In the competitive world of streaming services, Amazon Prime is one of the big players. Their content is rich, varied and designed to satisfy an enormous audience of vastly differing tastes. It is also a platform that language learners can easily and effectively use to their advantage. In today’s blog we’ll be sharing different ways you can use Amazon Prime to learn a new language.
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Method 1: Use Multiple Language Support
Already, many titles on Amazon Prime offer dubbing and subtitle support in French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. As four of the most popular foreign languages being learned in the world today, that means a good amount of varied content that you can watch in your target language either dubbed or just in subtitles.
Using subtitles alone can help improve your reading speed and comprehension. Hearing the content in your native language and reading it in your target language will help you to identify key vocabulary words and see how your native language can be naturally and accurately translated into another language.
The ideal combination, however, remains watching the language in your target language and reading the subtitles in the same language. If you can do that on Amazon Prime, you have seemingly endless content to enjoy in your target language. This brings us neatly to the next method.
Method 2: Watch International Cinema Directly
One of the most wonderful things about Amazon Prime’s selection is its inherent variety, including big piles of foreign titles in various languages that you can watch directly with their accompanying subtitles. Amazon already requires all content that enters their platform to have subtitles in the native language of the production to help those who are hearing impaired.
There are dozens of titles in many different languages. All you need to do is search through them, or research movies you’re interested in in advance and then see if you can find them in Amazon’s selection. These movies and TV series not only teach you new vocabulary and grammar structures, but they also broaden your cultural horizons and help you gain a deeper connection to your target language.
Method 3: Use Familiar Content
Another thing you can do, of course, is to take familiar content that you’ve seen before and watch it in a new language dubbed, or with different subtitles. The fact that you’re familiar with the plot already means you can focus all your energy and attention on vocabulary and grammar, and seeing how those familiar sentences are constructed in your target language.
The other advantage of this method is that because you are already familiar with the main content that you are using, you can also reflect on what each title in Amazon’s selection has to offer in terms of vocabulary, idioms, cultural expression and more. You can quickly gauge which titles will be useful to you and which ones not, and thus tailor the content to suit your needs better.
Method 4: Practice Multiple Languages
For the polyglot in all of us, and those who are looking for a real challenge, they should consider putting on a film in one language, but then watching subtitles in a different language. For example, you could be watching a French film but using Spanish subtitles. This allows for simultaneous (and extremely tricky) French listening and Spanish reading practice.
This is especially useful for those who have learned other languages in the past and want to maintain their abilities in that language, but are now learning a different language. Use the older, more familiar language as the subtitles and the new language as the principal film language, or the other way around, whichever suits you best.
Summing Up: Another Great Platform for Language Learners
Amazon Prime Video is not alone in its ability to offer language learners a useful platform on which to build knowledge and experience. Similar streaming services like Disney+ and Netflix can also offer the same kind of thing. As such services become ever-more ubiquitous and popular around the world, it’s inevitable that the range of languages and extent of dubbing and translation will also continue.
Explore your Amazon Prime account today to see just how much it can help in your language learning journey.
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