Thread: russian movies

after i finish my beginner's course, i want to start watching russian movies with english closed captioning. i know some dvd's even give you the option of listening in english OR russian and having the cc in any language you want.
any recommendations on some good dvd's to start out with? does anybody here have any dvds with these options? if so, where can i buy it?
i also thought it would be a great idea to make dvds especially for those learning a foreign language with a slower pace and closed captioning, but i guess these don't exist??

Originally Posted by zhena

i also thought it would be a great idea to make dvds especially for those learning a foreign language with a slower pace and closed captioning, but i guess these don't exist??

I think those exist. I saw some language course disks (computer programme). Ask google for a 'russian course' or something else. If you are ready for real Russian speech try "Война и мир" with subtitles.

Prisoner of the Mountais (Пленник гор) is certainly one of my most favorite Russian films; I reccomend it to anyone. You should be able to pick up a great deal of Russian from it, too. You should be able to find it available for rent at any video rental store with a number of foreign films. I'm uncertain as to whether or not it's available at any of the mainstream video rental places.

Here's a little info on it: http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_rev ... 20705.html

I'll sound stupid saying this, but my favourite "Russian" films are Anger Management and Sweet Home Alabama (these have Russian audio and subtitles). If you live in America, then these probably don't have Russian on them though, it's probably 0nly British English versions that have Russian, because of the different electronic languages in Europe and America. Sorry if this is no help whatsoever!

thanks for the recommendations! i have one more issue...
i really want to be able to listen to the movie in russian and read along with russian subtitles, but it seems like all the movies only have english closed captioning. if i get a movie made for russians in russia, i'm not sure if it will be compatible with my DVD player.
any ideas on where i could find a movie in russian with russian closed captioning that will be compatible with an american dvd player????

Sign up for netflix.com. They have quite a few Russian films coded for US players. I've used them for several years and had nothing but wonderful service. They've got a great selection of just about every genre of DVD.

one more thing ....where can i find movie scripts? or print out the closed captioning...is this possible? i think it would help me to learn a lot.

There is a piece of software called SubRip with which you can dump DVD subtitles to a text file. It's not the easiest bit of software in the world, but it does work.
Friendy posted a link to it some time ago, do a search on the forum and you'll find it.
HTH

the problem is, i bought "moscow does not believe in tears" and it doesn't have russian subtitles! (only english) i should've bought the more expensive version, but i didn't know any better. and now i'm stuck with a movie that i can't use to practice reading russian. so, since it didn't come with russian subtitles, i have to find them somewhere online.
there are SO many american websites with movie scripts, i don't understand why i can't find any for russian movies!! it's so frustrating.
i also need the scripts for amphibian man and russian ark. can anybody direct me to a site?

I sympathise.
Here, since all the discs are pirated, you can't trust what's written on the box about the subtitles. Usually they'll let you check it at the shop and so you can be sure. Sometimes there are only English subtitles, sometimes only Russian, sometimes both and sometimes loads of languages. As often as not, none, just very bad Russian dubbing (don't get me started ).
For learning, I find only Russian audio and Russian subtitles is really good. Any element of English and you're not learning. And once I reach upper-intermediate level (stop tittering at the back), then I'll stop using the subtitles, as they'll become a crutch and stop me learning.

Good luck finding the stuff in the States, I'm sure you can but you'll need to persevere.

PS: I just thought, I can quite easily send you a text file with the words from москва слезам не верит. Drop me a PM if you like.

i just sent you a pm, but i'll post it here anyway...yes, i would love a copy of the script for москва слезам не верит...
if anyone out there has russian ark or amphibian man, please let me know ! thanks again, waxwing.

Originally Posted by zhena

i also thought it would be a great idea to make dvds especially for those learning a foreign language with a slower pace and closed captioning, but i guess these don't exist??

Think supply and demand, it'll answer most of your "do these exist?" questions.

i'm pretty sure there's a demand for learning russian material. if you go to amazon.com, they have TONS of books, cd-roms, audio courses, etc, etc. i guess i should save my idea and market it, (but i know i'd never get around to it so maybe someone can use it: doesn't it make sense that if there are all of these people out there buying these courses on how to learn russian, that they could make money selling other learning materials? especially FUN materials, like, for instance, popular russian movies on DVD with english or russian closed captioning, PLUS, a tempo control!! like, you'd be able to adjust the speed of the movie, so you could listen to it really slow, and gradually work your way up to understanding normal paced russian speech. they could even put mini quizzes after each chapter of the movie. they could have lists of vocabulary words used in each section of the movie, too. i think that if anyone out there is paying hundreds of dollars for pimsleur tapes, than TEN times more people would pay $40 for a fun and really great way to learn russian. if you used something like this, you'd be listening to native speakers, at your own pace, picking up tons of vocabulary and learning the word order and grammatical structure of the language, colloquial expressions, slang, etc.....this is probably way better than pimsleur for learning how russians really talk, not that "by the book" too perfect, sterile russian. and it's awesome for listening skills and pronounciation...
SO, will someone please take my idea, make this product, and get rich off of it???please send me some free copies when you do

zhenia, your ideas about using DVDs are interesting. But how exactly would you 'slow down' a movie? You can't change the speed of the dialogue.
There are of course movies made specially for students of English with restricted vocab etc. I have used them a few times with students and they are a great tool.
There is probably not enough of a market for them to be produced in Russian, I think that's clear.

However, using any decent DVD-playing software you can stop, review, watch without sound, watch with sound and no subtitles, watch with sound and with subtitles etc. etc.

I think you are being too demanding on yourself in viewing.
Use a variety of strategies but above all DON'T EXPECT TO UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING! You need to expose yourself to the language and the phonetic patterns. Listen to Russian radio whenever you can too.

With watching the films you can do a section of 15 minutes with no subtitles, and then with subtitles.
Or you can just watch the whole thing 2 or 3 times. That's what I usually do.
Other times I sit down with my dictionary and I watch and stop (almost) every time there's a word I don't understand. It's slow that way but you do pick up some new vocab.

i know the dialogue can be slowed because they make special digital players for guitar players that allow you to slow the tempo of the song so you can hear every note and learn to play the solos.(and you can use any regular old cd in it) if they can do it with music, they can do it with dialogue. (and it should be pretty easy for them to adjust the picture to match the speed of the audio. ) how about these people paying over $600 for russian pimsleur? and all of the many many used books for russian students being sold on amazon.com? (someone bought them all new at one time) there's a market, it just may not be a billion dollar market.
anyway, this is just something that i dreamed up that for ME, would be the perfect learning tool. everyone learns differently.

I'd say definitely take what you can get! ^_^ Russian with English subs is better than no Russian at all! Similar to what waxwing was saying, it's really good to get a wash going in any language you're trying to learn. If you listen to just about anything you're bound to start hearing words you know. As long as you're listening to the material attentively you're accomplishing something (even if it's only preparing your brain for its soon to be task of actually recognizing and understanding all those words coming so fast). The real problem is when you stop paying attention and it becomes a blur; then take a break! @_@ It's also the same with reading. Even if you dont' look up a single word it's useful to peruse something (even if it's insanely difficult) for a bit just to get it in your head. Like a warm-up? Then you can go back for vocab. Hmm...maybe I'm not helpful...but hopefully I make a bit of sense now and then...

~dUcK!