Watching TV Series is a great way to improve your English while being entertained at the same time.
In this podcast, we’ll tell you our top 10 favourite TV shows and give you a long list of additional recommendations for you to try.
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TV Series we think you should watch
We may have given recommendations for TV series before, but here’s an up-to-date list of our top 10.
There are many different platforms where you can watch TV series these days. We haven’t listed where you can find the following recommendations, but you can search on https://www.justwatch.com/ and you’ll see where these TV series are streamed.
Our Top 10 TV Series
1.Ted Lasso – Follows an American football coach, Ted Lasso, who goes to the U.K. to manage a struggling London football team in the top level of English football.
2. Ozark – A seemingly unexciting accountant moves his family from the city to rural Missouri for dubious business reasons, as it turns out he’s in a fix with a drug cartel. The constant threat of death and the characters’ ever-changing morals keep the viewer dying to know if they’ll survive.
3. The Mandalorian – The travels of a lone bounty hunter in the outer reaches of the galaxy, far from the authority of the New Republic. Written and produced by Jon Favreau.
4. Unorthodox – A young woman runs away from her oppressive, ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Williamsburg, NY to Berlin. There she embarks on a journey of self-discovery and gets to learn about the world while grappling with the memory of her conservative upbringing.
5. Stranger Things – When a young boy disappears, his mother, a police chief and his friends must confront terrifying supernatural forces in order to get him back.
6. The Serpent – Charles Sobhraj is a narcissistic conman who preys on young travellers looking for adventure in Southeast Asia in the 1970s. He gains their confidence, then creates a problem for them which apparently only he can solve – sometimes poisoning them, then “curing” them. Having gained their trust, he eventually steals all their money, passports and kills them. Based on a real-life serial killer.
7. Anything with David Attenborough (LIfe series, Blue Planet, Our Planet, The Living Planet etc)
8. Curb Your Enthusiasm – Larry David is a successful TV writer. However, he has a knack for often finding himself in socially awkward situations and digging himself into a hole. Whether it’s a well-meaning misunderstanding or his recurrent crankiness, you can be sure he’ll put his foot in it and annoy lots of people.
9. Fleabag (with Phoebe Waller-Bridge) – Lives in London and has problems with relationships, work, family and life in general.
10. The Handmaid’s Tale – The USA has been taken over by a religious dictatorship in which women are completely subservient to men. Everything is controlled by the government, including family planning, and everyone lives in fear. Some women – handmaids – are obliged to serve the ruling class and have sex with their so-called “masters”, who also have their own wife, solely to provide them with heirs.
How to watch
Try to listen in the original version (English) with no subtitles, even if you need to watch the episode 2 or 3 times. If you can’t understand enough to follow the story, put English subtitles.
We also have to give a mention to some of the classic TV series
Breaking Bad
Better Call Saul
The Sopranos
The Wire
Game of Thrones
True Detective (Especially series 1 with Matthew McConaughey)
The Fall – Set in Belfast (Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dorman
Black Mirror
Utopia
Big Little Lies
Peaky Blinders – a nice selection of accents from the north of England
Downtown Abbey
Line of Duty
Deadwood (Ian McShane)
Bosch
Mad Men
The Crown
Sherlock – Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman
Westworld
Mr. Robot (Sam Esmail)
Shameless (UK version with James McAvoy)
The office and Extras (Kate Winslet, Ben Stiller, Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Stewart, David Bowie, Daniel Radcliffe, Kate Winslet, Clive Owen, Orlando Bloom and many more)
…and now it’s your turn to practise your English. Did we not mention your favourites. If you have a recommendation for a TV series that you enjoyed and you think will help other English learners improve their listening skills, please send us a message. https://www.speakpipe.com/inglespodcast
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On next week’s episode: 8 common colloquial expressions – Part 6
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The music in this podcast is by Pitx. The track is called ‘See You Later’
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