Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Movies or tv shows for a beginner

Hi all,
Next Saturday night a friend of mine will be coming to my place in order to 
watch a film in English, because he is preparing for a Cambridge exam (FCE). 
Apart from the Blues Brothers he told me he has never seen anything else in 
English and since he claims that British English is far easier than American 
English, I'm really tempted to have him see The Office! I know, though, in 
that case he would force me to put the subtitles on and I'd really like to 
avoid it.
My intention is to watch a few episodes of different tv series, preferably 
in both British and American English, but as he has never seen any of the 
serials I have, I'm afraid this would be a bit disorienting for him.
At first he actually suggested we pick a movie from those I have on dvd, but 
I think he'd better start with tv shows, which are generally less difficult 
to follow.
I for one have thought of a couple of episodes of Fawlty Towers and 
something from Friends, and should he really want to watch a film, I'd 
choose Love Actually or even Spiderman, even though he has surely already 
seen the latter.
Were it my choice, I'd really love to see Taken one more time, but it's too 
long a series. Perhaps Pride and Prejudice (BBC) would be the case (just 6 
episodes... I'll tell him to come over another couple of times, if 
necessary), but I don't really think this is his favourite genre.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Tschüss,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
--
"People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But 
at least it is not as superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder 
of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The 
true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible." (Oscar Wilde, 
The Picture of Dorian Gray) 

 English, I'm really tempted to have him see The Office!
Surely Ultraviolet or Cracker would be harder?
The "Yes, Minister" stuff has FCE-like accents.

 in both British and American English
If he's preparing for FCE, American English is not a priority right
now.
Does he have some past paper listening exercises? That would be very
very useful.
I think episodes of several different things is a nice idea. However,
"Kind Hearts and Coronets" and "The Railway Children" have lots of
exam-style British accents. Hmm.

 easier than American English
If he's studying for FCE, he shouldn't claim anything at all.
[...]
Bye, FB

 If he's studying for FCE, he shouldn't claim anything at all.
Eh eh, you're right. The other day I taught him how to pronounce words in 
British English, because he kept saying that some English friends of his 
told him he sounded British to them rather than American, but to be honest 
he didn't even know that in BE r's are not pronounced if followed by a 
consonant. He was only aware that Americans say a sort of "d" instead of "t" 
in words like "identity".
Not that I'm such an expert, but I know at least some basic rules.


 exam-style British accents.
To tell you truth he's coming to my house not only because I'm better than 
him in English, but also because he knows I've got a 81'' screen, so I guess 
I should show him some modern stuff, preferably in a 16:9 format, or at 
least not B&W, since he might be annoyed by the rainbow effect, caused by 
some DLP projectors, mine included. Luckily I'm not affected by it, but I 
don't know whether he might be bothered or not.
Anyway, tonight I'll see the first episodes of Yes Prime Minister, just to 
get a general idea of the series.
Tschüss,
Enrico il Pentolaio.
P.S. I've narrowed the list of the movies I could see with him down to: Love 
Actually, Minority Report, Amadeus, The Others, Harry Potter 4 and Catch me 
if you can. I also have "Breakfast at Tifanny's" and "Million Dollar Baby" 
but never got the chance to watch them so far. The tv series I've got on 
dvd, as well as all the others films I have are listed here: 
http://enricoilpentolaio.googlepages.com/imieidvd
 .


 to watch a film in English
I left them 40 minutes ago (they were two).
We saw two episodes of Fawlty Towers, after which they both sort of fell 
asleep. I had to leave them after just one hour and fifteen minutes. Of 
course no subtitles were allowed on a "first view", only when they told me 
they didn't understand a word, I would put them on. The first episode (the 
one with the deaf old woman) did have quite a success, while the second 
("the psychiatrist"), in spite of being more amusing than the other, didn't 
really appeal to them, though several scenes were really funny.
Oh well, God bless 'em!
