Television series to help your English listening

There is no better way of training your English listening skills than watching a TV series in English. Normally, after finding a TV series that you really like, you’ll develop a sort of “addiction” so that whenever you have a spare moment you’ll want to dedicate it to a moment of your favourite TV series. And in any case, the most popular TV series are normally American or British and so it’s the perfect way to combine entertainment and English learning. The effort you put in to understanding the English should be offset by the enjoyment of the TV series (again, if you find one that you like). Plus, the fact that TV dramas are often divided into seasons and episodes means that these “steps” will be easier to digest. Another “step approach” might involve watching the series with subtitles in your own language at first and then when you feel more confident changing to English subtitles. In the beginning you might feel that such a jump is impossible, but I assure you that gradually your ear will develop and your listening skills will improve. As each episode goes by you will get to know the characters better and better, you’ll get to know their voices, their accents, the way they speak. This is important to stress: once you’ve got past the accent you’ll also be better able to understand the words (at first with the help of subtitles in your own language, then with subtitles in English and then when you become a pro without any subtitles). As opposed to films (that often have atypical language) TV series are more likely to feature the useful everyday language you need.

Some suggestions

Here are some TV series I suggest to English students who want something that isn’t too hard:

Friends

Friends and the more recent version How I met your Mother are two super popular TV series in the US. They both talk about the adventures of a group of young people in New York. The vocabulary of both of the series is fairly simple, given that most of the situations are everyday situations and everyday stories. The characters speak with a standard American accent (except Robin in How I met your mother who is Canadian). On the other hand the speed and pace of the dialogue is quite quick and there are some American expressions and sayings but on the whole everything is pretty clear and simple.

Cosby Show 

This is another cult TV series this time from the 1980s, is a great show and it’s easy to understand The Cosby Show

Sex and the City 

Sex and The City is a TV drama that is entertaining, simple and deals with pretty light-hearted topics. The accents are mainly ‘educated New York’ and the speed is quite quick.

The IT Crowd 

The IT Crowd is a British TV series that was broadcast by the British-based Channel 4. It tells the story of two friends who work in technical support for a company. Moss is a genius nerd and  Ron is the Irish slacker, both are managed by Jen the department boss who knows nothing about IT. This series is perfect if you want to laugh a lot and listen to British accents and typical British humour. 

Livello avanzato

If you already have an advanced level of English listening you could think about choosing a film with a more complicated plot, faster dialogue, puns and specific atypical vocabulary, for example:

Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad is the celebrated award-winning US drama set in Albuquerque in New Mexico and is really interesting from a language point of view. The English is US English but every now and again there are certain influences from Spanish, given the proximity of the border of New Mexico to Mexico.

The Wire 

The Wire, Prison Break (US series) or Sherlock (UK series) are dramas with complicated plots and so a good understand of the language is more important in order to appreciate them.

 Lost

Lost is nice because there are lots of different accents (the premise is a plane crash on an international flight so you can imagine there would be lots of different characters from different countries).

Homeland 

In Homeland the accents are pretty standard American but the vocabulary can be pretty technical and complicated (something you’d imagine given that it’s about the CIA). The story follows the CIA as they investigate an American solider held captive for years by Al Queda and who is perhaps a traitor involved in a plot to kill the Vice-President.

 Shameless

Shameless is a series that will make you laugh lots and lots. The US version of the series is set in Chicago  and centres around a dysfuctional family. The themes addressed in the series are amusing and the vocabulary used is very rich with lots of slang. There is also the original UK version.

My name is Earl

My name is Earl and Californication are US TV series with lots of slang and rich expressions.