Many people like to watch movies with subtitles so they can better appreciate the acting of the characters. Many others prefer to watch movies dubbed into their language so they don’t have to read everything that is spoken in the movie. But what if subtitled movies could help you learn a language? Could your children learn it too?
Of course, in this case, children must master reading and comprehension of it to be able to take advantage of this resource, and also that the movies they watch are of interest to them.
There are countries that subtitle movies even in theaters and others that don’t, but we won’t go into this as it is ideological and what interests us is to find out if watching movies with subtitles can help your children learn other languages. What is certain is that we can assure you that in countries where films are broadcast with subtitles, more foreign languages are spoken than in those where they do not.
In fact, there are experts who claim that the way we watch movies is closely related to the linguistic competence of second languages. For example, in countries like Denmark, Finland or Sweden, to name a few, movies are shown on television in the original language with subtitles in the mother tongue. In these countries mentioned, a large part of the population speaks two foreign languages. Curious, right?
On the other hand, in countries such as Spain or Italy where they are doubled, the population barely speaks foreign languages. So much so, that the population cannot communicate in a second language, because they neither know how to speak it nor understand it.
Listen to other languages daily
Therefore, when a person is exposed to hearing other languages on a daily basis, they have a better level of comprehension and oral expression in the foreign language. It is logical, so if you always show your children television in other languages , they can begin to understand them better.
Of course, when language development begins, this practice is appropriate as long as one of the parents masters the language that is to be instilled. Otherwise, it is better to wait until the child begins to read and write in school to start doing so. If done ahead of time, it could confuse their language development.
fantastic method
But we can’t deny that watching movies with subtitles is a great way to learn English or any other foreign language you want to learn. To do this, you don’t need more knowledge than reading and reading comprehension. Continued exposure to another language will greatly enhance your learning of that language.
In addition, when captions are widely used in a population, their literacy is encouraged. In fact, in countries like Denmark, children want to learn to read more eagerly just because they can watch movies with subtitles and enjoy those that might interest them.
At an early age, children cannot watch television that is not in their language, because they simply do not understand it. In the countries cited above, children spend less time in front of screens as they do not watch television because they are not proficient in literacy.
Emotions and brain stimulation
As is known, everything that has to do with emotions stimulates learning and therefore, the mind is more motivated and receptive to learn when something interests us. In this sense, audiovisual material is always a powerful learning motivator for children since it helps to process information visually and auditorily and it is easier to remember it later.
Of course, this is great because watching movies with subtitles also gives us the opportunity to really see how other languages are spoken and pronounced, correctly internalizing that accent or that way of pronunciation.