i cant even do it after years of learning a language in school. subtitles are only good for people who aren't intersetd in the target language.
6. No, for several reasons. We do not learn to walk by walking with a crutch. Reading the English subtitles would distract you from listening to and understanding the French. And subtitles are often badly translated, and usually incompletely translated. What would be helpful is to watch the French version, without subtitles, of a movie that you know very well and have watched many times in English. Possibly an interesting children's movie, so there won't be too many nuances. But it would only be a supplement to a regular course of study. You can't learn a language from movies alone.
7. no, ive come to realize that a lot of the time, the actual dialog and the translations on the films are not even close. you wouldn't learn much at all from them.
8. ¡¡That´s what i DO...all the time(Spanish -- English) and you (are )not just learning.-- you going so much faster. -- your brain,your capacity,ability are a double force p.s. maybe because i am fluent in Spanish and my English is.....good,i mean ...i already understand ...everything,anyway,and i am just going better and...better like translator
9. Read these tips "Learning foreign languages. Tips": http://babelanmicroblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/learning-foreign-languages-tips.html
10. Yes that is an excellent way to learn a language. You could also watch it with french subtitles if your good enough to do so. I personally have learned through this method, for french actually. What I do is watch just french tv with no subtitles over and over and over until it becomes like second nature. You might find this site helpful: http://www.learning-languages-fast.com
11. At divxtitles.com you can actually download the subtitle in any language and check for the vocabulary you don't know.
12. It can help, and can be a good way to learn about the culture. However I would also go to classes at your community enter or something of the sort. Like it wouldn't be bad to watch foreign movies, but it would take ages.
13. to me, it makes more sense to actually produce bits of language, if you can. Language is, after all, communication. If you are an intermediate student of French, you can expand your French vocabulary and comprehension (tho it's better without the subtitles). If you are just starting, it wouldn't help that much.
14. Not by itself, but it's good as a supplement.