Learn a Foreign Language with Game of Thrones: The Best Episodes According to Data Science
Using data to find the best episodes of Game of Thrones to learn a foreign language.
If your native language isn’t English, you probably watched the dubbed version of Game of Thrones or needed subtitles to watch the original version. That’s OK; even I find the language in Game of Thrones a bit complicated. But, what if I tell you which are the episodes in this great TV show that cover only basic words? Throughout 8 seasons, there must be some episodes where the characters use simple vocabulary, right? This is true! That’s why I used transcripts to find Game of Thrones episodes with the easiest vocabulary, so you can have fun watching them without subtitles. I’ll also compare the vocabulary used in Game of Thrones with shows like Friends and The Simpsons to know which TV show would be better to learn a new language.
What Game of Thrones (GoT) episodes among the 73 are the best for you to learn a foreign language?
The British accent, speech pace and vocabulary used in episodes are some things that make GoT hard to follow even for native speakers. However, I ranked the 73 GoT episodes by difficulty of vocabulary, so you can re-watch them, starting with the easiest episodes. For example, I found that Oathbreaker (S6E3) and Beyond the Wall (S7E6) are the episodes in which characters used simple English vocabulary. I bet that If you watch them, you’ll be able to understand dialogues more than in the episode The Laws of Gods and Men (S4E6), which is the hardest episode to understand because of its hard vocabulary.
You can find all the Game of Thrones episodes in the image below. The episodes furthest to the right cover more basic vocabulary.
The best episodes to learn a foreign language with Game of Thrones
The following are the top 10 episodes with the easiest vocabulary among all Game of Thrones episodes aired. Re-watch them without subtitles and you’ll understand dialogues more than in the average GoT episode:
- S6E3: Oathbreaker
- S7E6: Beyond the Wall
- S8E2: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
- S2E4: Garden of Bones
- S2E10: Valar Morghulis
- S8E4: The Last of the Starks
- S3E6: The Climb
- S8E5: The Bells
- S2E1: The North Remembers
- S3E2: Dark Wings, Dark Words
Also, I found that Battle of the Bastards (S6E9) and The Red Woman (S6E1) are one of the episodes with fewer words spoken. I believe that happens because they have scenes with many fights, so less dialogue. If you watch them, you’ll have fewer hard words to worry about!
Tip: Check the vocabulary used in every episode before you watch them. You can easily do so by checking the chart ‘Every Word Said in Game of Thrones (Level 3and above)’ below.
Should I Learn a Language with GoT, Friends or The Simpsons?
Choosing a TV series to learn a new language is a hard task. Most people would recommend you a movie or TV show based on what they like or what worked for them to learn a language, but let’s be honest, not everyone learns with the same formula.
If I have to follow what my research results suggest, I’d recommend watching Friends to someone who started learning a foreign language like English or Spanish. At the same time, The Simpsons and Game Of Thrones would be an excellent choice for intermediate/advanced language learners who want to improve their vocabulary. However, here at Learn Language with TV, we encourage you to learn a language with content you love, so even if your language skills are basic, you could watch The Simpsons or Game of Thrones and improve your skills. After all, you already know which are the easiest episodes from those TV shows, remember?
Each TV show has some vocabulary that was created or is only spoken in their episodes. They’re labeled as ‘unique words’ in the chart above. Game of Thrones has many of these words, such as Winterfell, Westeros, Dothraki and Khaleesi. You can find more words like this in the following wordcloud with the shape of one of Daenerys’ dragon:
Which character Speaks the Most in 7 Seasons?
In case you’re interested to know which characters speak the most in almost all episodes in Game of Thrones, I ranked them by each season. To do so, I calculated which characters speak the most in the series and then classified them into seasons.
Play with the chart below to find how many times your favorite character speak in each season!
What hard words are they saying in 73 episodes?
Now that you know the easy episodes from Game of Thrones, it’s time to reveal my secret to learning languages with TV. To increase my vocabulary when watching an episode of a TV show, I use the table below. You can find which difficult words you’ll hear in the 73 Game of Thrones episodes in a couple of seconds by using the table. You can filter by word, episode or season!
This is how I increase my vocabulary in 4 languages by watching TV with the table above, step by step:
Step 1: I search the name of the episode I’m going to watch in the table above.
Step 2: I check the hard words repeated a lot of times in the episode by sorting the table by the ‘Repetition’ column
Step 3: I look up the meaning of hard words that I never heard before and are repeated a lot of times in that episode
Step 4: Watch the episode and have fun!
If you do this, you’ll increase your vocabulary and also the chances to understand dialogue in an episode, which includes deep conversations, jokes, etc.
Conclusion
I know how it feels to be unable to understand dialogue when watching your favorite TV show. In this article, I used my data science knowledge to find the Game of Thrones episodes with the easiest English vocabulary, so you can re-watch them and have fun learning a foreign language. I also compared it with other TV shows to find the ideal show for you to learn a new language.
The code behind this analysis is available on Github.