What does “Broadway” mean in English?

Singer Dreams Of Broadway On America’s Got Talent

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A2 English listening practice · American English · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
Broadway
English place name and job dream
a famous street in New York; also the name for its big theater world

Broadway is a long street in New York City, but the word means much more than the street. For English speakers, “Broadway” also means the group of large theaters near Times Square where professional musicals and plays run every night. When someone says “I want to be on Broadway,” they mean a top stage career, not a street sign.

On the show, the singer says “The dream is to be a Broadway performer,” and then sings “Think of Me,” a song from the musical The Phantom of the Opera. A performer is anyone who acts, sings or dances on stage. The judge also jokes that he is “a one-word artist like Madonna,” a singer known by one name only.

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 English listening practice listening practice?

89.3%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common English words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday English.

General English frequency

83.3%
Top 1,000
89.3%
Top 2,000
92.9%
Top 5,000

Spoken English frequency

96.1%
Top 1,000
97.4%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Conversational vocabulary
This reel’s words appear more often in subtitle-based spoken-English data than in general usage, so it may feel closer to everyday conversation.

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

broadway
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000Common in speech
famous theater district
performer
1×
Top 5,000
one who performs
resigned
1×
Top 5,000
gave up a position
one word artist
1×
famous for using a single name

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-US 2012 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

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