Buffy, la casavampiros

The language I'm currently most interested in studying, mostly for professional reasons, is Spanish. Now, it's been a hard road; you can't use guerilla tactics as easily when you're learning for professional reasons. You just don't have the passion. So, every so often, you've got to throw some gasoline on the fire.

I've got a Netflix subscription, which is the only way I can watch TV since I don't have cable, so every couple of weeks I get three or four episodes of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer in the mail. And I turn on the Spanish dub.

(Yes, James Marsters is sexy as all get-out with that British accent. It's a sacrifice I'll have to make for now).

I listen to the Spanish while I watch the English subtitles; I'm not advanced enough yet to just listen to the Spanish dialogue, and besides, Joss Whedon's dialogue is snappy in English and loses something in translation. But I get a lot out of it:

-I know how to say "vampire slayer" (it's "casavampiros"). Witch is "bruja," but I learned that from Harry Potter.
-I get a feel for the rhythm of spoken spanish, and the pronunciation.
-I get a feel for the kinds of small interjections that Spanish conversation uses: de acuerdo for "okay," bueno, vaya, that sort of thing.
-The vocabulary's limited and dead simple, but what little there is gets drilled into my brain until it goes from my recognition vocabulary to my productive vocabulary (that is, words I'd actually use in a sentence).
-And, of course, I never have to make myself watch Buffy. It's worth having a mix of painful and pain-free studying options, so that you have something to do even when you'd rather stab something than learn more Spanish.

You may not be a geek like me, but lots of DVDs (especially for TV shows) have a Spanish (and sometimes French) dub on them.