Using movies on DVD to improve your target language

1. Watching a movie with sound and subtitles in your target language
Movies are hard to follow if you don't have any subtitles. Having sound and subtitles in the target language enables you to catch up with your eyes phrases your ears did not get. This is an advanced exercise and you can call yourself fluent the day you can watch an entire movie shot in your target language without subtitles and not miss a word.

2. Watching a movie with sound in your target language but subtitles in English
Most movie buffs like to watch movies in the language they were shot in. Subtitles are not great, but it's still better than the translated dialogs or voice over. For language learners, this is an excellent medium exercise as it enables you to listen only to the target language and get the meaning from the subtitles. You can catch many useful expressions in that way and get a good idea of how people actually speak in real-life situations. You can do this exercise from day one and benefit from exposure to the language sounds and try to recognize some common word you have already learned. The more you advance in your knowledge of the language, the more you will pick up.

3. Watching a movie in English with subtitles in your target language
Many people would not think of this as a worthy exercise, but it is excellent. If you are learning Spanish or French, you'll find that most US-made DVDs include subtitles in those languages. If people around you do not mind, turn the Spanish subtitles on when watching your favorite Hollywood movies. Your eyes will constantly look at the subtitles and you will be surprised at the number of useful expressions you can learn.

DVDs are a great tool for language learning and if you watch them anyway, there is no reason why you cannot practice one of these three exercises whenever you watch one.

With modern softwares you can even record your favorite dialogs in MP3 to listen to them over and over again on a portable MP3 player.