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Among all things that you can benefit from learning a language is undoubtedly the ability to watch movies and TV shows in original voicing. Yeah, subtitles are great for following all the dialogues, but keeping an eye on subtitles may seem tedious and is actually taking some joy off the watching experience, as the main action on the screen flows by; plus, we are not there for the reading experience. On the other hand, students learning a language may find it hard to track the storyline without some background presented by subtitled dialogue or offscreen narration. That was the case with movies and shows in English a while back.

However, moviemakers have proved that a movie can be understood even without a single sound in it, shoutout to the silent era of movies. That is because of a universal language that lots of people understand: movie language. The movie language tells with pictures rather than words. Even though dialogue and narration provide some details about the characters and situations that can make a story more fun (say, word-play jokes by Michael in the celebrated American TV show “Office”), the majority of the story is told with moving images, a language of its own.

I remember watching “Winter’s Bone,” starring a young Jennifer Lawrence searching for her runaway father against the backdrop of Alabama’s Ozark with her father’s numerous relatives trying to misguide her in the search. All the accent in the movie is heavily Southern, including region-specific vocabulary and slang, which should be difficult to understand for a regular learner of American English. But I noticed that the dialogues bearing important storyline details are somehow more articulated than the others for some reason. When the titles rolled out, I had a good comprehension of what it was all about, the movie made sense as well as an impression.

The toughest thing is, of course, to disable subtitles and actually start watching the movie and get through about 15-20 starting minutes. After that time, you get used to the character’s accents and vocabulary, which they would use in their surroundings.

Although no amount of enthusiasm can help you sit through a boring and straight-out bad movie, so be kinda and picky in choosing a movie or TV show to watch and make sure it is to your liking, of course. At the end of the day, it is all just pure entertainment.

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