Hiya... Me again... Let me be less controversial this time ...

Over the past two years, I've improved my english mostly watching DVDs. I'm not a big fan of TV and I usually feel bad about lounging around watching it. But when it comes to DVDs then hey why not take pleasure in both entertaining ourselves and gaining in vocabulary, idioms as well as listening comprehension !

Of course I go for the english speaking version and I usually put on the english subtitles rather than the subtitling in my mother tongue.

Even better than films are english or american series : the show usually lasts less than an hour so enough to relax after work but still plenty of time after to dive into your dictionary in search for new words you don't quite understand...
My favorites so far have been MASH and Ally McBeal and I hope I can manage to buy The Sopranos at a fairly decent price soon.
Anybody has good UK series to suggest here ? I know about the classics like The Prisoners or The Persuaders but what about more recent ones ?

Now I can't help but saying that most of the american or english series I know are far more original than the french series I see on TV... Some french programmes are quite well crafted ; but even though the quality is there I feel they lack the inspiration the creativity and even the subversivness of american series for instance... Don't you think ?

Hey guys,

Watching TV shows like "Law and Order" helps me with common idiomatic expressions.

Reading helps me think and write.

And after years of learning English, I've come to the conclusion that learning a language isn't that much different from learning things like, say, tennis or gymnastics.   You start off with the basics, learn the individual parts, and piece them together through constant practice.  And occasionally you lose a skill or two, and you have to "reconstruct" your basics or work on a few things and put them together again.

Gymnasts will probably have to learn all the basics of a routine, then put it together through routine runthroughs.  Occasionally they run into problems with a particular skill, and they will have to reconstruct that part from scratch or relearn the skill.