For the first time in its history, TIFF will launch a digital platform for the Festival, affording new opportunities to connect with audiences beyond Toronto. This year’s roster includes films from around the globe in more than 35 different languages.
Movies are a key tool when studying another language. According to the language experts at Babbel, the recipe for success involves a balanced diet of language lessons, real-world practice, and supplemental media like books, podcasts, and movies. Films offer a cultural education that enriches your language comprehension. Foreign movies also expose you to a more natural form of the language with authentic vocabulary and slang, teaching you to connect words with associated body language.
Babbel’s team of expert linguists recommend the following tips to keep in mind when using foreign film-viewing as a tool for further development:
- Pick your plot (and get to know it)
- Subtitles are your friend
- Break it up into chunks
- Take lots of notes
- Take a mental break
Not sure which films to start with? The Babbel team breaks down their top picks from this year’s TIFF Digital offerings to help you study a foreign language:
- For French learners, Ete of 85 (Summer of 85) directed by François Ozon, is a captivating film about the fateful friendship and love affair between two teenage boys on the Normandy Coast.
- French language learners are also doubly spoiled with Suzanne Lindon’s, Spring Blossom, in which a bored Parisian teenager considers the pitfalls of growing up too fast when falling in love with an older man – O lala!
- If you’re interested in Mexican Spanish, Nuevo orden (New order), from Michel Franco, is sure to get you saying ‘Sale!’ (Let’s go!) in no time.
- Nathan Grossman’s I am Greta, will both educate you about Greta Thunberg’s meteoric one-year rise from high school climate organizer to global movement leader and familiarize you with Swedish.
- The Truffle Hunters by Michael Dweck, takes you on a meditative Italian journey following three elderly specialists (and their dogs) as they seek out special food delicacies in the woods of Northern Italy.