I’m on a “media” role with my “Talking about” series, so I thought I’d write a post about TV!
Television has many names: TV, Telly (British English), idiot box, small screen, TV set, the tube & the boob tube.
Soap Operas is one type of TV program. Soap Operas usually are shown from 10:00am in the morning until 2pm in the afternoon. They are shown at that time for elderly women and house wives, but many college students watch them as well. They are a never-ending series and they have a new show every day. They just keep going and going. There are bizarre things that happen on soap operas, like baby switching, people being possessed by the devil, and sex changes. There is never a dull moment!
Talk shows are programs where a host talks about a particular topic during each show. They have guests on their shows as well. “The Oprah Winfrey Show” is an example of this type of program. There are also late-night talk shows like “Jay Leno”.
Reality shows are a fairly new type of show. They’ve only been around for about 10 years. They use average people and they make the people do odd things, like eating cockroaches. YUCK!
Game shows are shows where average people get to win money by answering questions or playing some kind of silly game.
Dramas are shows which usually last 1 hour per episode. They are a bit more serious in nature, but some can still be funny. “24” and “CSI” are examples of this type of program.
Sit-coms are comedies which usually last for 30 minutes per episode. “Friends” was a very popular sit-com in the past.
Then, of course, there are cartoons and news programs.
We also say “small screen” in Spain,a s well as “the idiot box” (actually we call it silly box). I have never heard “the tube” (I think on the London Underground!) nor “the boob tube”.
One of my favourite series was “Sex & the city”. When I was a teenager I used to watched “Streets of San Francisco”. Do you remember it? That´s when I fell in love with the city 🙂
We can watch lots of US series here in Spain, but they are dubbed (as well as films). Fortunately, sometimes we can change the language and watch them in (or on?) the original version. I think it´s great to learn English.
OOOOps…I´ve just spotted a mistake! I said “I used to watched…”. The correct sentence is ” I used to watch….”
Yeah, it’s interesting that we call it the tube and the tube is the subway in London. Not sure how that came about. I like ‘the silly box’. That’s awesome!
It is a great way to learn English – watching TV. I’ve never seen “Streets of San Francisco”. What year do you remember watching it?
You are so good – correctly your own mistakes! Kudos to you!
Well, “Streets of San Francisco” ran between and 1972 and 1977 (the year I was born!) but I watched it in the late 80´s. Michael Douglas was soooo young!
Here´s the link to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Streets_of_San_Francisco
We have some pretty good series made in Spain now. My favourite is a sit-com, “Aida”, about a crazy family.
What´s your favourite programm/series/show?