Learn English with Harry Potter
Why Harry Potter? The stories are funny and accessible to all. Many already know the story of the boy wizard. The other nice thing is that you can read and also watch the Harry Potter movie. Then there are so many books, once you’ve started reading a book (or watching one of the movies) they lead to another one.
Is it also good for adults?
Especially adults. At least in England adults are crazy for the Harry Potter series. Indeed, some books also verge on the ‘scary’!
Books in English and Italian
Another very important thing in using Harry Potter as study material is that the books (and movies) are available in both English and Italian. This means that you can read one and then the other and make a comparison. Find all the Harry Potter books on the Amazon site.
But, who is Harry Potter?
If you still do not know Harry Potter is a boy wizard who attends a school for wizards. Harry Potter has to fight Lord Voldemort with the help of his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.
The audio book
Don’t you have time to read books but you spend hours in the car or preparing food? Try to listen to audio books of Harry Potter in English.
The Harry Potter Films
After reading all the books and having listened to the recordings of the reading of the books you’re ready to watch the 8 films (yes, 8 films because the last book was divided into two). Try to watch them in English with English subtitles. You can find the DVDs on Amazon in a handy Harry Potter box set.
How to structure your studies
This is something I always repeat – the more you watch, listen to and read English, the better the results will be. However, the learning outcomes will be even more satisfying if you apply some structure to your studying. You have to listen (and read) in an active way. Studying actively means trying not only to understand the general sense, but to focus on individual words and phrases and the individual sounds of language. Whenever you encounter a word or phrase that you do not know go to look for it immediately or take note of it for later. Do not worry if you can not find a word in the dictionary will be because it might be a word invented by JK Rowling. Here is a glossary of terms invented specifically for the Harry Potter books.
