A silent movie, the second silent movie to be awarded an Oscar in history.
Have a look at the trailer below and try to write some words for it, as if you were subtitling it.
You don't need to be a QuickTime guru, either. The caption track is added automatically with the click of a button. And clicking the Transcript button compiles all the captions into one concise text file. If you can type, you can make your movies and YouTube videos accessible! (embedded tracks, SMIL, srt transcripts)
Advice for language learners
General warning: what follows may or may not apply to you. It's based on what linguistics knows about people in general (but any general advice will be ludicrously inappropriate for some people) and on my own experience (but you're not the same as me). If you have another way of learning that works, more power to you.
Given the discussion so far, the prospects for language learning may seem pretty bleak. It seems that you'll only learn a language if you really need to; but the fact that you haven't done so already is a pretty good indication that you don't really need to. How to break out of this paradox?
At the least, try to make the facts of language learning work for you, not against you. Exposure to the language, for instance, works in your favor. So create exposure.
* Read books in the target language.
* Better yet, read comics and magazines. (They're easier, more colloquial, and easier to incorporate into your weekly routine.)
* Buy music that's sung in it; play it while you're doing other things.
* Read websites and participate in newsgroups that use it.
* Play language tapes in your car. If you have none, make some for yourself.
* Hang out in the neighborhood where they speak it.
* Try it out with anyone you know who speaks it. If necessary, go make new friends.
* Seek out opportunities to work using the language.
* Babysit a child, or hire a sitter, who speaks the language.
* Take notes in your classes or at meetings in the language.
* Marry a speaker of the language. (Warning: marry someone patient: some people want you to know their language-- they don't want to teach it. Also, this strategy is tricky for multiple languages.)
Taking a class can be effective, partly for the instruction, but also because you can meet others who are learning the language, and because, psychologically, classes may be needed to make us give the subject matter time and attention. Self-study is too eas
This is a wonderfully designed site to learn Mandarin Chinese. It uses a huge collection of Chinese TV programmes and movie clips with interactive and dual-language subtitles. Click on a Chinese character is see the translation and hear the pronunciation. You can set your ability level and also what sort of media you are interested in.
http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Mandarin+%26+Chinese+culture
"At freedocumentaries.org we strongly believe that in order to have a true democracy, there has to be a free flow of easily accessible information. Unfortunately, many important perspectives, opinions, and facts never make it to our televisions or cinemas (you can watch movies in our media category if you want to know why)."
Dear Maggie.
Thanks a lot for this invaluable link. It is going to take a long while dealing with all these documentaries but they all seem to be worth watching.
Orson Welles had quite a career in radio, from his days as The Shadow and his Mercury Theatre On The Air, to the radio version of his Third Man character from the movie, and beyond. This podcast will replay his radio performances from his various series and guest appearances.