Originally Posted by
etch5895
Or (if you can stand this) watch a movie that you know by heart in German, with the German subtitles showing.
This is hard to do, though.
Originally Posted by
soitgoes
In fact, now you can watch a film first, say, with English audio and German subtitles and then watch it again with German audio and English subtitles.
I would recommend going with the latter - watch a movie you already know in the dubbed German version and switch on the English subtitles. I think the learning effect is much greater than if you watch English with German subtitles. And when you're ready, you can graduate to
etch's suggestion, watching the German-German version. And after that, you can try to watch a German-made film (like
Goodbye Lenin or something) with the German subtitles on.
Originally Posted by
Aviatrix
You can learn Dutch or Swedish that way - but not German. The reason is that it is very rare to find English-language films with German subtitles. In Germany most films get dubbed. Which I think is possibly one reason why, as a general rule, people in Germany don't speak English as well as people in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Germans, unlike their neighbours, don't hear English on TV.
It's not for lack of trying though. Unfortunately, there is a law that TV programming must be dubbed, rather than subtitled. Nominally, it's supposed to be a programme to keep the German language alive, but in fact it is just a make-work scheme for a sizeable industry - dubbing all those programmes employs a huge number of people!
I wish I at least had a choice of whether to watch in in German or English though. In Switzerland, some programmes are broadcast with the original soundtrack and the dubbed soundtrack, and you can switch between the two. I would really like to see this in Germany (especially for my beloved
Simpsons).