The grammar of ‘Friends’

In 2006, Dr Raul Mora, a Professor and award-winning researcher did a detailed investigation on the conversations the characters in ‘Friends’ have.

He took three episodes from Season 7 and examined everything said.

Mora found that watching ‘Friends’ was good for intermediate learners of English because the grammar used was very clear to understand - 47% of the conversation was in the present simple and most of the rest of the chat was in the past simple or simple modals.

These are all structures that most pre-intermediate students are comfortable with. What made it even easier to understand was the fact that most of the sentences were short (less than 10 words) and didn’t use conjunctions or linking words apart from ‘and or ‘but’.

So far this makes Friends perfect for learning right? For intermediate levels and below: yes, but there was a concern that advanced learners might get the wrong idea about how native speakers talk to each other.

They would benefit from being exposed to more complicated sentences with more varied tenses.

It was also noted that the characters sometimes used informal English in situations where it would be better to be formal and this could confuse learners who don’t understand the joke that the character in the show is using the wrong type of English!

One other interesting point made was that there were very few cultural references in the episodes studied. This made it easier to follow but harder to learn much about what being a young New Yorker in the 1990s was about.

The vocabulary of ‘Friends’

Now let’s move on to the vocabulary that is used in Friends. This is from an interview from the German manager of Liverpool Football Club Jurguen Klopp discussing how he learnt English:

So is Jurguen right that Friends is a good show to watch because it doesn’t have difficult language?

It looks like he is.

Frank Andrade, a data scientist, did an analysis of all 236 Friends episodes. He compared the vocabulary in the series to word lists that show the most common words in English.

He shows that you can understand most episodes of Friends if you are familiar with the top 1000 words in English.

Even if you don’t know these words, seeing them in context is a great way to improve your knowledge of the vocabulary that you'll need if you want to progress.

Apparently, the easiest Friends episode to understand as an English learner is S10E15: The One Where Estelle Dies, in which 96.2% of the expressions come from the top 1000 words in English.

You can read more about Frank Andrade’s research in this article here.

As we’re talking about the English used in Friends, let's finish with some of the fun phrases that we will forever link with the series.

How you doin'?

This iconic Joey phrase used to meet girls was said 21 times.

We were on a break!

Ross insists he did nothing wrong because he and Rachel were not technically together when he spent the night with another girl.

He’s her lobster.

Phoebe reminds us that lobsters mate for life and that Ross and Rachel are destined to be together eventually.

Could I be more sorry?

Chandler used this structure (could I be..) all the time. He was never asking a question though, just explaining it wasn’t possible for him to feel or think the thing he said more.

Joey doesn’t share food.

Please don’t ever try to take Joey’s meatball sandwich from him!

They don’t know that we know they know we know!

Confused? There was a point in time when most of the characters in ‘Friends’ didn’t know that Monica and Chandler were together.

So it's official

'Friends’ is perfect to learn English if you are intermediate or below.

Let’s quickly summarise why again:

1. What the characters say is clear because they use simple tenses.
2. The conversations are short, with few complicated sentences.
3. It’s motivating because it’s easy to follow and really funny!
4. It will help you practise the top 1000 words in English.
5. The informal everyday English it uses is important to improve your level, and it’s something you don’t always find in traditional English courses.

If you are higher than intermediate and enjoy 'Friends', that's great, we do too, but remember to keep in mind:

1. The grammar of the conversations is simpler than real life.
2. Some situations are funny because the wrong kind of English (informal English in a job interview) is used.
3. There are cultural references that only Americans of a certain age will understand! Even our Native British teachers had to google some of the punchlines.

We love breaking down the language of popular TV shows in our short courses and giving you all the support you need to watch, learn, laugh, and enjoy!