film collections a valuable resource

A quick post about a sometimes forgotten reservoir of language practice material (well someone I was speaking to at work hadn't thought of it). I don't collect a lot of films, but sometime I buy them, particularly as these days sometimes buying a DVD is about the same price as renting it. When learning a language you may find that you have immediate access to a number of films with soundtracks and sub-titles in that language. Perhaps if not directly, then via borrowing films (I have a friend who literally has stacks of DVDs taller than me laying around.

Even if you don't like dubbed sound you may have watched a number of films in the past that were dubbed in your mother tongue, so now you can watch them as they were intended :).

I admit this has not helped me hugely for Thai,  although I did have the Eye trilogy which I originally purchased because I like that type of film and  because the soundtracks have some Mandarin (also have lots of Thai). The real reminder for this came from starting German and I came across a number of films with German soundtracks.

Will this help much? Well bizarrely there are those that don't seem to rate listening activities as much use, I find them incredibly useful. Besides if you are just replacing watching a film in your mother tongue with one (or the same one) in your target language what can go wrong (no you won't go blind or lose the power of speech :0). Another advantage with tapping the reservoir is that you may try and enjoy some films that you never thought you would (perhaps one you borrow from a family member).