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Conversation Lesson 7
 
Lesson 7 - Happiness

Dialogs for everyday use. Short situational dialogs for students of English as a Foreign (EFL) or Second (ESL) Language.
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Happiness

Linda: You look happy today!

Frank: I am happy. I just heard I passed my physics exam.

Linda: Congratulations! I’m glad somebody’s happy.

Frank: Why? What’s the matter?

Linda: Oh, I’m just worried, I guess I have to take a history exam next week.
Conversation Notes
  • I am happy
  • Note the intonation of I am happy. This intonation, with the strongest stress on am, is the emphatic, confirmatory form normally used in reply position (as here). It is similar, in meaning and intonation, to the short answer form, I am—which might, in fact, be used here, with the weak­stressed happy simply dropping off.
  • I just heard I passed
  • Note that the that is omitted in this bit of reported speech.
  • physics exam
  • Meaning is examination. Physics exam, a compound noun, has the principal stress on the first word.
  • I’m glad somebody’s happy
  • Note the omission of that in reported speech, and the strong contrastive stress on SOMEbody (implying that the speaker herself is not happy).
  • What’s the matter
  • A common idiom meaning What is troubling you? What is wrong?
  • I’m just worried
  • Here just means merely, only. In line b (I just heard ... ) it is used in its meaning of very recently.
  • I guess
  • Meaning is I think (that).
  • have to
  • Meaning is must. Notice the /f/ in the pronunciation of this idiom: /haefte/.
  • history exam
  • See note on physics exam above.
Source: U.S. State Department
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