📕 Part 1: TV Programs

This episode's vocabulary

On demand - at any time that someone wants or needs something.

Widescreen (adj.) - having a wider than usual screen that shows very clear pictures.

Strut (noun) - holds TV on the wall.

Install (verb) - to put something in place so that it is ready for use.

To death (idiom) - a lot.

In terms of - used to describe which particular area of a subject you are discussing.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, what kind of TV programs do you like?

R: Ones I can stream on demand. And, you know, the kind that you can have on in the background as sort of, well, background noise for lack of a better term.

M: What's your favorite TV program?

R: Well, I used to like science fiction programs. I don't have much time to watch TV right now, but science fiction definitely. And science fiction series in particular. I really like Star Trek. And if I had the time, I'd rewatch all of Star Trek. Star Trek Voyager in particular is my favorite.

M: Do you often watch programs on TV or on your cell phone?

R: Well, actually, I watch them on my smartphone. I really want a widescreen TV, though, for my new apartment. But there's just not enough time to go and buy the thing and then pay to have it installed and put up on the wall on the support struts, I guess.

M: Do you like watching the same kind of program all the time?

R: Oh, definitely, yeah. I often play things to death, especially if they're funny things. Like it's not just TV programs, it's things like Vines, for example, or comedy specials. I really like watching the same things again and again till I'm like word-perfect and how the script goes.

M: Do you talk with your friends about the program you watched?

R: Um, not really, actually. I was thinking about this the other day. We have different tastes in just about everything in terms of the media that we consume. So if they asked me, I would tell them. But I don't just go to them and just come out with it completely from nothing.

M: In your country is it possible to watch any TV programs in English?

R: Well, yeah, I certainly hope so given that it's Scotland. If we talk about Russia, then I don't think it's possible to watch it on, well, non-satellite television. I think that you have to pay for like a cable package or something for that. But you can watch it on streaming services like Netflix, for example. You can watch things in English there, and you can pay for subtitles on videos like on YouTube. But I don't think that's like a TV service, is it? That's just like video on demand really, for lack of a better term.

M: Do you often watch TV?

R: No, it's just one of these things. Like I said, I have it on in the background and that's not the TV, that's my phone. So it's just TV shows being streamed from my phone for me to listen to while I'm doing something like, oh, well, yesterday it was the ironing, for example.

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Discussion

M: What did you iron?

R: My clothes! What else do you iron? My hair?

M: I don't know. Bedding, somebody else's clothes.

R: People used to iron their hair.

M: Yeah. Yeah. The examiner won't ask you this question. Like, what do you iron? But it just was a follow up. OK, so, Rory, let's talk about the TV. So what's going on with TV, Television?

R: Yeah, TV is the short form and television is the longer form. I think people just talk about TV, don't they?

M: Ok, watch TV. Can I say watch the telly?

R: Yeah. People say watch the telly.

M: Watch the box?

R: Watch the box if you're living in the 1960s.

M: OK, so we don't say watch the telly. We don't say watch the box. Just watch TV.

R: People used to say like on the tube. That's where You Tube comes from. People used to describe it as like a tube. I can't remember. It's got something to do with like the tubes inside the TV mechanism itself.

M: Hmm. Okay. And also television, it's like a general term for all the TV programs, everything. Just television. We can have satellite television, cable television.

R: So satellite TV is when you have it beamed directly to your house from a satellite in orbit. And cable is when you have, well, the link to your house via cable. They're kind all things, though. I think most people have like Internet packages, basically. They have everything compiled into one thing and it comes through the Internet. I think that's how it works.

M: Yeah, we call them streaming platforms or streaming services. So, for example, like YouTube, TV, Netflix, like streaming platforms.

R: Well, I think like people, I think those are separate things, though. People pay for their Internet service and they pay for their television service and other related services. And then part of that is Netflix, the Internet side of it. It's really complicated.

M: Yeah, OK. All right. But you've been talking about like a wide screen TV, which is some gadget, a piece of equipment. So a wide screen TV, like a huge TV.

R: Yeah, you have... Well, there was one for like two hundred thousand rubles or something. It's absolutely massive like the size of my wall. And I really want it.

M: Home cinema or something.

R: It is basically, it's a home cinema.

M: Rory's hone cinema.

R: It's probably going to be the biggest waste of money in my entire life. But I really like that TV. And I don't know when I'd watch it either. I should say, well, we need to talk about widescreen. What it actually is. Widescreen is just like another way of saying really wide.

M: Like a king size bed.

R: Yeah.

M: A widescreen TV and you have it installed in your what? Bedroom, kitchen?

R: In my bedroom for sure. I don't want anyone else to watch it.

M: On the ceiling.

R: Well, no, usually you get it installed on the wall. I think they're called struts the things that you mount it on. And if they're not called struts, then it's definitely called the mounting. They're the things that hold your TV to the wall. That's a useful piece of vocabulary.

M: Yeah. And the construction is "have its installed". So to have something done for you. So Rory is not going to install the TV himself, he's going to pay some men, some qualified men to do it for him.

R: Or women. What happened to feminism?

M: Oh, women. Okay, right, okay, people.

R: But we both know it's going to be men.

M: I'd like to have it installed in my bedroom for example. And you play TV as a background noise. You have it on as a background noise.

R: So that's important to point out. You have on the TV, you have the TV on and then you have on as background noise. So like, I don't think because people are busy, especially in Moscow, they don't really sit down and relax and watch the television any more. I don't think people do that.

M: Really?

R: But instead they have it on in the background while they're doing something. So like I do the ironing and then while I'm doing the ironing, I'll listen to whatever's on my phone. It's not quite the same viewing experience, but still kind of engaging with the TV somehow.

M: And as we know, Rory does iron his socks, ladies and gentlemen, I do iron my socks.

R: I iron my jeans as well. I discovered that that was something unusual.

M: But jeans are okay, but socks?

R: Some people say the ironing your jeans was something people only did in the 1990s.

M: Really?

R: Apparently.

M: Oh, OK. So we have different kinds of TV programs. For example, cartoons, chat shows, cookery programs, documentaries, game shows, news wildlife sitcoms. Rory mentioned science fiction.

R: Yes, but most importantly, if it's a set of different shows about the same people, then it's a series. And it's important to point that out because everybody says serials in Russia.

M: I know. So what's going on? Serials and series?

R: Well, to be honest, you could say like it's a serial, but most people the collocation isn't I watch serials. It's I watch a series or I watched this TV series.

M: Yeah.

R: So it's unusual, I don't think it would bring down your score hugely, but it's just one of these things that makes the examiner think that's a bit unnatural.

M: Yeah. Guys, so Netflix series, okay? TV series, Netflix series, The Game of Thrones is series and we say a serious. Ok, so make sure that you know the exact name of a show that you really enjoy. Right, chat show, like serious. And if you like the person, what do you call this person? A presenter, right?

R: Well, it depends if it's like a live show, which means it's happening without being recorded, then the person who is presenting it is the presenter. Or if it's, maybe it can be recorded and it's like a game or something like that, then they're the presenter. But if it's about people who aren't real, then the people in are characters. Like in Star Trek they have lots of characters.

M: Yeah, but in chat shows like a presenter. And you can play your favorite show to death.

R: Yeah, that's a good one. To play something to death. You can do anything to do death. If we talk about TV, then you play shows to death, which just means you listen to them again and again and again.

M: You can listen to this podcast to death.

R: You can and it will help you.

M: To get a high score.

R: The band nine score.

M: Yes, tastes are different and Robbie and his friends have different tastes in everything, right?

R: Yeah. Um, it just means that you have, I don't know, different preferences. But to say you've got a different taste is a higher level sentence, sorry, structure even.

M: Yeah. And you said that my friends and I have different tastes in terms of TV programs.

R: And it's another thing like in terms of and then describing the things, so it just means like... You could say in, different tastes in TV programs. But it focuses a bit more when you say in terms of TV programs. It's more formal as well.

M: But yeah, sounds good. When we talk about TV programs and series we should talk about binge watching. So, Rory, you said that you play something to death, you play something as a background noise, but do you binge watch stuff and what it is?

R: I don't binge watch things, but binge watching is when you watch everything like an entire series all at once. And that's possible now because on Netflix, for example, the whole series comes out and then you can watch everything in one go.

M: For two days non-stop.

R: Yeah. You just watch everything. And that's binging.

M: Yeah. It's basically you start on the 1st of January, you start and you just watch your favourite series non-stop. It's called to binge watch and you can use it as a gerente. Binge watching. I enjoy binge watching. And you know what? What happens to your brain when you binge watch your favorite series?

R: You don't have a life. Get a life.

M: No, listen, your brain produces dopamine, dopamine, right?

R: Dopamine.

M: Dopamine, and your body experiences a drug like high. So you're high when you binge watch your favorite series, but it should be your favorite. Yes, you guys, feel free to binge watch our, no, binge listen to our podcast.

R: We could talk about the grammar.

M: Grammar.

R: If I had the time.

Oh, God, Rory, what kind of conditional is it?

R: I don't know. That's why you're going to tell me what it is, because I don't know what conditionals are.

M: The second conditional. It's the second conditional, Rory.

R: Is it? Good.

M: It's an imaginary situation, like what's your favorite TV program? And you say, if I had more time, I'd watch James Oliver cooking show.

R: If I had more time, I would learn what conditionals are.

M: No, he just couldn't care less what conditionals are.

R: Listen, we don't get told what this is in school. It's difficult to remember.

M: Yeah, that's why you have me.

R: Well, and your pretty.

M: Rory, you said used to again, and this is our favorite word. I used to, used to, used to. Actually two words, but we say it as one, like I used to watch cookery programs. I used to watch makeover shows.

R: That's pronunciation. That's pretty good.

M: Used to. So now you don't anymore. Yeah and makeover shows is like when they go to your apartment they change it and you hate it.

R: It's a good exam strategy to highlight as well. Not makeover shows but using used to and conditionals. Because like you, we just started this whole episode by saying I don't know anything about TV. Yeah. So if you don't know anything about a subject then you could say if I knew something about this then I would probably say that, but I don't.

M: Yeah, yeah. Or if I had to watch TV programs it would be chat shows. If I had more time I'd blah if my friends knew something about TV. Well you might not have any TV at all. You can talk about Netflix and things you watch on YouTube or on the Internet, whatever.

R: On the subject of having the time, I think we are out of it.

M: Thank you very much for listening. Remember, have a life and...

R: Don't binge watch.

M: Yeah, don't binge watch.

R: But binge listen to our podcast. We'll help you get ready for your exam.

M: Have a TV free life.

R: But before we go, in one of the previous episodes, we talked about ways to improve your speaking and I mentioned finding a speaking partner. And very conveniently, we have a telegram chat where you can find a speaking partner. It's free and it's very easy to do, so don't forget to read the chat rules before you do it, but check out the link in the description and we'll see you in the next episode.

M: Bye!

R: Bye!

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