Watch and learn!

You haven’t practiced your Italian for ages and now you have eventually decided to brush it up? Or you’ve just finished an Italian language course and you don’t want to loose what you’ve learnt. What can you do? An appropriate solution could be to buy some DVD movies. DVDs can be an excellent way to improve your Italian. The secret of their effectiveness lies in subtitles, which you can read while you listen to the dialogues. The comprehension of the plot will be obviously much easier than without subtitles and you will soon feel gratified by the pleasure of following a story from the beginning to the end. Movies do not have to be with Italian actors, even blockbuster films will do. Maybe the idea of watching Robert De Niro or Nicole Kidman speaking with a different voice may sound appalling, but especially if you have already seen the English version, the watching of the Italian one will turn out to be very fruitful for your listening skills. Don’t forget that dubbed movies are always in good Italian without regional accents or bad pronunciation. However, Italian films seem more “genuine”. Sometimes they might present some language difficulties: some Italian topics or cultural references may not sound so familiar to you. In this case it is recommendable to watch the movie several times until you finally get into the story. Taking notes can also be very useful (if you are not too tired of course). The following films definitely deserve to be watched and they are not too difficult : Pane e tulipani, La vita è bella, Johnny Stecchino, Manuale d’amore. Advanced learners will really enjoy the nidodelcuculo site, where they can download some parts of Hollywood classic movies which have been dubbed with fake and exhilarating dialogues. Last but not least, when you buy a DVD always make sure it has an Italian version with subtitles!