Word Detail

The Japanese word テレビ represents "television" or "TV". It refers to the electronic device used for receiving and displaying moving images and sound, or the content broadcast on such a device. It can be used as a noun, representing the physical device, or as a shorthand to describe watching television.

⚫︎テレビを見ましょう。 Translation: Let's watch television. ⚫︎新しいテレビを買いました。 Translation: I bought a new television. ⚫︎今日のテレビ番組は何ですか？ Translation: What's on TV today?

This word is very common and can be used in almost any context related to television. ⚫︎You can use it to talk about the physical device itself. ⚫︎You can use it to talk about watching programs. ⚫︎You can use it to discuss what's on TV or the television industry.

テレビ is written in katakana, テ レ ビ. This is because it is a loanword from English ("television"). It is consistently written this way and there are no other accepted ways to write it. There are no variations in okurigana. It is always テレビ and never requires an additional suffix.

⚫︎ There are no direct synonyms in common usage. The focus is on the object and its use. In specific situations, you might describe the content as 番組 (program) or ドラマ (drama). But those aren't synonyms for the device itself.

⚫︎ There are no direct antonyms for テレビ as a physical device. ⚫︎ If discussing the act of watching TV, an antonym might be something like 本を読む (reading a book) or 外で遊ぶ (playing outside), if one is contrasting those activities with watching [テレビ]

毎晩、寝る前にテレビを見ます。 ・Translation: I watch television every night before going to bed. ・Explanation: This sentence describes the common action of watching [テレビ] as part of a daily routine.

このテレビはリモコンが壊れています。 ・Translation: The remote control for this television is broken. ・Explanation: This sentence describes a problem with the television set, specifically the remote control.

The word テレビ comes directly from the English word "television". It's a loanword, adopted into Japanese using katakana to represent the foreign sound.