325 TV

Do you like to watch TV? Or has your TV already been replaced by your laptop or tablet? Josh Edbrooke from Transition talks with ShaoLan about TV and how much they do or don’t watch it. The Chinese word for TV includes the character for “electricity” and interestingly, the character for electricity in Chinese actually comes from the character for “lightning” because the Chinese recognized electricity in storms long before its “invention.” Of course, once you’ve mastered the word for “electricity” you can combine it with other characters to describe a whole range of different electrical products, not just your TV.

The way to say “to watch TV” in Chinese is 看電視/看电视. The first character 看 means “to watch” or “to see.” the second character 電/电 represents electricity and the third character 視/视 means “vision.” So, when you “watch the electric vision,” you are “watching TV.”