#118 Learning English with Movies with Cara Leopold

Cara Leopold helps adventurous expats and intrepid travelers understand fast-talking native English speakers, themselves, and the world around them by watching and discussing movies.

In this episode, I asked Cara all about her experience with learning and teaching languages using movies. We spoke a lot about listening skills and the use of subtitles, and I'm sure you'll like this one. 

Show notes page - https://levelupenglish.school/podcast118

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Transcript - https://levelupenglish.school/transcripts 

Transcript

Michael: 0:05

Welcome to the Level Up English podcast, the best place to come to practice the English language. Learn about the British accent and culture with me, your host, Michael Lavers. Hello, English learners. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for joining me as always. I've got a conversation to share. Have you today? Very good conversation with Cara Leopold from Leo-listening.com. She is from the UK. She is an English teacher and she specializes in learning with movies and TV shows and all that kind of good stuff. So we had a really good conversation. We spoke a little bit about subtitles as well. Speaking of subtitles, did you know I make a transcript for these episodes? Well, if you listen before you probably know that, but just to remind you, if you want some extra help, understanding what we're saying today, and following along with what we're talking about, you know, native level of speed, then you might want to check out the transcripts and these can be unlocked and downloaded from levelupenglish.school/transcript. Okay. levelupenglish.school/transcript. So hopefully that helps some of you also link to that in the show notes and yeah. In the episode today, Cara and I spoke about learning English or learning any language with movies we spoke about using subtitles, whether that's really a good idea, we spoke about her favorite movies and all this kind of good stuff. So if you have tried listening, I should say, watching a movie before, and you've struggled, you know, you haven't found it easy, then I think this episode will help you a lot and will reassure you and give you some advice as well. So I really hope you enjoy it. It was a lot of fun to record and yeah, without any further ado. Here's my conversation with Cara. I am joined today by Cara from Leo-listening.com. Thank you very much for joining me. How are you today?

Cara: 2:35

Um, not too bad, Michael, thank you very much for having me on your podcast and unleashing me on your listeners. I'll try to be gentle with them.

Michael: 2:45

My pleasure. I'm glad you could be here. Um, for those of the listeners who don't know you, could you give us a quick introduction as to who you are, uh, kind of your background with languages and all this kind of stuff?

Cara: 2:59

Uh, yeah, I'll try and give you like a quick top line of all that. So I I'm, um, I'm British like you, although I have been living in France for many years now, uh, since 2007, so that's quite a while at this point. So, um, yeah, I live abroad, obviously I speak French. Um, and for many years I was, you know, um, I started off teaching English in France. I really wanted to teach English. I really wanted to live in France. I was able to combine them. So that was good. And then, um, then I figured out, okay, I want to live in France, long term. And I experimented kind of doing other jobs and trying to figure out, you know, um, living abroad and working here and all that kind of thing. And then, um, a few years ago I decided to try out online teaching and set up my own business. So, um, that is Leo listening. So the name is because my last name is Leopold and that's quite an unusual surname. Um, well at least in the UK, it's unusual. Maybe not so unusual if you're from Belgium or something like this, but so, um, I wanted to make a, kind of a name to go with that. And because I focus on listening skills, I thought, well, and I like alliteration. I like alliterative names. So what I mean is that Leo starts with an L and listening starts with an L. So I came up with this name and yeah, so now I'm over at Leo listening. I help students who are quite advanced that they tend to be expats like myself living abroad, or they have to maybe travel a lot and speak English a lot on, I help them improve their listening skills with movies so that they can understand native speakers better, especially when they talk fast, because we know that native speakers can be a pain to understand. Um, that's not fun when you're living among them. You have to, you know, you have to try and follow what they're saying. And obviously I've experienced that myself living in another country. So, uh, yeah, and I've experimented a lot with watching movies, myself to learn languages and, uh, it often was not, um, very satisfied. So, um, yeah. Uh, I'm, I'm trying to, what I'm basically saying is like, if you're sort of watching movies to try and improve what, whatever language you're learning, but I mean, especially English, like, don't be surprised if it's, if it's quite hard and, um, you find it a bit frustrating because it, because it is, um, uh, so you don't need to feel bad about that. Um, I certainly felt bad about it, but I'd, I didn't really know what I was doing.

Michael: 5:56

Yeah. So it like, the stuff you're focusing on now is kind of what you would have liked to have had when you started learning, perhaps like you're kind of just sharing what you wished you knew before, is that right?

Cara: 6:08

Yeah. It's kind of, it's kind of part of that. We'll like, well, some stuff should have been common sense really. So like I started, I wanted to like start learning Portuguese, like Brazilian Portuguese, and I thought, oh, well, there's that movie city of God, which is like, uh, it was a famous movie at the time, maybe at the beginning of the two thousands, but it's like a movie set in the favelas of, I don't know if it's real or, you know, a big Brazilian city. And so, you know, it's very difficult language, not accessible language. And I don't really know what I was thinking to be honest, um, by, by sort of watching that. But I think we'll kind of go, oh, well, you know, a movie it's really immersive. It is so deeply immersive. I mean, aren't movies, brilliant. Like you get to immerse yourself in the coach or in the language you get to almost experience like being in the country, being with the people like, you know, they've got, it's called everything, you know, you get to listen to dialogue and um, so no wonder people want to do it obviously, but then, um, you know, beginner level is probably way too hard. You shouldn't be tackling a full movie. Definitely not. And then even at intermediate level is quite hard. And, um, at the time I was learning French at university, um, like I was like borrowing like video cassettes from the local library and they didn't even have subtitles. Can you imagine, like, you're watching a VHS, you can't even turn on the subtitles. So you're just kind of sitting there like, okay, let me just get to the end of this movie. And like, why are they mumbling all the time? And I'm sure I would understand everything now. Like I can't even, I almost can't remember what it was like. Cause now when I listened to French, I understand almost everything like occasionally I might not know a word or someone's accent might be difficult, but it's unusual for me to not catch something. And actually what I find hard now is reading in French. Cause that's where I come across unknown vocabulary. But in listening, that's, that's, that's not really the case. Cause you know, when we just talk, normally we use a lot of the same words. We're not using, you know, anything particularly fancy, um, it's in writing that you, you need the bigger vocabulary. So, um, so yeah, so I've had, I've had, I've had some, some bad experiences and I think like the worst thing was like trying to do it all by myself. So, um, like I like learning by myself. I'm quite self-motivated and um, I always think like, oh, it's going to go like faster if it's just me, you know, I won't have someone else holding me back or I don't know something like this. And um, but actually for, for, for a lot of things, especially in language learning, I think you need other people, you can't, you can't do it all, you know, so low, especially because eventually you have to talk to someone. So there's only so long you can, um, you know, I like the idea of sort of, you know, monologuing to yourself and talking in your head, I've definitely done that in foreign languages, but eventually you will need a conversation partner.

Michael: 9:29

Yeah. Yeah, totally. I, I really think it's the kind of thing where it does happen... It's just so much easier when you've got someone to study with or someone to teach you and even, even a group of learners who are similar level to you. I feel like it becomes a lot easier, but, but yeah, I wanted to ask you primarily today about your technique with like movies and listening and all this kind of stuff and a bit about subtitles as well. Sure. It's very interesting for me because I started learning Japanese several years ago and my original goal was to be able to understand like Japanese horror movies without subtitles. And I don't know what you think. I thought that was a good goal because I feel like horror movies, the dialogue is quite often easier. Like it's shorter and they don't use super complex terms, but I don't know about that. That was my goal anyway. And I haven't, I don't really watch movies anymore. Like I guess I kind of gave up on that go and I'm just learning for other reasons. Now I'd love to hear some more of your ideas. So like, do you have any, you know, you already mentioned the benefits about movies, of like the culture, the language, but do you have any like specific techniques that you would teach or you would use when learning a language with a movie?

Cara: 10:53

Yeah, that's a good question. That seems like a good goal to me as well. Like that's quite specific, isn't it watching Japanese horror movies? I mean, I think you had the right idea because you're focusing on one genre of movie. So that's already pretty sensible. Like sometimes I tell people to sort of, one thing that can help is to like watch movies with the same actors and actresses, um, or the same type of movie, or just be aware that some, some movies tend to be harder, um, harder than others. I suppose maybe the disadvantage of horror would be, you might not have enough dialogue. Um, depends on, I suppose it depends on what it is like we watched last October for Halloween. We watched, um, uh, John carpenter's the thing. So I say, John, carpenter's the thing because it's a remake of, uh, an older movie by John Carpenter. Who's a very famous hover movie director, fantastic movies that he makes. And the thing is more like it is a Harvard movie, but a big sort of like psychological element. And it's kind of these guys trapped on a base in Antarctica and everybody's going a bit mad and paranoid. It's a bit like being on lockdown. Like it's so funny to watch this movie like in these times. And, um, yeah, that, that is a horror movie, but I would say, yeah, some of the dialogue is quite hard. Um, but definitely worse, like pursuing, cause it is, it is a, is a great, is a great movie, but um, yeah, watch it like, yeah. So I would have said you were on the right track with that, but it is hard to watch movies without subtitles. I mean, you think there's always going to be times where you might need to turn them on for like a particular scene or with particular characters who are hard to understand. Um, at the same time, like I said, if you follow the same actors and actresses, so this is something that's happened with me and my students recently, it wasn't even necessarily something planned, but like we've watched a lot of movies starring Emma Thompson, who's a famous British actress. And um, they actually found her quite hard to understand in the beginning, but now they've seen a few movies with her. They've kind of just got used to the way she speaks and it doesn't vary wildly between the movies. So, um, so it does go to show that if you, if you do focus on the same kind of genres of movies, actors and actresses, actors, and actresses, let's just call them actors, no need to distinguish. Um, then it, it, it, it does get, it does get easier. Um, and we're even, we're going to watch another movie with Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. And we've already seen a movie starring both of them. So it should be easier for everybody. Um, but my students, like many students, they find American accents easier than British ones I think is just to do with exposure. Okay.

Michael: 13:52

I always get the opposite, but yeah, maybe it's kind of this bias because the students who study with me, maybe they prefer the British accent. Definitely they listen more, but I rarely hear people that say they probably find American easier. That's interesting.

Cara: 14:05

Okay. That's in... But I really think there's nothing like there's nothing in either accent. That means that one is harder than the other. I think it really depends on what you've, what you're used to. Like, I mean, I live in a region of France where there is quite strong. Um, and so even French people who come from outside, they might be surprised when they hear the strongest version of this accent, but I'm not shocked by it obviously anymore because I've lived here so long. And even in the beginning, I adapted quite quickly. Cause it, you know, it affected like certain sounds, certain variables, certain expressions, or that's more the dialect aspect. But once you've figured that out then it's fine. Um, I think people get worried about accents. I think the most important thing is not so much people person's accent, but what they do when they speak fast. So what we perceive as fast is more to do with the way that people speak when they're not really paying attention. So not like Ted talk way of speaking, but the kind of everyday way of speaking where, you know, to save time and energy, we will, you know, delete, sounds, mix them together, kind of create new ones. That's more important to me than, you know, different, different accents. Sometimes students talk about the, the native speaker accent and that's what they're getting out. Like what, what the things that we do when we talk fast, the old to the pronunciation that make it, you know, unclear, not like teacher talk, but like actual people in the street kind

Michael: 15:51

Of, yes. That's the benefit of, of movies and TV shows is that a lot of learners will never have access to these natural ways of speaking because in a lesson I might say, do you want some water? But with my friends, I might just say, do you want some water?

Cara: 16:08

Of course you would. Yeah.

Michael: 16:09

And learners might have no idea what I said, but I think that's really fun to teach that kind of casual way of talking.

Cara: 16:15

Yeah. And it's really important because, so there's a couple of things there. So you're using this, the exact same expression, but one is more like informal than the other. I feel like a more informal pronunciation, harder to understand more. It sounds kind of more squashed together and alls, but all the words are known words. Yeah. So I really want people to like really get that into your brain, that the words that you're often going to find difficult are words that, you know, they're not in you words, they're just words that, you know, like altered changed in, in, in, in a particular way. And then they're not new ones. Like people get really worried about new words. But like I say, in speech, we don't use as many words as we do say in writing. And that's why I don't like reading in French because I see words, I don't know. Um, and I probably wouldn't hear them in conversation because, you know, they're like literary words or, you know, um, I'm talking about, you know, reading novels or whatever, um, or technical words, or I dunno, you know, it depends what you're, what you're reading, but conversation is, um, it's not as complex. Sometimes we maybe only use the sort of core 1000, 2,003,000 words of English. So we're not using idioms every sentence we're not using, you know, um, new words. I mean, phrasal verbs, for example, just while I'm on the topic of vocabulary. I think the reason that people struggle with phrasal verbs is because when we talk fast, prepositions are the type of word that we swallow that we don't pronounce clearly. So I think the reason that people struggle with those types of verbs is not, it's not because they're phrasal verbs, not because they're difficult. It's just because you probably don't actually hear them as phrasal verbs when people talk fast. Um, and you know, if you go on YouTube and you find a nice video that says, you know, here's 10 phrasal verbs, you need to learn. And the teacher's reading them out slowly. I mean, obviously that's great. You need to know how to pronounce them properly and you need to hear them. But then the issue is when you go and listen to people talking fast and using these verbs, like the preposition, isn't going to be said, clearly it's going to be hard to catch.

Michael: 18:41

Oh, that's interesting. So, so one example could be, um, like a brush up on like improve your English brush up on your English. And maybe if in spoken, it would be like, I need to brush up on my English and you can almost not even hear that up in those. Yeah, exactly.

Cara: 18:56

Yeah. It's funny. The first version you're kind of like emphasizing, oh please, you're saying it carefully because you want people to get it. And then, then the second is it's hard. I mean, you pronounced the P in the second, but when people speak fast, they might even drop it. So it can be really, so you might just hear"brush" or, you know, something weird and you're kind of like, well, what is that? And I think as I think a lot of grammar problems are also to do with listening. And that makes sense because it's those often those smaller grammatical words that we don't say clearly. So that's really tough if you're coming from a language, for example, like I know a lot of Russian speakers struggle with articles and articles are exactly the kind of word that we very rarely, very rarely emphasized. They're very hard to catch. They get kind of joined to other words. And sometimes it's hard actually to tell the difference between the and uh, when, when people talk fast. So obviously if you're already struggling with that grammar and then you can't hear those words very clear, they, when people speak like it, it makes it even harder for you to kind of absorb the rules just by listening. So, yeah, it's hard. It's hard. It's a tough world out there for the English learner. Um, and it's the same for me, like in French. So when you're learning French and you learn like, okay, there's grammatical gender, there's masculine and feminine. So we've got, um, two, um, two types of definite article and two types of indefinite articles. So we've got a un, una, le, la. And so obviously when you learn them in class, you're like LA LA un....[French stuff...] Right. Super clearly. But then you go out into the real world and, and people do not articulate them that clearly, sometimes people, people say like a kind of word it's kind of in between LE and LA. And I think I do that sometimes to cheat when I'm not sure of the, of the gender, of a word, I just kind of say an in between kind of thing. But, but native speakers do that, do that too. You know, people are not going around seeing LA tabla. I wish they were, but they're not, they're not. So,

Michael: 21:09

Um, that's, that's a really good point. And, and this is why I wanted to ask if you had any, uh, like, you know, I have so many students, I'm thinking of a few in particular who say, I can understand conversation, or they joined my group lessons. They know they can follow along perfectly, but then when they watch the movie, they can't understand anything pretty much. That's what they say. So what would you recommend to them? Like, how should they start? I don't know if you want to talk about your lessons or all on their own.

Cara: 21:39

What they can can do. I mean, I think it's normal that you would, um, understand a conversation that you're participating in E more easily than a, than a movie, because you know, you're together with other people. They can see you. If they see that you're a bit lost, they can like adapt or you can, in real time, you can kind of ask them to clarify things. And if you're with people here who you've been talking to for a while, you know, you're used to how they talk and how they sound and everything kind of with a movie it's like your, um, uh, what's the word eaves dropping. That's a nice, oh, that's a bit of vocab you might not know. So when you're eavesdropping, like you're listening into a conversation, you're not part of it, but you're kind of overhearing it, almost spying on it. And, um, but no, one's actually talking to you. So it's, it's, it's already harder. Cause you're not actually, you know, participating. So that's like one issue with, um, with movies. I mean, I think if maybe they're too hard, then you can, well, you have to kind of gauge where you're at. So like if you start watching a movie and you kind of watch the first 10 to 15 minutes and you're really lost, um, you might want to try something else or you might just accept like watching to watch it with the subtitles. That's, that's fine. Um, I mean, if, if, if they're still too hard for you, then I would switch to TV series instead probably, um, you know, something shorter, something, I mean, without wanting to recommend friends, which I don't necessarily recommend, but I mean

Michael: 23:19

I saw that on your website, I love friends. I don't know why!

Cara: 23:21

Why would you, why would you hate friends? Yeah, but like, I mean, it's a good example of kind of like it's a series where, you know, the episodes are what, 20 minutes or, um, you see the same characters every week. Um, but I mean, it's just, it's just a situation comedy. So there are plenty of other series that are like that there was short episodes, same characters every week, same language, even every week, um, from some characters. So I mean, like they have like catchphrases that they repeat and everything. So if movies are too hard, definitely, um, consider switching to TV shows. Um, but then also think about the type of movie that you're watching. Cause we said that some, some can be harder than others. Um, if you're not used to particular accents, it could be, it could be harder. So you might just have to have a bit of, um, you might have to be a bit more careful about how you choose them. Um, but at the same time you also want to choose something you're interested in because if you're interested, you're more likely to, to stick with it. But like I come back to the example they gave in the beginning for Portuguese. Like I tried to watch city of God, I should not have been messing around with movies at beginner level. Really. And that was like a really difficult movie to understand, like now if I wanted to learn Portuguese, I would just start watching to the innovators in Portuguese probably and go from there. And I wouldn't mess around with movies until later. So yeah, you have to choose a bit, um, carefully and then like, what you can do is, so what we do with my students is we don't like just dive in to watching review, like we kind of prepare for it. And we also take our time like watching and discussing it and working on it to understand it better. So that could just be something as simple as like going on the website, the internet movie database, I am DB. Um, and that is a website where you can find the trailer of the movie. You can read like a summary of the plot. You can, in fact, there's loads of information about the movie, but you can just get like a very basic idea from going on there and even just watching the trailer can let you know, like, does this look interesting to me? Do I think I'll be able to understand it? Um, even will it be useful for me, you know, in terms of the language that I might, I might see. So you definitely want to like prepare yourself beforehand. And if you have like a basic idea of the plot, then you can, um, then it's going to be easier for you to follow. Like without spoiling the story, just kind of knowing, okay, there's these characters it's going to take place in this time period in this situation. Uh, some of that could even be difficult culturally, like we're, we're going to watch, um, the movie of the remains of the day, which is, um, it's about a Butler in the 1930s. I mean, I suppose that kind of scenario is maybe, maybe people are more used to it because they've watched Downton Abbey. So like they know what it's like for servants in a rich person's house. I mean, even like, I can't even relate to that. I mean, I've never, you know, that is very much the past, uh, this kind of thing. So, um, yeah, there's also sort of, you know, Ooh, is it going to be difficult culturally? Oh, sometimes what my students do is they will watch the movie like in the wrong language first.

Michael: 26:53

That's what I was going to ask.

Cara: 26:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely just to like, like one of them for a movie we watched recently he happened to have the DVD. I think that's why he suggested the movie because he had the DVD at home. And so he was able to watch it, um, initially, yeah, maybe even in Italian or with Italian subtitles, like it just, he did that initial kind of like easy viewing where you're not worrying too much about the English because you know, you can follow because it's either dubbed or you have the subtitles in your language or something like this. And then that, that actually makes it even more interesting to discuss the movie. Cause then you can like compare the two versions or, um, yeah, I asked him like, how did they do the accents? Because yeah, that movie, it was, um, it wasn't calendar girls, uh, what was it? You know, in some movies they have like particular accents in English. I was like, oh, did they give the Italian speakers like a weird Italian accent or something like that? It's so interesting. And like, how did they explain this thing? Cause this is really culturally specific. Like how did they translate it? Like it actually, um, leads to some really interesting discussion. So you definitely like, so at what I'm saying is you're probably going to end up watching the movie more than once if you really want to get into it. Um, so you're going to need to prepare yourself, um, you know, read about it, watch the trailer choose carefully. Um, you know, don't choose something that's too, that's too difficult or doesn't interest you be prepared to maybe watch it in your own language first or, um, or watch it with subtitles initially, you know, don't, uh, don't have too high expectations the first, the first time, you know, that you, that you watch it, you can always come back to it. Um, and, uh, yeah, it was, um, my students like I'll get them to, we do watch them together as well. We have watch parties. That's good. Um, that's more just for fun. I mean, they will sometimes ask me questions during the movie, but really that's just to kind of share our reactions. Um, as we watch it, like on WhatsApp, we text each other and that's really fun. Um, and it's not about understanding it perfectly. It's just kind of about, you know, having that experience where you're sort of watching your apart, but you're watching it together. Um, and then yeah, that, that gives us ideas as well, going forward. Cause also I can see like maybe if they didn't get certain bits or it gives me ideas for things to talk about with them that they might not have understood maybe to do with culture and things like this. So yeah, that's, that's really nice. And then like at some point you might want to actually like do some like work if you're like, w I say like work and inverted commerce. So, um, one thing that we'll do is we'll work on specific scenes or parts of the movie. Um, so you can easily find like clips on YouTube for most movies. Um, and there is actually a channel that's literally called movie clips and they have like licensed clips of famous movies. So, you know, they're not going to get taken down in a couple of weeks or something for copyright reasons. So that's really good. And a lot of them are subtitled. So we'll use these clips to do things like, um, like listening and writing exercises. So what I mean by that is, um, dictations. So like I'll choose some lines that I know are a bit difficult to catch and then the students will try writing them. And then we check our work with the subtitles and I'll kind of give them some help to understand like why certain parts were hard to understand. So that's something you can do yourself if like, presumably if you've got, if you've got the movie, you've got the subtitles right now, we're not in the VHS days of, I mentioned where I didn't even have subtitles. Um, so you can, you can do that type of exercise and kind of, you know, check your work to get feedback, because this is the thing, like sometimes we'll listen to something and like, we didn't understand it, but we don't know why. And we don't even, like, we don't even bother to ask why. So, um, this is, this is where it helps to just make a tiny bit more of an effort. And, um, I think most of the time people will see that what they didn't catch. It's probably words that they know.

Michael: 31:27

Yeah. I've noticed that myself. It's really surprising when I wait, what did they say? That was just, this is obviously really advanced. I have no idea what they said. And when I look at the subtitles or the transcript, I'm like, oh, I know all these words. That's easy. It's just the way they said it. I didn't quite understand.

Cara: 31:42

Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's for the people that are still using subtitles and then listening and then wondering why they still can't catch things or they see things on the subtitles that they know, yeah, this is, this is, this is part of the, this is part of the problem. Nine times out of 10, it's going to be words that, you know, unfortunately is the unglamorous truth listening, like in, in, in any language. I mean, unless like, if you're, obviously, if you have a very low level in the language, you probably won't know, you probably just don't know enough words even, but when you, when you get further along, it's not like you can't be like, oh, if I learn like 10 new words every day, then I'll be fine and I'll understand everything. No, you have to, you have to actually learn how the words that you already know how the words that you already know sound. Um, not that mean, obviously in movies, you can also learn new words. That's part of the fun of, of watching them. But there might not actually be as many as you think. Hmm.

Michael: 32:46

So, um, it's like, yeah. Um, it, yeah, it's like you said before, um, the, the amount of words we use in our day-to-day language is quite limited. You know, we don't have a, the average person doesn't have a wide vocabulary. Really it's the same words all the time. So more vocabulary doesn't necessarily mean you'll understand more does it?

Cara: 33:08

Yeah. and, and that sounds very counter intuitive. I mean, I would say people actually have, we probably have, like, if you're a fairly well-educated speaker of a language, you probably do have quite a wide passive vocabulary. So if you read something, um, you probably do know those words, but you just don't use them actively in your everyday vocabulary. Um, because you're, you're just using that, the kind of core set of the most important words. And I mean, okay. Maybe if you work in a sort of domain, that's a bit technical, you might be using sort of fancier words, we've all learned new words over the past year and a half or so to do with the pande... Honestly, there was words I didn't know. And I didn't even dare like ask people, like, yeah. I, I don't think

Michael: 33:58

I really knew what an epidemiologist was before the, you know, I never really thought about it before.

Cara: 34:07

Well no, why would you? Unless you are one, and now they're like celebrities. Now, some people, um, one for me was like''shielding" people who are shielding didn't understand what, cause like that was a term in the, in the UK and in France. I don't really know if there was an equivalent, maybe not on one word equivalent, but anyway, like some of that all got very confusing, but I think now we all have quite a good, uh, you know, public health vocabulary much better than when we then when we, um, then when we started. Interesting. Yeah. I was just thinking about, um, do you know Christina Rebuffet from Speak English with Christina? Okay. But if I remember, well, she has a good video somewhere about like the basic words that we use a lot. So the fact that in English, we use a lot of these very basic verbs, like get, do be, have she must, she has a video somewhere I think to do with that. I'll try and find it for you. But I thought that's a really good illustration, like, like a verb, like gets that causes a lot of problems because it has a lot of meanings. It can be used as a phrasal verb, but you're better off, I think, spending your time, figuring out all the ways that get used and how it sounds in fast speech. Cause it doesn't sound like get, that's a very, very nice and clean pronunciation then sort, always adding new vocabulary. Yeah.

Michael: 35:33

So like, I think get, and put, if you look them up in the dictionary, it's just like a huge, huge list of all these different meanings. It's it's crazy.

Cara: 35:43

Well, I think, especially because yeah'put' is another one, you can combine with a lot of prepositions to make phrasal verbs or verb plus a position. So it can have like all these, all these meanings, it's kind of, it's kind of crazy. But again, the problem comes back to what I mentioned again, when we say it fast, especially if there's a preposition attached, you might not even recognize it as a phrasal verb when it's, when it, when someone says it fast. So that's where it's really important actually to have the subtitles, to have a transcript, to have some way that you can check, um, your work, um, and figure out, you know, uh, why you, why you missed something. Yeah,

Michael: 36:26

Yeah, sure. I did want to ask you as well. Cause we spoke about it a bit. Ah, subtitles, because this is quite controversial, I think. But what are your thoughts on subtitles like using in English or using in your native language? Do you think anything is fine or is there a best way to go about learning with subtitles?

Cara: 36:44

Uh, yeah. It's a good question. I don't think it's yeah. Is it controversial? Yeah. Cause sometimes people have like a black and white kind of opinion. Like it's either a hundred percent less or 100% that, and I don't really, I think it's like the wrong way to think about it because the subtitles are a tool aren't they? So, um, I mean the way I prefer to use them more or want people to use them is, is for, you know, doing sort of listening exercises and then checking their work for that. Like, you need them, you there's no other way to check your work unless you have the subtitles. So for doing that type of listening work, which I think is really important, you, you need them and then, yeah, I'm not against people using, I'm quite happy for people to use different subtitle combinations. The one that they're like comfortable with. Cause we know that movies are hard, we've established this. Like they're not easy to understand. So, um, if you're, if you want to watch a movie eat, like I said, even dubbed into your native language first, just to familiarize with it, like familiarize yourself with it, then that's fine from my perspective. And then you can watch in English later. Um, I think watching, watching with the subtitles in your language, to me, that just sounds really hard for your brain. Um, if you can handle it, why not? But then like the problem is you've got input coming in, in English, uh, in your ears and then you're reading your language might even be a different script. Um, to me that's a bit too much input. That's like two modes of input into different languages. To me, it sounds like a bit much like sometimes at lunchtime we'll watch on the Jimmy Fallon show it's on, I think it's on Canada, one of the French channels anyway. And like it has the French subtitles embedded. I don't think you can take them off. So you're listening to the program in English and then you've got the French subtitles at the bottom and like, I can't help, but read the French subtitles. I don't know why I'm just obsessed with like reading the French subtitles to see how they translate things. Cause there's some quite difficult things to translate in a talk show. So it's just interesting for me. But then I think that is a bit, I suppose that's two languages. I know really well. So maybe it's a bit easier for me to like go between, but yeah, sometimes it doesn't, you need to find which I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Maybe just as a way to like support you when you watch the movie initially. But I think if you are going to use subtitles, if you do still need them, I would prefer them to be, to have the movie in English and the subtitles in English. Yeah.

Michael: 39:34

The way I I've always seen it is I think the brain naturally wants to conserve energy. Right. So it will do the lazy thing. So I think if you have subtitles in your native language you will naturally follow that because it's the least amount of work for your brain.

Cara: 39:51

Yeha, It is easier. Isn't it? And then, so you might not even actually really absorb much of the English audio. Yeah. I agree. I think that's where it gets a bit, a bit tricky. Um, I understand that if you're, if you have like a little level, you might not be able to do much else, but then, but then I would say, well maybe leave movies for the moment and, and watch something else. You know? So there's a, there's also the, there's also having it at your level. And then sometimes those are just something that you can like, I have a colleague who teaches Italian and one of the things she encourages her students to do is just to like play around with like switching them on and switching them off. So just like experiment, but even like, even in a way that means you don't have to really think about it. So like maybe you turn them on for five minutes and then you turn them off and then you turn them on again or 10 minutes or whatever the interval is. And then that way, like at least some scenes you get to, you get the help and then other scenes you're training yourself to kind of not use them so much, but yeah, the idea, but yeah, they're very much, there's just a, there's just a tool. Um, and you can, and you can use them in different ways, but yeah, I wouldn't say like never used the subtitles because, well then how can you even like check your work or check what you've understood, you know?

Michael: 41:20

Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people will be happy to hear that because there's, I've heard lots of confusion on this topic, so that's nice.

Cara: 41:27

Okay, good. Yeah. I really hate like, I really don't like, Hey is a bit strong. I like like really sort of very polarized opinions on language learning because I really feel that like, you can learn a language with anything really. Like there isn't, and there isn't even like necessarily a best method or whatever. Like, okay, maybe some things are better than others, but there are some countries in the world where people have very limited resources and very limited access to, um, material in English and they still managed to learn. So it just goes to show, it's not, it's not about like having the right, you know, thing. It's just, if you, if you can expose yourself to any kind of English regularly, then you've already on the right track. Yeah. So yeah, I really don't like, like, you must do this or you must never do this or that doesn't really, you know, that doesn't really make sense to me. You can, you can kind of do whatever you want really. Um, you know, if you like, if you, you know, if you're like watching movies, you can watch them, but there are some things to be aware of. But, and then if you prefer reading books, you can do that. If I actually read it. Yeah. Playing video. Oh gosh, we've got a friend- That's how he learned. Um, that's how we learned English. And I used to be his teacher and his English was like really good. There was nothing to teach him. Cause he learned it all by playing computer games. So yeah. I mean, uh, personally I don't like reading and I know that's like, I kind of associate with people who are really into reading for learning a foreign language. So that makes me feel bad, but that's just, that's just the way it is, you know? Like, um, what can you do? You prefer reading books in my own language? Don't hate me or do read books in French sometimes though at the same time. So yeah, I think that's

Michael: 43:24

Fine because as you were saying, everyone's different, everyone has to find their own method of learning a language. And if it's not for you, it's not for you. Right. Um, I, I've almost never watched movies in my languages. I'm learning. Like not since I started learning, I might change from now, but I just find, I don't have the patience for a whole movie. So maybe like a TV series or something best that would probably

Cara: 43:48

Be better or even, well, now there's so much choice. It wasn't so much the case when I was learning languages, but you can watch YouTube videos. And I mean, there are shorter and that might be more accessible for a lot of people. So if you want something like audio visual, you've got loads of options. Um, you know, not just, um, not just movies, but then if you like movies, then you should, you should watch them. But yeah, I'm not, I'm never going to force anyone to like, if someone hates watching movies, then I would rather like, they didn't work with me for example, like, there'd be no point would there. So, um, and uh, but you know, we've, I find it a great way for creating in English, like discussing a movie it's to great. Um, what's the word support? Not, it's like a friend that's like a translation from French. Like it basically gives you like a, something to talk about. That's what I'm getting at. So instead of just like small talk questions or what you do at the weekend, like you're actually like, and you're not even focusing on yourself or whatever, you're kind of thinking about, you know, the plot and the characters and what's the message of this movie and what did we learn and why did this character behave like this? Or why did they make this choice about this character? And, um, it just opens up, I would say a lot of, a lot of language and a lot of expression for people because there's so many things to think about and talk about, um, I guess that's why people like using books as well. You know, that's why book clubs are popular because they, they give you plenty to, to discuss.

Michael: 45:29

Absolutely. Yeah. So just for fun now, what are your all time favorite movies?

Cara: 45:36

Um, oh gosh, I don't know if I, I don't know if I really it's so hard to pick.

Michael: 45:44

Did, did anything pop into your mind when I said that?

Cara: 45:46

Just what I want to say, like movies by John Carpenter, like the director, he's just so good. So probably John carpenter's, the thing is probably my favorite, um, horror movie and I was never really into horror movies before I watched, um, John carpenter's movie. So he's also the director of Halloween, a really famous horror movie, but I really liked the movies that he did with Kurt Russell. They're really good. Um, young Kurt, Russell. Awesome, awesome movies. So like those kinds of movies and, um, my partner and I were big fans of Wes Anderson. So we watch a lot of, um, Wes Anderson movies. So they have like a very particular style. Um, and uh, probably our favorite. One of them is Moonrise kingdom. Very, very nice, um, for a nice movie. So yeah, for me it's like, yeah, it's not just particularly revisits also like particular, um, directors. Uh, and then I don't know how I feel about it. Like love actually I used to really like as a Christmas movie, I like Christmas movies, but I don't know, watching it now is sort of getting a bit dated now. I think unfortunately, um, I do like lots of like silly comedies, definitely. Um, but I suppose they're not like, hi, hi, are, are they? But then again, it's like what you is, what you enjoy watching, isn't it, that's what matters. And sometimes like sometimes it's the really silly movies that are important as well for like integrating into the culture. Like in France, there are a couple of movies, like people will quote lines from them all the time and you kind of almost, it's almost obligatory to have watched them so that you understand what people are saying. Um, so they, you know, things like movies and TV shows, they really do infiltrate the culture. You know, don't just reflect it. They, they can, they can even, they can even shape it. And I think we've seen that the last few years, like, especially with some of the TV series that have come out, I've been just like still epic, almost like watching a movie and how they've got us talking about them. And yeah, they really like the influences more than we, the more than we realize. Yes,

Michael: 48:11

Absolutely. Um, I kind of realise I'm a really bad person to talk to about this because you're mentioning all these movies, I'll write the names in the show notes. I'll be sure to do that, but I have no idea what any of them are. So I'm probably not the best person to

Cara: 48:24

That's okay. No, but definitely like, well, John Carpenter has like a website and he also did a lot of music for his movies. So like my brother went to see him in concert, for example, a couple of years ago. And um, yeah, there's lots. There's lots to discover. Definitely. Yeah. Okay.

Michael: 48:42

How about I, again, you said it's very personal. I know it's hard to say. Do you think there are any movies that are really good for English learners? Like have you noticed there's one that a lot of learners seem to love or it's got good vocabulary, good dialogue, or is it too hard to say

Cara: 48:59

It is a bit tricky to say, to be honest, I tend to find with TV series, it's maybe a bit easier to find a bit like consensus about that with a movie. Is there just one? I don't really know because I don't even watch, like, you know, now all the big Hollywood movies are these like superhero movies. I hate them. And I really, I don't, I don't watch them. Like I'm not going to watch them. We're never going to, we're never going to watch them with my students. I don't think like, I don't think it's going to happen. So, um, but yeah, it's really hard to say. It's really hard to say. Cause it's so it's so kind of different for each um, person. So I can't really, I've not, yeah. I'm yet to come across like one where everyone said, oh yeah, this was like the perfect level. And just, just the right amount of like new vocabulary. And they spoke just fast enough, but not too much. I'm not sure if that may be exists, but I would like to find,

Michael: 50:03

So I think that's a good takeaway that learners can just find what they like, you know, whatever is interesting to them. They can watch that and there's no right or wrong movie or TV show to watch is there? Not really.

Cara: 50:14

Not really. I mean, it depends. It really depends on, on what you need. I mean, I, some, I would say to maybe avoid like action movies tend to not actually have that much dialogue. And then when they do like there's loads of explosions, but not all action movies are exactly the same. So it's not always easy to, you know, and some people might want to watch hospital dramas because they work in healthcare and it could be really useful to them. And then for other people that might just be annoying that they're always talking about like, oh, he's[not sure] whatever it is they say when somebody comes in on like fresh trolley in, in a hospital drama. So again, it's, it's really like, um, there's just a huge world out there of like, there's literally something for everybody and you can experiment and choose what you want. And even if it's friends, I try to keep an open mind. I understand why people watch it. Let's put it that way, but I won't be watching it myself again ever, ever.

Michael: 51:22

Let's agree to disagree on that one, but okay. Um, let's go. I mean, time has just flown by today. There's still a lot of things had to happen, you know, maybe that that's for a future date. Um, is there anything that I, I didn't ask you, but you felt like you wanted to say or anything I should've asked you.

Cara: 51:41

Oh, that's a nice question, but I don't think so. I think, um, I certainly felt like we covered the most important things, but if there's more to talk about at a future date, then why not? I would, I would love to, but for now I think that's already a lot for people to digest. So I think we're good.

Michael: 52:01

Perfect. Perfect. Well, would you like to let people know where they can find you if they want to get to know more about you and what you do?

Cara: 52:08

Yes. Um, so they can go to my website. So that's leo-listening.com. But if you just type Leo and then listening into the search engines, you will find it. Or even if you type in Carra Leopold, you will find it. Um, that's probably the best place to go. That's where people can jump on my newsletter for twice a month, tips on improving their listing skills with movies. And then otherwise, if you want to like, see my face, you can go over to YouTube. So again, YouTube is under the same name, it's Leo listening. And, uh, that's why I share recently. I've been sharing, uh, interesting things about English that we've learned from movies we've been watching. So that could be fun for people. And then there's a ton of tips about better understanding, fast English and learning with movies and all that kind of good stuff over there.

Michael: 53:06

Perfect. Thank you so much. It's been great to chat with you. I'm really glad you could make the time and yeah, I hope we can do it again someday. Cool. Thanks Michael. Speak soon. You have been listening to the level up English podcast. If you would like to leave a, to be answered on a future episode, then please go to level up english.school forward slash podcast. That's level up english.school/podcast. And I'll answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening.