Now there's a toughie. And here's where I drop the bomb: Most native English speakers can't understand Shakespeare. The language of his time was ornate, sophisticated, and contained references that baffle some scholars today (Who the hell was Yorick anyway?). Your best bet is to get an annotated edition in English. The plain English will be on one side of the page, the Shakespearean English on the other.

It's a funny coincidence that you mention "Hamlet". My wife and I saw the film "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead" last night. It's an existentialist comedy on the two minor characters in Hamlet. That, too, was difficult to understand. The crux of it, I suppose, is that life---like plays---only has one ending: death. And this affects everyone, from kings and queens and dukes to nobodies like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern. Not an uplifting film or a date movie but worth watching all the same.