Use of tenses in tv series realistic? Tv series useful to improve English skills?

Question

I know a few non-native speakers who got a good English level because they were watching a lot of tv series in English. I am also interested in a few tv series and now I decided to watch them with English audio.

In the beginning I am going to turn the English subtitels on. It's strange, in a real life conversation in English, no matter if with native or non-native speakers I can communicate very well. But in the series I don't understand very much, maybe because of the dialect or the speed.

While watching a US tv series (prision break) I came across a few suprising things.

Most sentences are really short, I think it's normal?

The only used tenses I could figure out where
- simple past
- past continous
- simple future will and going to
- simple present
- present perfect
- present perfect continous (really rarly)
- future continous (really rarly)

So far no
- past perfect (had only used as a full verb, never something like had had or had seen)
- past perfect continous
- future perfect
- future perfect continous

Are those tenses not used in English anymore?

Or is it a difference between British and American English that those tenses are not used?

Is there realistic English in tv series or is it dialect free or some kind of simpified language?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

ddhhzSo far no
- past perfect (had only used as a full verb, never something like had had or had seen)
- past perfect continous
- future perfect
- future perfect continous

Are those tenses not used in English anymore?

Those tenses are used in English! Yes! But they are seldom needed in everyday conversations. Those tenses convey more subtle and complicated relationships in time, and such relationships are probably used more often in literary works or in subtle philosophical or scientific reasoning. That's not to say they are never used in conversation, but the statistical distribution of the tenses that you found is not surprising.

ddhhzin the series I don't understand very much,

There are a number of factors that may be impeding your understanding. Sometimes it's a specialized vocabulary or specialized idioms. Sometimes, as you suggest, it may be the speed of the conversations. Sometimes it is the writer's desire to make the dialog very clever and trendy -- something that is "written into" the series to make it more entertaining. Real people don't often express themselves so cleverly in real life as they do on TV!

CJ

Dave Phillips · Answer

CJ (as usual) is absolutely right.  Think of English as a way to communicate rather than trying to analysis it.  English people don't study any grammar at school as we learn the language that is spoken.  I now that I am learning to teach English I have to study it and the first time I thought about the purpose of past perfect continuous and other sentences you have mentioned.  The best way to learn English is to practise it however and whenever you can, reading, listening, speaking or writing they all will teach you well.  Also don't try to understand every single word when reading, you don't need to to understand the text, know the important words.  We call this top down reading.

Use of tenses in tv series realistic? Tv series useful to improve English skills?

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