When learning a new language, one of the challenges is to understand and communicate with native speakers. The ability to read a language doesn’t guarantee that you’ll understand it when it’s spoken!
For this purpose, watching USA TV shows and movies is an excellent strategy to train your ear. You also get to watch the movement of people’s lips and faces as they talk, offering you further clues as to how a word or phrase is pronounced. Use this tool to perfectly complement your learning with EnglishClass101.com! We hope our list of TV series to learn English proves helpful to you!
Table of Contents
- The Big Bang Theory
- Modern Family
- The Good Place
- Schitt’s Creek
- Brooklyn Nine Nine
- Black-ish
- Game of Thrones
- The Haunting of Hill House
- Suits
- How to Get Away with Murder
- Conclusion
1. The Big Bang Theory
If you’re looking to watch American TV shows for a good laugh, The Big Bang Theory is a good place to start.
Released in 2006, this is America’s longest multi-camera comedy show ever aired. It showcases the relationships, lives, and foibles of six brilliant but socially awkward scientists, and their ‘ordinary’ but very grounded friend.
Season twelve was recently released, and will see the end of The Big Bang Theory, unfortunately. Nearly all the actors gained considerable fame through the series, and are greatly in demand for other projects. This is especially true for Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper, a character so popular that he now has his own prequel show titled Young Sheldon.
USA TV Show Trivia
Mayim Bialik, who plays Amy Farrah Fowler, is the only cast member with a real PhD, which she received in 2008 for neuroscience.
2. Modern Family
Another wildly popular, and award-winning American TV show is Modern Family, which was released in 2009 and airs on ABC (American Broadcasting Company).
Modern Family depicts the inner workings of a (very) blended family. The show features the Pritchett-Dunphy-Tucker family and follows them through their personal struggles in making their family situations work.
This kaleidoscope of a family comprises of Jay and his much-younger Latina wife Gloria (each with a child of their own, which they’re raising together), another couple with three grown children (the eldest of whom still lives at home), and a homosexual couple who have adopted a child from Vietnam. As can be imagined, each character experiences an array of difficulties and struggles throughout the course of the show.
Modern Family is certainly a fitting name for this show, as it reflects the increasing number of similarly blended families in the United States today. Seeing as blended-family life certainly comes with its hardships, Americans have come to love this show as it sometimes touches on their own struggles.
USA TV Show Trivia
Luke Dunphy, played by Nolan Gould, is the family dunce and often the target of pranks and jokes. However, in real life, Gould is a Mensa-member genius, with an IQ of 150.
3. The Good Place
If you like slightly quirky and offbeat television shows, The Good Place will probably be a good fit for you! The show sports some well-established and well-loved actors, including Ted Danson and Kristen Bell.
Eleanor Shellstrop, played excellently by Bell, wakes up to find herself dead and in The Good Place, as opposed to the Bad Place. Initially relieved, she soon finds out that she’s not supposed to be there. Of course, much hilarity and drama ensues.
USA TV Show Trivia
During the first season of The Good Place, the characters eat what seems like gallons of frozen yogurt. However, on set, the yogurt was actually mashed potatoes!
4. Brooklyn Nine Nine
Another USA network TV show, Brooklyn Nine Nine was first aired on Fox TV in 2013. This hilarious police show is a multiple award nominee, and winner of two Golden Globes.
The show deals with the brilliant but immature and goofy detective, Jake Peralta, working in Brooklyn’s 99th Precinct, who’s constantly at odds with his commanding officer, Ray Holt.
USA TV Show Trivia
In the show, the characters of Jake and Gina are childhood friends. Interestingly, the actors who play these roles have actually known each other since childhood!
5. Schitt’s Creek
If you’re looking to watch English TV shows that had a strong start, this is another hugely entertaining, popular family sitcom, aired for the first time in 2015. It tells the story of the Rose family, who suddenly finds themselves utterly broke after patriarch and video-store magnate Johnny Rose, loses everything. Definitely not used to being so poor, they move to a small town called Schitt’s Creek to deal with their misfortune, and remake themselves and their world.
The show has won numerous ACRA awards, and has been nominated for over twenty-four.
USA TV Show Trivia
Goodwood, Ontario, is a small town where all the outside scenes of the series are shot. The locals have embraced the series and all became “proud citizens of Schitt’s Creek,” says Eugene Levy, who plays John Rose, and is one of the creators, “They had a minor league kind of baseball team there that actually changed their name from the Goodwood Bears to the Schitt’s Creek Bears for an entire month.”
6. Black-ish
This African American TV show deals with an African-American family living in a predominantly white, upper middle-class neighborhood. While they don’t struggle financially, the family battles to find and keep their cultural identity, often with very funny effects.
While a sitcom, the show doesn’t shy away from difficult topics such as racial slurs and police brutality.
USA TV Show Trivia
Show creator Kenya Barris claimed that the series is semi-biographical, with some very direct parallels between his own life and those of the fictional Johnson’s lives. For instance, Rainbow Johnson, the show’s matriarch, is a biracial anesthesiologist. Just like Barris’ real wife—an anesthesiologist with a black mother and a white father, whose name is also Rainbow.
7. Game of Thrones
No list of great TV shows in the USA would be complete without mentioning Game of Thrones! Based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling book series, “A Song of Ice and Fire,” this fantasy epic show has captured the hearts and minds of millions across the globe. The plot is Shakespearean and simple—two powerful families locked in a feud for the Iron Throne and control of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros.
Replete with acts of unbelievable violence and shocking discoveries, this is not a bedtime story for the faint-hearted.
USA TV Show Trivia
Remember the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the well-loved character Gandalf? Well, a replica of Gandalf’s famous sword has found a home in the Iron Throne on the Game of Thrones set!
8. The Haunting of Hill House
Currently considered one of the best American TV shows on Netflix, The Haunting of Hill House follows the story of the Crain siblings who were raised in a very strange house, and its disturbing effects on them even years afterward.
Based on the famous novel with the same title by Shirley Jackson, this series will keep you nailed to the couch episode after episode. It sports accomplished stars such as Oscar-winning Timothy Hutton, and also draws outstanding performances from the child actors.
USA TV Show Trivia
Stephen King, a well-known author of horror and thriller novels, called The Haunting of Hill House “close to a work of genius.” Watch the eerie trailer, and be sure not to miss the series!
9. Suits
For tension of a different kind, Suits provides high drama against the backdrop of corporate law in Manhattan. Following the story of Harvey Specter and his team, this enduring series continues to fascinate and enthrall with a sharp script and relatable themes of betrayal, crime, and, of course, secrets.
Currently, in its mid-season break, Season Eight’s Episode 11 is expected to air next year.
USA TV Show Trivia
Until Season Seven, the character of Rachel was played by the lovely actress Meghan Markle, the new wife of England’s Duke of Windsor, Prince Harry.
10. How to Get Away with Murder
How to Get Away with Murder follows the story of brilliant Annalise Keating, a law professor at a prestigious Philadelphia university. After becoming involved in an accidental murder with her students, their wits and viewers’ nerves are tested in a tightly-scripted relationship drama currently in its fifth season. If you want to watch an American drama, you’re bound to enjoy this one.
Annalise Keating is played by Oscar- and Tony award-winning actress Viola Davis.
USA TV Show Trivia
It’s a little known fact that Viola Davis, the show’s brilliant lead, grew up in extreme poverty and often had to rummage through dumpsters for something to eat.
11. Conclusion
So, now you know that learning English can be very entertaining and relaxing! Allow yourself to be captivated by interesting stories, while your ears grow used to how the language is spoken.
You can even try memorizing the script, and rewatching scenes while ‘acting’ with the actors! This way, you get to practice your accent too. You’ll soon sound like a native!
We truly hope that our list of American TV shows of 2018 has given you a good place to start, so that you can effectively watch TV to learn English.
Alternatively, you can also listen to the audio books made available for free on EnglishClass101.com. The more you expose yourself to spoken English, the sooner you’ll understand natives, and speak like one too.
You can also power your studies with the Innovative Language TV channel, or an Android app to build your vocabulary.
Our goal is to help you learn English correctly, easily, and in the most fun ways possible. Don’t wait; sign up today!
