Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey English learners, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 240 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're doing great and I hope that you're having a good start to the year.
I think that when this episode is released it will be the beginning of 2026
Thank you so much for watching.
And I hope that this year you make English a priority in your life.
And hopefully you can set goals for yourself this year in terms of your English learning.
And I hope that this podcast can be a helpful tool for you in your English learning process.
And I hope that it helps you with your comprehension and your speaking.
Alright, in today's episode I want to talk about Disney movies, specifically some of the animated Disney movies from the 90s and before.
So, not recent ones, but older ones.
This is not my thing at all, meaning this is not my area of interest or my area of expertise.
I almost never watch movies, period, and die.
Definitely not Disney movies.
This has never been my thing.
However, recently we bought my son a Lion King book.
So we go to the public library a couple times a month usually.
And when we go there, we also go to the little bookstore that they have.
And we usually buy my son a couple books.
And now my daughter also wants us to buy her books, even though she's a little young to really get interested in books.
So we buy them books.
And the last time we went, we bought my son a Lion King book.
And when I was reading it to my son, my wife and I both felt this desire to watch this movie.
And we said why don't we watch Lion King and allow my son to to see this movie that we watched as children?
And, of course, because he has the Lion King book, he wanted to see the movie as well.
When we told him that there was a movie,
And so we watched that and we've watched like four other Disney movies after that one.
And we have been enjoying watching them with. our kids.
And so I'm going to talk about a few of those movies in this episode and talk about some of the lessons, some of the themes in these movies, just to relate these to real life.
So Hopefully you enjoy this topic.
And, as always, I want to challenge you, especially since it's a new year and I'm sure you have goals for your English.
You should challenge yourself and start listening to my advanced lessons podcast episodes in which I speak fast.
That will help you reach the next level in your listening, where you can actually understand when native speakers speak at normal speed.
So if you're interested in those, the link to sign up is down below.
Okay, let me talk about some different Disney movies from the 90s and perhaps before.
I forget the year of all of these movies, but these are from that time period.
So the first one I want to talk about is The Lion King.
This is the first one we watched with our son.
This was one of my favorite movies as a kid.
I watched it again and again and I learned all of the dialogue of the movie, meaning the things that the characters say.
And so I knew almost every word of this movie as a kid.
And if I compare the different movies that we have watched over the past couple of weeks, The Lion King is still my favorite one out of all of these different ones.
So this was one of Disney's best movies from that time period, I think, and it has such a great story.
I think that the story is just really engaging.
Oh and, by the way, i'm just talking about the original lion king movie.
I'm not referring to any of the other ones.
I haven't seen them.
So the original Lion King movie has a great story.
And one of the best things about this movie is that it has the perfect characters.
Like all the characters are just perfect for this movie.
Even the side characters are just perfect.
Great, it doesn't feel like there's any character that doesn't belong, because many times in movies even in good movies there might be one or two characters that people just don't like and they think that the movie could have been made without that character.
And I feel like The Lion King doesn't have any bad characters.
I think that every single character adds something to the movie.
So that's one of the strong points of the movie.
And then, of course, the songs are fantastic in The Lion King movie.
And One thing that separates this movie for me from the other ones is the emotion in the movie.
When I was watching the other movies, I didn't really feel that much emotion, to be honest.
Maybe a little bit, but The Lion King is the one Disney movie that really makes me feel more emotion, especially when it comes to Simba and Mufasa, the father-son relationship relationship.
I'm gonna give a spoiler here, meaning i'm gonna ruin the movie for those of you who haven't seen it, but i think almost all of you have seen this movie so far, so it probably won't matter.
But mufasa dies in the movie simba's father, and it's a really impactful moment.
For me, that is probably the most impactful event in any Disney movie that I've seen.
Referring to the animated movies that I watched as kids.
And I'm sure that people who have lost their father feel that emotion even more than me.
But this movie is an emotional one for sure.
And one lesson that I wanted to talk about from this movie is that I just realized when I was watching it with my family.
I didn't quite realize this, but I just thought about this yesterday.
Simba sings this song in the movie.
The song is titled, I Just Can't Wait to be King.
So he's singing about how he's going to be king one day and he's so excited and he wants that time to come because he wants to have all the benefits and perks of being a king.
A perk just refers to some benefit, this advantage that you get from having a job or being in a certain position or whatever.
So he sings about the fact that he just really can't wait until he's king.
And unfortunately, soon after that, his father, who is the current king, dies.
And so technically, Simba should have been made king then.
And so it's kind of like he sang this song talking about how he's gonna be king, it's gonna be great, and then his father dies.
And I realized this yesterday like wow, that song is not just a fun song in the movie, it's really foreshadowing, meaning it's showing what will happen in the future.
It's foreshadowing the fact that he's gonna technically be king pretty soon.
Of course, he doesn't end up being king because And there's a whole story
I'm not going to ruin it for you, but most of you know what I'm talking about.
So the lesson is to appreciate what you have now, because you might wish for things to happen in the future.
You're focused on those things.
And you don't even realize the importance of what you have right now.
Like Simba, didn't truly appreciate his father and the fact that he was the son of a king and he didn't appreciate his life at that point.
And then after that, his life was ruined.
So we should appreciate what we have now, and we should also be careful what we wish for.
Sometimes we wish for something, and when it comes true, it's terrible.
So that's a lesson from the movie.
Now let me talk about Aladdin.
Aladdin is a super fun movie.
This is one of the funnest movies that Disney has ever made, I think.
The story is really fun, the songs are great and it was really nostalgic for me to watch this movie.
I watched it with my family and throughout the movie, one of the big themes is that Aladdin, the main character, is trying to be someone who he's not.
He's doing this because he wants to marry the princess and he is just some poor street boy.
Of course, he would never be considered for marriage for the princess.
She has to marry a prince.
And so he tries to be someone who he's not, to get something that he wants and he's temporarily rewarded for it.
There are some benefits that he gets from pretending to be someone who he's not, but it gets him into trouble too.
And of course, it's not just a happy story from beginning to end.
He faces the consequences of his actions of pretending to be someone who he's not, And I think this offers a good lesson for us in real life that we shouldn't pretend to be someone who we're not.
Yes, we should improve and try to be different if it's going to help us.
Like maybe you want to change certain aspects of your personality that aren't good and that you want to improve.
Of course, we should do that, but we shouldn't be fake.
We shouldn't pretend to be someone who we're not.
We should be ourselves, but try to be the best version of ourselves.
We should try to improve on our weaknesses and the things that are aren't very positive in our lives, and we should work on improving parts of our character, our personality, that are not good.
Maybe that could be improved.
So we should be ourselves, but be the best version of ourselves and not pretend to be someone who we're not.
So that was one of the big themes that I got from Aladdin.
Overall, like I said, it's a really fun movie.
It's a blast, as we say.
It's really fun.
Another movie that I wanted to talk about is Tarzan.
A lot of you are going to be mad at me for saying this, but honestly I didn't like Tarzan as much as I thought I would.
I think as a kid I really liked it, but watching it as an adult I didn't like it that much to be honest.
I much preferred The Lion King and Aladdin as well. but I still thought Tarzan was kind of fun.
I still enjoyed watching it.
I just didn't like it as much as I thought I would.
I think the plot, meaning the story and the characters, just weren't as engaging for me as in the lion king or aladdin.
I think that the characters and the story, especially in the lion king, were just more engaging and impactful for me and they had an impact on me.
The songs are great in Tarzan though.
I cannot take away from that.
The songs are fantastic.
So that's a big positive in the movie.
So one theme that I thought was interesting in the Tarzan movie is this difference between nature and nurture.
I've talked about this before in other episodes, I'm sure.
There's always the question of nature versus nurture.
Nature refers to how we're born, our genetics, things that are just naturally part of us, that we're born with.
And then nurture refers to how we're raised, our environment, how we grow up, how our parents bring us up, all of that.
So there are many topics, many areas of life where people ask whether nature or nurture is more important or impactful.
And in Tarzan the main character, this human, is raised by gorillas, particularly this female gorilla, and he grows up among these gorillas.
Very unrealistic, but it's a movie.
And he can't escape the fact that he's a human.
He's not a gorilla.
And so he grows up in this environment with gorillas.
He is nurtured by a gorilla.
He is raised by a gorilla.
But his nature changes. is that of a man.
He's a person.
He's a human, right?
So yes, this is super unrealistic, but it's an interesting theme.
Are we influenced more by our nature, how our genetics are and the natural things that we are born with, or are we influenced more by nurture the people who raise us, our environment, the culture around us, etc.
?
Certain things can't be changed, of course.
There are some things that, for sure, you just can't do anything about, like maybe the color of your skin or whatever.
There are certain things that you're born with, you can't change, but many things can be changed.
And honestly, there are many things that we should change if that change is good for us.
Because we grow up in imperfect environments and imperfect cultures.
I know that people like to talk about the great things about different cultures, but let's be honest every culture has its disadvantages in certain areas.
Every culture in every country around the world.
And so in my opinion, we should change things that can be changed if these are good changes.
I'm talking about improving and making changes that are beneficial for you.
This isn't that related to the Tarzan story, because that's talking about a human being raised by apes.
It's not that related, but the theme of the movie can be taken and applied to our lives in the sense that there are some things that are just natural for us we can't change, but some things we have learned because of our environment around us and if we want to, we can change those things if it is beneficial for us.
So I thought that was an interesting theme.
Let me talk about one more movie.
This one is The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Let me start by saying that this movie is not suitable for kids in my opinion.
When I watched this, I couldn't understand how This was marketed as a kid's movie, because it has really adult themes and it's very dark.
And I don't know why this would be considered a kid's movie.
So I just want to warn you.
If you've never seen this and you're thinking of watching this movie with your kids, I want to warn you about that.
So, that being said, there still is an interesting theme in this movie that I wanted to talk about, which is sacrificial love, because in this movie, there is this woman who multiple people love or desire.
In this movie,
And the main character, Quasimodo.
He falls in love with this woman, but he soon realizes that she loves a different character in the movie.
And he sees that and he's devastated by it, but he still chooses to sacrifice himself and help this woman, even though she's going to love this other person and probably marry him or whatever.
He is willing to sacrifice in order to help the person whom he loves.
And this idea of sacrificial love is contrasted with the main villain, the bad character, who desires this woman?
And basically he wants her for himself or else he wants her dead.
Like he can't imagine any other situation.
It's one or the other.
So it's the exact opposite of the main character.
And so I thought that it was interesting to see these two polar opposites, as we say, like exact opposites.
One person has this sacrificial love for the woman and the other person has this selfish desire for the woman.
So I thought that was interesting.
Pretty interesting.
But again, this is more of an adult movie.
This is not a suitable film for kids, in my opinion.
But yeah, I wanted to talk about this movie too because it's one of the ones that I watched.
All right, I'll stop there.
I hope that you enjoyed hearing my thoughts about these different Disney movies and hopefully it was good practice for your listening.
Remember that you need to challenge yourself.
If you want to improve your English this year and start to understand native speakers when they speak fast, then it's important to practice with content where the person is speaking at normal speed.
And that is what I do in my advanced podcast episodes.
So make sure to use those advanced episodes to help you get accustomed to fast English.
The link to sign up for those is down below in the description below this episode.
All right.
Thank you all so much for listening.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of listening time.
