snipe
18×a bird; a “snipe hunt” is a joke search for something that isn’t real
Animated adventure · American English
Up: English level and how hard it is to understand
A short film with very little talk: the famous married-life montage near the start has no dialogue at all. Clear American voices and simple, everyday words.
Updated
Short answer
Up is best for A2 to B1 learners. Across the whole film, a B1 learner knows about 96.0% of the words, and the characters speak at about 146 words per minute (average).
Up in numbers
- Recommended level
- A2 to B1
- Speaking speed
- 146 words / min
- Spoken words
- 5,421 in 96 min
- Known at B1
- 96.01%
- Known at B2
- 97.08%
- Different words
- 1,095
Difficulty rank: 2 of 16 in our movies by English level list (very easy, few words).
Beyond the numbers
What makes Up hard (or easy)?
- Russell talks fast when he is excited, and the dogs speak in short, odd phrases.
- Scout words (badges, snipe, assisting the elderly) come from American scouting culture.
- The jokes about the “snipe” bird make more sense if you know a snipe hunt is a classic prank.
Up is mostly 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 Up
B2–C2 words that came up more than once in the film. Counts are for the whole movie.
badges
4×small cloth signs scouts earn for skills
steered
4×controlled the direction of something
hurdles
3×problems to get past (also fences in a race)
goggles
3×glasses that protect your eyes
prunes
3×dried plums
balloons
2×rubber bags filled with air or gas
tracker
2×someone who follows an animal’s trail
Spoken forms you will hear constantly
hey ×34yeah ×25gonna ×13okay ×8wanna ×7uh ×7
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 Up?
Share of all spoken words in each frequency band (A1 = the 5,000 most common words).
A186.8%
A25.87%
B13.34%
B21.07%
C10.98%
C20.38%
Unlisted1.55%
Watching plan
How to learn English with Up
- Start here if long films tire you. Up is only 96 minutes and quiet for long stretches.
- Pause after each scene and say what happened in one English sentence.
- Enjoy the married-life montage as a break: music and pictures only, no words to worry about.
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 Up (2009, 96 minutes), removed sound descriptions, speaker labels, and character names, and matched each of the 5,421 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 Up good for learning English?
Up has very few spoken words (about 5,400, second only to The Lion King) and a vocabulary of about 1,100 words. A B1 learner knows about 96% of them. Comfortable from strong A2 with subtitles. We recommend it from A2 to B1.
How fast do they speak in Up?
About 146 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 Up?
A learner who knows the most common 20,000 English word forms (our B1 band) knows about 96.0% 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 (5,421 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 Up 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 Up 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.