Chatting with friends

 Chatting with friends in English – English conversations 1

Learning English from conversations is a great way to improve your language skills.

When people are speaking English in conversations, they’re using the same type of language you need for speaking. This means that you can learn lots of really practical and useful words and expressions so you can you speak more fluently.

For this fun activity, simply watch the conversation clips and answer the questions. Good luck!

Level: Intermediate to Advanced (B1-C1)

Video activity: You’re going to watch some video clips. Watch the video and try to answer the questions that appear at the start of each clip.

Here are the questions for you to answer. [answers below]

1. What has the woman’s friend been telling her?
2. Why is the woman upset and a bit angry?
3. Where does the woman in the middle want to have the office party?
4. How many points does each contestant have in the quiz show?

Watch & read!

After you’ve finished, watch the video and read the script at the same time. This is great for developing your listening skills as you can see the relationship between the spoken and written words.

Video script
Clip 1

Alyssa: I have a friend who is training to be a comedian.

Sharon: Really?

Alyssa: Yeah, he’s practising. He wants to be a standup comedian. He was telling me some jokes, some of them are kind of pathetic, but oh my god there was one I thought was so funny.

Sharon: OK, tell me.

Aylssa: OK, so, there’s a guy playing chess… [fades out]

Clip 2

Cami: Why didn’t you tell me to bring a jacket?

Devon: Didn’t you have your smartphone? It literally said it was going to be raining, cold.

Cami: I didn’t look at my phone, and now I’m all wet.

Devon: Well, we’re inside now. [fades out]

Clip 3

Karen: I’m having thoughts about the office party. I want it to be a great one. It’s the end of the year, the summer’s here, I want it to be great. I was thinking though, to keep it a little bit cheaper, that we should have it here in the office.

Others: Come on…

Karen: Well, so here’s my thoughts. Here me out on this… [fades out]

Clip 4

Host: Welcome back to round 3! We’ve got our contestant Jason in the lead with 10 points so far, and Josh in a not so close second with 2 points. Let’s start off this round without prettiest candidate. Jason, who were the… [fades out]

Answers

1. What has the woman’s friend been telling her? = He was telling her some jokes.
2. Why is the woman upset and a bit angry? = Because her friend didn’t tell her to bring a jacket.
3. Where does the woman in the middle want to have the office party? = She wants to have it in the office.
4. How many points does each contestant have in the quiz show? = Jason (on the right) has 10 points, and Josh (on the left) has 2 points.