Deutsch lernen durch Filme

Deutsch lernen durch Filme

I just finished watching the German film, Bella Martha (Mostly Martha), which was remade in America several years later as No Reservations, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart.  I think it's the most German I've ever heard in one sitting and the only time I've ever really heard German spoken in an everyday-regular-life setting.  Well, except in the one other German film I've seen,  Run, Lola, Run, but I'm not sure you could consider Run, Lola, Run to be a movie about everyday-regular-life.  At least it's not my kind of everyday-regular-life (thank goodness!).

But back to Bella Martha.  Now that it is over, I have to say that I am both excited and terrified.

Excited because I feel as though I understood a lot more than I thought I would.

Terrified because I realize just how much this comprehension was aided by subtitles and by a very conscious effort to slow down the dialogue in my head and replay it.  When I did this, I could hear all the words I understood, pick out the other words from the subtitles, and get a sense of the structure of the whole.  Usually.  I wasn't so slow that I had to pause the movie with the remote to do this, but I certainly didn't do it with every line in the film.  

People speaking in everyday conversation, everyday tones, and with everyday speed is quite different than the very deliberately-spoken lessons I've had thus far!  Will I ever be able to comprehend at the same speed at which people are talking!?!? Will I ever be able to speak German quickly, smoothly, without hesitation?!?!?

I did come away from the movie with another good feeling.....about pronunciation.  Sometimes, Rosetta Stone (RS for short, from now on) beats me up, demanding very, very specific pronunciation.  Heck, there have been times I just can't get past the RS pronunciation master with my "Guten Tag" and I have to say it over and over and over again!  Other times, I get through an entire lesson pronouncing everything just the way RS wants it, and I don't always get the difference, so it's a little frustrating.  After watching the movie and hearing the different pronunciations and ways people spoke, I really do think that people will understand what it is I'm saying, if only I can remember the right words and put them together in the right way at the right moment!  Oh yes, and then there will be the additional issue of the Viennese dialect, but I'll worry about that later.

All in all, a good exercise.  More German films, bitte!

P.S.  Ich mochte den Film (I liked the movie).  And I enjoyed the original far more than the Hollywood remake.