When I first moved to Brazil, I spoke very little Portuguese and communication was difficult. Thankfully, with time I started to improve. One of the things that helped my vocabulary and structure was watching television programs in Portuguese. Sometimes, I turned on the English translation subtitles, but as I improved, I simply listened to the spoken Portuguese. There was one Soap Opera (Novela) that I watched from the beginning to the end, and it helped me a lot! That Soap Opera was Caminho das Índias.
Luckily, there are dozens of quality television shows in English. Sitcoms are comedy programs that became famous in Brazil with examples like Friends. Here are five of my personal favorite sitcoms; watching one or more can help you with vocabulary, slang, expressions, phrasal verbs, pronunciation and almost any aspect of learning English.
- Community – Community is one of my all time favorite comedy programs. The show features seven characters who belong to a community college. Community colleges are a type of university in the United States with cheaper prices but with a lower quality of education. The main characters all have very different stories and types of lives, but the interaction is very humerus. The show uses a lot of slang, so subtitles are useful.
- Parks and Recreation – If you have ever seen Saturday Night Live (another good show for practicing), you already know Amy Poehler, the main actress. This show is about a group of people working for the natural parks area of a local government. The first season (temporada) is a little weak, but the second season becomes much funnier.
- Arrested Development – Arrested Development is about a completely dysfunctional (disfuncional) rich family who loses most of their money. Some of the humor in this program is difficult to understand. The characters speak very quickly and use a lot of American cultural references and puns (trocadilhos), so this program is only for advanced English speakers. It can also be a little dark at times.
- The Middle – The Middle is a family friendly (bom para todo a família) sitcom about the Hecks, a middle class U.S. family. Of course, this is a television show, so it isn’t completely accurate, but in my opinion this show provides a great, realistic perspective on life in the United States. It shows life in high school and the average working life for a middle class American. The language is also fairly easy to understand, making The Middle great for English students.
- How I Met Your Mother – How I Met Your Mother is normally abbreviated HIMYM. This sitcom is about five friends who sit in a bar and talk about life. The entire show has a narrator, which is actually the main character telling his children the story of how he met their mother. This different format allows for all types of jokes. Again, Portuguese translation through subtitles is very useful.
