Cultivating your English #17: Learning is good for you
❤️“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”❤️ Wayne Dyer
Hi guys,
I wanted to remind you of how educational and fun it can be to watch documentaries.
They can be easier to follow than a series or a film because there is normally just the narrator/presenter and maybe some interviews. They usually speak quite slowly too.
They are very visual and logical to follow, there isn’t much colloquial language and the accents tend to be relatively easy to understand.
The language can, however, be a little bit technical so choose the subject matter carefully and as always: trial and error! After 15 mins you are finding it boring or difficult to follow just try something else.
Here are some websites:
www.filmsforaction.org Lots of inspiring documentaries. www.documentarystorm.com Hundreds of documentaries classified into categories. Www.documentarymania.com hundreds of documentaries many WITH subtitles!
Do you know any other good sites? And if you haven’t already seen it I made a short video recommending an awesome documentary a while ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47TyVXBAuhY
You can see this documentary called “The power of community” here: Subtitles in Spanish: https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/...
Subtitles in English: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtax6u
This concept of learning about topics you find interesting can be taken to another level with these websites:
www.coursera.org “Choose from 300+ courses in over 20 categories created by 62 Universities from 16 countries. Coursera is an education company that partners with the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.”
www.openculture.com “The best free cultural & educational media on the web.” Hundreds of free online courses, many offered by universities around the world.
Because so many of these courses are free it’s a great way to experiment with different topics and “kill two birds with one stone”. You can improve your English and learn useful and interesting things about whatever it is that interests you at the same time- how amazing is that?! (And you don’t actually have to kill any birds either)
Have you done any courses on these kinds of websites? If so, what was your experience?
Thanks for reading and see you in #18! 🙏😁