テレビ

Pattern visualization

Examples

1. 夜にテレビを見ます。▶ —
   I watch TV in the evening.
2. 新しいテレビを買いました。▶ —
   I bought a new TV.

Collocations

Mnemonic

テレビ — terebi, a loanword. Written in katakana. It came from English television, but Japanese clips long words ── television → テレビジョン → テレビ. The word shrank as NHK launched broadcasting in 1953. Japanese has a habit of clipping loanwords ── long English words cut down to two or three syllables. Same pattern: スマホ (smartphone), パソコン (personal computer), コンビニ (convenience store). If コーヒー and ビール are fossils of Edo-era Dutch borrowing, テレビ is a fossil of postwar English borrowing ── the origin of a loanword dates it. The verb pairing is 見る miru ── テレビを見る. One line of katakana compresses Japan's media and electronics industrial history since 1953.

Quick check

1. How did 「television」 shorten to テレビ in Japanese?

   • television → テレビジョン → テレビ (-ジョン dropped)
   • television → directly テレビ
   • TV abbreviation → テレビ
   • テレ extension