brownie
6×a soft chocolate cake; part of a running dinner joke
Romantic comedy · British and American English
Notting Hill: English level and how hard it is to understand
A good introduction to British English: London accents, polite awkwardness, and plenty of informal words (bugger, loo, arse) you won’t learn in class.
Updated
Short answer
Notting Hill is best for B2 learners. Across the whole film, a B1 learner knows about 96.8% of the words, and the characters speak at about 148 words per minute (average).
Notting Hill in numbers
- Recommended level
- B2
- Speaking speed
- 148 words / min
- Spoken words
- 9,127 in 124 min
- Known at B1
- 96.83%
- Known at B2
- 97.79%
- Different words
- 1,690
Difficulty rank: 12 of 16 in our movies by English level list (british humour and slang).
Beyond the numbers
What makes Notting Hill hard (or easy)?
- British slang and mild swearing that American films don’t use.
- Understatement and self-deprecating jokes: the British humour is often in what is not said.
- Group dinner scenes with several people talking at once.
Notting Hill is mostly British and American English. Accent and speed matter as much as vocabulary: if you know the words but can’t catch them, turn on English subtitles and slow down.
Learn these first
Useful words from Notting Hill
B2–C2 words that came up more than once in the film. Counts are for the whole movie.
surreal
5×so strange it feels like a dream
filming
4×making a film
stunt
4×a dangerous action in a film, often done by someone else
bookshop
3×British English for bookstore
vegetarian
3×someone who doesn’t eat meat
tricky
2×difficult, needing care
loo
2×British informal word for toilet
Spoken forms you will hear constantly
yeah ×59okay ×22gonna ×13wanna ×7hey ×5huh ×3
gonna = going to · wanna = want to · gotta = got to / have to. Textbooks rarely teach them, but films use them all the time.
Vocabulary profile
How common are the words in Notting Hill?
Share of all spoken words in each frequency band (A1 = the 5,000 most common words).
A189.62%
A24.38%
B12.84%
B20.96%
C10.69%
C20.61%
Unlisted0.91%
Watching plan
How to learn English with Notting Hill
- Compare Anna’s American English with William’s British English in the same scenes.
- Note down British words (loo = toilet, bookshop = bookstore) as you hear them.
- Use English subtitles for the dinner-party scenes.
In TeakReader you can import the subtitles of any movie, see the words you don’t know yet, and study them as flashcards before you press play. How it works
How we measured it
We took the full English subtitle file for Notting Hill (1999, 124 minutes), removed sound descriptions, speaker labels, and character names, and matched each of the 9,127 spoken words to the same frequency list we use for classic book levels. Speaking speed is spoken words divided by the time the subtitles are on screen. Only statistics and single words are shown here.
The recommended level is our estimate from vocabulary, speed, and style, not an official CEFR rating. Subtitle files differ slightly between releases, so treat the numbers as close estimates.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Is Notting Hill good for learning English?
Notting Hill uses common words (about 97% known at B1), but British slang, accents, and understated jokes make it a B2 film. The best choice here for learning British English. We recommend it from B2.
How fast do they speak in Notting Hill?
About 148 words per minute of dialogue, which is average for a film. Everyday conversation is often around 150 words per minute.
How many words do I need to understand Notting Hill?
A learner who knows the most common 20,000 English word forms (our B1 band) knows about 96.8% of the words spoken. Research on listening suggests that knowing about 95% of the words is enough to follow most of what is said, so subtitles help until you reach that point.
How did you measure this?
We analysed the film’s full English subtitle file (9,127 spoken words), removed sound notes, speaker labels, and character names, and matched every word to the same frequency list we use for book levels and TV shows. The level is our estimate, not an official CEFR rating.
Can I study the vocabulary of Notting Hill before watching?
Yes. In TeakReader, search for the movie and import its subtitles. You get a list of the words you don’t know yet, with meanings and flashcards.
Ready to read
Learn the words from Notting Hill before you watch.
Import any movie’s subtitles in TeakReader and get its unknown words with meanings and flashcards. Free on iPhone, iPad, and Android.