Speak With Me! Conversation Practice | Friends Catch Up

Hey there I'm Emma from mmmEnglish!

Today you and I are going to do some conversation practice.

You're going to speak with me.

We're going to practise speaking together using a dialogue and it's

going to be a conversation between two friends,

two friends who haven't seen each other

in a little while so it's about catching up.

This is such a great conversation topic to practise.

I feel like it happens so often these days.

Inside my English speaking community, I have this conversation

all the time with friends that I haven't spoken to

in a few weeks or even a few months.

It's actually one of those conversations inside that community that

sparked the idea for this lesson.

But before we get into it, I want to teach you five useful

English expressions first and you can listen out for them

in the dialogue that we'll practise together, all right?

This lesson is going to be short and sweet so let's dive straight in!

Hey ladies!

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With really lovely speaking partners?

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at Hey Lady!

Hey Lady! is an online community for women.

We'll help you to meet new speaking partners and practise

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We offer a free trial so that you can experience everything on offer

in a full membership and it's free for 10 days.

I've put the link down in the description below so that you can start

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There are five really common English expressions that I'm going to

teach you first before we practise speaking

together in our dialogue

and I want you to listen out for them because they're used

in context and we're going to talk together using them later on.

Are you ready?

Long time no see.

So this is an informal greeting, one that's used when you

haven't seen someone for a long time, it's been a long time

since you last met.

So you use it when you greet someone.

You say their name, you say hello

and then you use this expression.

Hi Steve! Long time no see!

Fancy seeing you here!

This is another really useful expression especially when you're

surprised to see someone

but it's a pleasant surprise like

you've run into them in a place where you didn't

expect to see them.

Now it is important to note that this expression can be used

with a sarcastic tone and

then it can mean the exact opposite.

Listen out, compare.

Fancy seeing you here!

So a friendly greeting would signal

a genuine expression of surprise when you meet someone

and that sarcastic tone is really to sort of

humiliate or mock someone or suggest that you're actually

not very excited to see them at all.

It's much more common to use it in the positive way

and that is how you'll hear it in today's conversation as well.

Listen out for the adjective promising.

If someone or something is promising, it seems likely

that it will be very good or very successful

and it's often used with some of these verbs like look,

seem,

sounds and feel.

So a situation feels or seems promising.

An idea sounds promising.

And the result looks promising.

A blessing in disguise.

This is a very useful idiom to know.

If you say that something is a blessing in disguise

then something that seems bad or unlucky at first

actually results in something being good or something

good happening later.

So it can be a really good one to use when someone shares

bad news like they just lost their job.

Then you can use this expression to suggest that even though

the situation is bad right now, it might become better in the future.

What's been happening in your world?

So this is just a really informal question to find out the latest

news about someone else's life

and it's usually used with someone who is a friend, they're very

familiar to you. It's not used in professional contacts at all.

Okay, it's time for you to speak with me out loud, okay?

We're gonna pretend that we are two friends catching up.

You'll say one line and then I'll say the next,

just like we would if we were having a real conversation together.

You and me.

So I'll start and you'll see your part of the conversation

appear up on screen and once we get through it,

once we complete the conversation, we'll swap places

and we'll practise it through one more time.

Make sure you listen up for those five natural English expressions

during our conversation too.

Ready?

Lauren? Long time no see!

Too long! Do you have a minute to grab a coffee?

So what's news? What's been happening?

I'm so sorry to hear that!

It's been a really tough time, hasn't it?

No? This sounds promising!

Don't tell me it turned out to be a blessing in disguise?

Oh Lauren! That's fantastic news!

Incredible! I'm so happy for you!

Okay so now we'll swap.

I'll be Lauren and you be me.

Emma! Fancy seeing you here!

It's been such a long time since we last caught up.

Sure, I'd love to!

Well actually, the last few months have been pretty tough

because I lost my job late last year.

Thank you. I was really discouraged for a while.

It was hard to be optimistic because there were

so many lockdowns and many people lost their jobs.

Yeah...

but it's not all bad news!

Well, after a month of feeling really sorry for myself,

I knew I had to change my mindset.

I needed to look for the positives.

Kind of! I've been training to be a life coach.

Thanks!

I know what it's like to feel stuck or like

important decisions in your life are being made by others.

I just want to help people take back control of their life.

Anyway, enough about me! What's been happening in your world?

Nice work!

I hope that you enjoyed practising with me like this today.

If you want to grab the full transcript of this dialogue

so that you can practise with your friends at another time

head over to the mmmEnglish website.

The link is in the description below

or if you're inside the Hey Lady! community and you're watching

this video, the transcript is right below.

You can click on it, open it and get started in your study groups.

All right. Now I'm going to let you watch me do the conversation

from start to finish so I'm both

Emma and Lauren in this conversation.

Lauren?

Long time no see!

Emma! Fancy seeing you here!

It's been such a long time since we last caught up!

Too long! Do you have a minute to grab a coffee?

Sure, I'd love to.

So what's news? What's been happening?

Well, actually the last few months have been pretty tough

because I lost my job late last year.

I'm so sorry to hear that.

Thank you. I was really discouraged for a while.

It was hard to be optimistic because there were so many

lockdowns and many people lost their jobs.

It's been a really tough time, hasn't it?

Yeah.

But it's not all bad news.

No? This sounds promising!

Well, after a month of feeling really sorry for myself,

I knew I had to change my mindset.

I needed to look for the positives.

Don't tell me it turned out to be a blessing in disguise?

Kind of! I've been training to be a life coach.

Oh Lauren that's fantastic news!

Thanks!

I know what it's like to feel stuck or like

important decisions in your life are being made by others.

I just want to help people take back control of their life.

Incredible! I'm so happy for you!

Anyway enough about me. What's been happening in your world?

Make sure you let me know if you enjoyed speaking with me today.

Say hello down in the comments.

I love popping down there reading your comments,

catching up with what's happening in your world.

Make sure you're subscribed to the channel

and check out this lesson next!