Shakespeare can be the most boring writer in history if you can't understand him. Here's how you can decipher Shakespeare and enjoy his fun and fabulous plays.

Learn Elizabethan English: Even Snug Did

Language is the biggest obstacle to enjoying Shakespeare's plays. In Queen Elizabeth's time, when Shakespeare wrote his plays, people spoke differently from how they do today. They used more flowery expressions, but they also used very crude terms as well. Add an actor's accent, real or fake, and the dialogue can be even more challenging.

Many people—even Shakespearean scholars—have difficulty understanding his plays for the first 15 minutes or so. After that, you begin to pick out words and themes, and it gets easier. But there are short cuts to understanding Elizabethan dialogue.

Renaissance Fairs can be a fun, live-action approach to understanding Shakespearean speech. Most performers at these fairs attempt to copy Shakespeare's wit and style, and adopt vocabulary from that era. After a day of listening to the plays and jests and one of these fairs, and you're well on your way to understanding Shakespeare.

Remember that, even in Shakespeare's day, people didn't always speak as they do in his plays. Sometimes, Shakespeare was being a poet hoping to impress his audience with how eloquently he phrased speeches. At other times, he used dialogue to explain to the audience what had happened earlier, or offstage.

Also, people used different contractions from the ones that we use today. For example, "ere" meant "ever," and "ope" was short for "open." To make matters worse, Shakespeare invented words, and even scholars argue about their meanings. So, don't expect to understand every word in every Shakespeare play. Nobody does.

Shakespeare Wrote Movies

One of the best ways to get used to Shakespeare's language is to watch popular movies set in the 1500s. You could start with Ever After featuring Drew Barrymore. It's an interesting variation of the Cinderella story. The dialogue isn't quite Shakespearean, but it's a good first step towards understanding formal speech from the past.

Most people enjoy Shakespeare in Love, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes. It's a charming story that introduces many elements from Shakespeare's classic tales. By the end of the movie, you should be ready to decipher most Shakespeare plays.

Or, for a darker historical view and as a backdrop for Shakespeare's plays, try Elizabeth with Cate Blanchett and Joseph Fiennes. In addition to the 16th century dialogue, this movie shows you how difficult life was then.

If you have difficulty understanding any of these plays, especially Elizabeth, watch the movie with the subtitles or closed captions on. Use the text to double-check what the actors are saying and you'll understand 16th century English sooner.

Shakespeare Wrote Stage Plays, Too

Now you're ready for a real Shakespeare play.

Select one of Shakespeare's plays. Choose a popular one; they're usually his best. Many people like Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, or Macbeth. Others enjoy the naughty humor in plays such as The Taming of the Shrew.

Next, look for a simple summary of your play. Many books explain these plays, such as Shakespeare without the Boring Bits, and Cliff Notes. Or, you can read short reviews of movies based on Shakespeare's plays, since they usually describe the plot. There is even a theater group, The Reduced Shakespeare Company, which specializes in very short and funny versions of Shakespeare's plays.

For example, you might choose Hamlet. The story is fairly simple: Prince Hamlet's mother has remarried without realizing that her new husband murdered the late king. Hamlet tries to prove his new stepfather's guilt, but people think Hamlet is insane. After Hamlet accidentally kills his girlfriend's father, almost everyone close to Hamlet dies tragically, and--at the end of the play--Hamlet kills himself. It's not a happy tale, but you'll recognize the many often-quoted lines from it.

You may prefer Romeo and Juliet, in which children of two feuding families meet at a costume party, fall in love, and then realize that their families are enemies. During a street fight, Romeo makes matters worse by accidentally killing Juliet's cousin. Before fleeing from authorities, Romeo secretly marries Juliet. The ending is no happier than Hamlet's, but it's a beautifully told story anyway.

Or, try a funny Shakespeare play, The Taming of the Shrew. In that story, the cute younger sister can't date anyone until her older sister is married. The problem is, the older sister is a shrew and no one wants to ask her out. The younger sister's suitor finds someone to woo the shrew, for a price. It's a rocky courtship, but almost everyone is smiling by the end of the play.

If you already know what the play is about, you've taken a big step towards enjoying Shakespeare's plays when you see them in movies or on the stage.

Shakespeare Deserves an Oscar

Most of Shakespeare's popular plays have been made into movies and are available on DVD or videotape. You can watch classic performances of Hamlet starring actors such as Laurence Olivier (1948) or Richard Burton (1964). There are short versions such as Mel Gibson's 1989 performance, or extremely long and insightful Hamlets, including Kenneth Branagh's 1996 masterpiece. You could choose a modern adaptation, such as Ethan Hawke's 2000 portrayal set in New York City. There are animated films telling Hamlet's story, and even a silent Hamlet movie from 1912.

Likewise, Romeo and Juliet has been filmed many times. Zeffirelli's 1967 version with Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting remained true to Shakespeare's script. The script was closely followed in the 1996 Romeo + Juliet, but the setting is modern and extreme as Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes play the star-crossed lovers.

If you prefer The Taming of the Shrew, Zeffirelli's 1967 comedy featured Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. It can be fun to compare it with the modern-day rewrite of this same story, 10 Things I Hate About You, starring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger.

Once you've seen and enjoyed one of Shakespeare's plays, it's time to branch out into others. In addition to the films listed above, you may enjoy exploring other interpretations of Shakespeare's classic plays. Some of them have been popular films, while others did not earn good critical reviews.

Imagine a world in which fascism had succeeded in World War II; that's the premise behind the 1995 Richard III starring Ian McKellen and Annette Bening. Some of it is a little overdone, and you may need the subtitles to keep up with the action, but it's an intriguing approach to this violent and passionate story.

On the heels of her success in 10 Things I Hate About You, Julia Stiles was the romantic interest in O, a modern-day remake of Othello. Violence in a high school setting made this film controversial, while Josh Hartnett went out on a limb as the story's villain. Language, drug use, and explicit sex pushed this film almost to the limits of an R rating. However, the tale was just as volatile in Shakespeare's time when the issues were race, greed, and cruelty.

And, whether you watched it earlier or not, Shakespeare in Love is full of clever puns and jokes that you'll appreciate more, now that you're familiar with the classic plays.

After you're comfortable with movies of Shakespeare's plays, go to a few live performances. If you're not already familiar with the plot, be sure to find a story summary so that you'll know what to look for during the show. Stage performances can be very unpredictable. Some are easier to understand than movie versions, while others combine such bad accents and poor acoustics that you sneak out of the theater at the first opportunity. But, in general, if you don't expect much, you'll find something refreshing and interesting in every performance.

You Can Also Read Shakespeare

Finally, you're ready to read one of Shakespeare's plays. If you find a copy that is annotated or has great footnotes, you can learn far more about Shakespeare's era and language than from any performance. It's also helpful to have a dictionary or glossary to look up new words.

Many students who study Shakespeare recommend keeping a notebook while reading. In it, write down the meanings of words that confuse you. Also make notes about characters and plot developments. In some of Shakespeare's comedies, the stories can become very tangled before arriving at "happily ever after."

Almost every popular Shakespeare play has been made into a movie, so if you become very confused, borrow the DVD from the library or rent it from the video store.

Once you are accustomed to Shakespeare's language, stories, and their historical contexts, it's like riding a bicycle: Even if you don't see another Shakespeare play for years, you'll still remember what you've learned the next time you go to a movie based on Shakespeare's works, or hear a reference to them.

Shakespeare was a great writer, and with a little work, you'll successfully decipher his plays. And you'll be very glad that you did.