Learning Spanish By Watching Movies

i do the same thing/It helps alot.I also have to turn the tv up loud. But it also helps if you listen to spanish music and you look up the words in english.

Don't worry. It's not that you don't understand some actors. It's them (specially the young ones) that tend to mumble. I do have sometimes problems trying to understand them and I'm a Spaniard with quite a good vocabulary, so don't worry too much. It's like trying to understand Stallone while you are learning English ;)

I think you'd learn more Spanish with older movies (50s-70s) because they came from theater and used to speak louder and clearer. As an "exercise" hear something from a recent Spanish movie and something by Fernando Fernán Gómez, Francisco Rabal or José Sacristan (they are Spaniards). You'll find easier to understand them than Jorge Sanz or Mario Casas. I had problems too with "Y tu mamá también" (it sounded to me like they were talking inside a bucket).

A tiny suggestion: don't try to learn Spanish with Spanish (and I mean from Spain) comedies. They're full of double meanings, mostly related to sex. But in Spain it's not too rude to speak about sex in movies ;)

And one more thing: what you are doing (learning Spanish watching movies) is just the way I learn English. I use series (Galactica, Stargate SG-1/Atlantis/Universe, Doctor Who, Lexx, ...) but it's the same.

P.S.: It's me or "The West Wing" is a little hard to understand if you are learning? :)

One of the most important things to me is finding movies that have subtitles in Spanish. Here in the U.S. most Spanish language movies don't have Spanish subtitles. It makes it so much easier for me to follow, because I don't have to listen, then look at the English subtitles, then translate in my head. I just got done watching this movie, and unfortunately it didn't have subtitles in Spanish, but I will say that this was a little easier to follow than most, because there was not a lot of talking in this movie, so the dialog came in very manageable chunks.

I'd try watching older movies, as I don't think they talk quite as fast so it's easier to understand.

The payoff for slogging through an hour of boring is never worth it.

Another recommendation is El mariachi, as they speak Spanish super slow in that movie.

The payoff for slogging through an hour of boring is never worth it.

It helped me with english (basically all that I know) but I sing songs in english (or just vocalize them ) and it helps with the speaking.

Old thread, but I will give advice to people learning Spanish. I highly recommend you watch movies with the type of Spanish (accent and vocabulary) that you need to learn. For example, if you live in the South West most likely your going to want to focus on Mexican Spanish or if you leave on the East Coast you may want to focus on Carribean Spanish (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, etc). I grew up in Los Angeles and I am currently living in Madrid right now so the Spanish I learned in highschool is much different than the Spanish spoken in Spain (the use of vosotros and the c's and z's being pronounced with a "th" sound). Yes if your not native then even the accent on basic words can muddle your understanding. So always be careful about what region and accented Spanish you want to focus on. Also if your Spanish is good enough to understand all the basic grammar and sufficient vocabulary, rather than put the subtitles in English put them in Spanish so it's easier to retain new words and phrases.