Michael is my lifelong friend. We were born three days apart, and grew up on the same street. In small towns in the USA, children often make their first friends with other children who live in their neighborhood. Michael and I have known each other forever!
But everyone takes different paths in life. Michael joined the Marines, toured in Afghanistan, and then moved to Texas when he came back to the US. I went to university and then moved to France. It’s been maybe 10 or 15 years since we’ve seen each other, so we’re catching up. This means we’re getting news about things that have happened in our lives since we last saw each other.
Start by watching the video and doing the comprehension questions on the downloadable worksheet.You can check your answers with the correction at the end of the worksheet.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything at first. This lesson will help you!
Are you worried about using perfect (or even mostly correct) grammar? Guess what? You don’t have to be too worried! We native speakers don’t always use correct grammar, as you’ll see in this lesson.
In many questions in the present continuous and the present perfect simple we drop the auxiliary verb “be” and “have.” It’s totally natural to ask these questions with or without the auxiliary verb.
You can download the slides and take notes on them.
And if you’re worried about having to many hesitations when you speak, guess what? Native speakers hesitate too! Often, to fill the space while we’re thinking, we use the word “like.”
The tricky part is that “like” is also used for other meanings: to quote someone, to give an example, and as the simple verb “to like.” If you can differentiate between these meanings, you’ll follow the conversation more quickly.
You can download the slides and take notes on them.
To understand native speakers easily, it’s important to quickly recognize chunks. Chunks are expressions that we use often. They can be short (2 words) or longer. The important thing is to recognize the sounds.
For this activity, download the worksheet “Chunks in Context” below. Then, listen to each extract and complete the corresponding conversation on the worksheet.
You can check your answers with the correction at the end of the worksheet.
In the previous activity, the context could help you understand the chunks. But can you catch the chunks without any context? You only have the sounds to help you! For this activity, download the worksheet “Connected speech” below.
Then, listen to each sentence and try to write what you hear.You’ll hear each sentence twice. I’ll warn you, sometimes they’re fast, and sometimes both people talk at the same time…just like in real conversation.
If you need to listen several times, that’s ok. This is a challenging exercise to boost your comprehension skills! You can check your answers with the correction at the end of the worksheet.
I always say that comprehension and pronunciation are “two sides of the same coin.” This means that improving your comprehension also helps you improve your pronunciation, with just a little extra attention.
In this activity, you hear common chunks spoken at slow (but still natural) speed and at normal speed for Americans.
