Mar 03 2009
Learning Czech with Harry Potter
Learning Czech with Harry Potter
Image copyright and displayed with permission from Warner Bros.
I am always at the lookout for new, creative ways to either learn or teach languages. One way I recently tried out is with the help of sorcery. No, I haven’t lost my marbles, I am speaking of one of my favourite fantasy series, “Harry Potter”. It is a bit early in my Czech language adventure to start to read books but I always can watch films. Dubbed and subtitled films to be precise. So yesterday I bought my first Czech/ English Harry Potter DVD, “The Prisoner from Azkaban” and I must say it works a treat! I can choose to watch in Czech with English subtitles or in English with Czech subtitles and get a feel for how the language is spoken and written. I only wonder if I should widen my purchases beyond Harry Potter, or do you think words like “wand”, “wizard” or “broomstick” will be useful in my daily life in Prague?
Never underestimate the importance of “broomstick” in your daily life! This would totally be how I’d go about learning another language if the motivation to do so happened to strike. So far I’ve failed to learn about six by more ordinary means.
I’d think it would be easier to learn the language if you’re interested in what is going on.
I have a granddaughter living in Finland and learning to speak Finnish. When we commiserate with her having such a difficult language to learn, she says it’s easier to learn than Mandarin Chinese and she already speaks that to a degree.
Because you live there, you’re motivated to learn it. Keep it up!