Shadowing-Übung: Why you can't understand English movies. - Englisch Sprechen Lernen mit Video

If you find English movies difficult to understand, you're not alone.

Most of my students have this problem, and it's not because your English is bad.

It's just because you have to train your ears differently.

In today's video, I'm going to teach you why you can't understand English movies

and how you can work on fixing that so in future you'll be able to watch American, British, Canadian, Australian movies, whatever you want,

and you'll be able to understand native speakers.

So with that, let's get into today's video.

Now, if you can't understand English movies, here's why.

Native speakers speak fast, but it's not just about speaking fast.

You see, when we speak quickly, we combine words together.

This is called connected speech.

And if you're not familiar with connected speech, you'll find it difficult to understand fast spoken English.

For example, look at this sentence.

Whatcha doing?

It actually means what are you doing?

Whatcha doing?

Or this one.

I gotta go.

It means I've got to go.

I need to leave.

I gotta go.

So the first step to understanding fast spoken English is to realize

that connected speech is the reason you can't understand native speakers.

It's because what you learned in school, what you learned in the textbook is not actually how native speakers speak in real life.

So start identifying these connected speech patterns.

If you want to learn more about this, you can check out my Conversation Confidence course.

There are several lessons on connected speech in that course.

The link is in the description below.

One of the ways you can actually learn connected speech is by watching movies with subtitles.

You see, if you can see the words on the screen and you can hear them being spoken at the same time,

this is going to retrain your brain to connect the way the words sound with the way the words are written.

If you want to improve your English by watching movies and using the subtitles.

There are four levels.

The first level is where you listen to the audio in your native language, and you put on the English subtitles.

The second level is where you listen to the audio in English, and you put on subtitles in your native language.

The third level is where you listen to the audio in English, and you put subtitles on in English.

And of course, the fourth and most difficult level is where you listen to the audio in English without subtitles.

Which level are you at right now?

Let me know in the comments.

Here's the thing, even if you're not at level three or level four yet, that's okay.

Everybody has to start somewhere.

So even if you need to turn on the subtitles in your native language or in English, that's perfectly okay.

There's nothing wrong with that

and it can actually be a really good way of working your way up

and building the confidence you need until you can finally get to level four.

Now when it comes to subtitles, you have to be careful because watching movies with subtitles might be making your English worse.

You see, subtitles aren't always bad, but you don't want to become reliant on them.

And they're there so you can eventually understand spoken English without having to use them.

Because guess what?

There are no subtitles in real world conversation.

You should use subtitles if you're at the level where you can't understand a movie without them.

But your goal should always be to eventually stop using them

and get to the point where you can understand spoken English without subtitles.

In English, we say you have to learn to walk before you can run.

Now, before we continue the video, if you want to study English with me, check out my English at the Ready Club.

The link to join the club is in the description below and you get live classes, support, a private community, and so much more as soon as you join the club.

The link to join the club is in the description below.

Something my students tell me all the time in the club is that they're listening to a movie, they're listening to a conversation, and they get stuck.

Here's why you get stuck in conversation.

You're listening for individual words and not the general meaning.

Yes, native speakers speak quickly, but a big part of the problem is that your vocabulary is not big enough.

So what happens is you're listening to a native speaker, you hear a word you don't understand, you stop, and you try to figure out what that word was,

but the conversation is already 10 steps ahead.

So, of course, you feel lost, you feel like you're stuck, you feel like you can't keep up,

when in reality, the problem is that your vocabulary isn't big enough.

It's not necessarily that you have problems understanding what they're saying.

It's that you don't have the vocabulary yet.

So that's why expanding your vocabulary and making

that a priority can really help you so you don't get stuck as much in conversation or when watching movies.

Now a question I get all the time, what are the best movies to learn English?

And honestly, you're not going to like this answer.

One movie is not better than another for learning English.

You need to watch a movie you'll actually enjoy.

Because if you don't enjoy the movie, if you're not paying attention to it, if you're bored, you won't be engaged, you won't be focused, and you won't improve your English.

So turn on Netflix, go to a genre or category you enjoy, whether that's romance, history, action,

suspense, and find a movie you'd actually watch in your native language.

For example, I personally am not a huge fan of science fiction movies, so I probably wouldn't find them that useful to learn a language with,

but other students would.

So it completely depends on you.

It depends what kind of movie you enjoy.

It's the same with books or podcasts or news articles.

You shouldn't do anything differently.

You should do exactly what you would do in your native language, but in English because learning a language is not necessarily about doing things you don't find interesting.

It's about doing the things that you already do, but doing them in English, doing them in the target language.

So whatever type of movie you enjoy, that's good enough.

And remember what I said earlier about subtitles.

There's nothing wrong with using subtitles.

You know the four levels of subtitles.

It doesn't matter where you are right now, whether you're still at the bottom or you can already understand movies pretty well.

Keep it up.

Keep watching movies.

Eventually, you will get there.

And eventually, it will be a lot easier to understand native English speakers.

I hope you found this video useful.

If you did, make sure to leave a like, let me know in the comments, and subscribe to English at the Ready here on YouTube so you don't miss any future lessons.

If you want to study with me personally, make sure to join the English at the Ready club for live classes every week, study resources, private community, and so much more.

Thanks for watching today's video, and I'll see you in the next one.

Was ist die Shadowing-Technik?

Shadowing ist eine wissenschaftlich fundierte Sprachlerntechnik, die ursprünglich für die professionelle Dolmetscherausbildung entwickelt und durch den Polyglotten Dr. Alexander Arguelles populär gemacht wurde. Die Methode ist einfach aber wirkungsvoll: Du hörst englisches Audio von Muttersprachlern und wiederholst es sofort laut — wie ein Schatten, der dem Sprecher mit nur 1–2 Sekunden Verzögerung folgt. Anders als passives Hören oder Grammatikübungen zwingt Shadowing dein Gehirn und deine Mundmuskulatur, gleichzeitig echte Sprachmuster zu verarbeiten und zu reproduzieren. Studien zeigen, dass es Aussprachegenauigkeit, Intonation, Rhythmus, verbundene Sprache, Hörverständnis und Sprechflüssigkeit signifikant verbessert — was es zu einer der effektivsten Methoden für die IELTS Speaking-Vorbereitung und reale englische Kommunikation macht.

Shadowing-Übung: Why you can't understand English movies. - Englisch Sprechen Lernen mit Video

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