 Lesson
20 - How Old Are You?
Dialogs for everyday use. Short situational dialogs for
students of English as a Foreign (EFL) or Second (ESL)
Language. |
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How Old Are You?
PATTY: I’m really excited for Aunt Mary’s
surprise birthday party this afternoon! Aren’t you?
SUSAN: Yeah! How old is she?
PATTY: She’ll be 55 on May 14
[fourteenth].
SUSAN: Wow! I didn’t know that my mom was
older — she’s going to be 57 on September 2 [second]. Anyway, Aunt Mary’s going
to be so surprised to see us all here!
PATTY: I know! But we still have to get
all the food set up before she gets here … OK! We’re all ready now. Shh! She’s
here!
ALL: Surprise! |
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Conversation Notes |
- I’m really excited … Notice the emphasis on “really.”
“Really” is used to emphasize the adjective “excited” here.
- Birthday party Notice that the normal stress for a
compound noun falls on the first element of the compound.
- Aren’t you? This negative tag is used to show that the
speaker expects a positive answer. Patty assumes that Susan is also looking
forward to the party.
- She’ll be 55 Notice that “55” is stressed here. This
detail answers the question “How old is she?”
- Fourteenth Notice that we use “th” for ordinal numbers,
starting with 4 [but first, second and third]. The stress is on the second
syllable [fourTEENTH]. Compare this with “fortieth: 40th” [FORtieth].
- She’s going to be ... Notice how this is pronounced like
“gonna be.” Instead of four syllables “go/ing/to/be” there are three
syllables “ga/na/be.”
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Source: U.S. State Department |
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Additional
Conversation Lessons |
 Conversation
This is a collection of 30 situational conversations
which focus on a wide variety of communicative and
natural encounters in English....these
lessons are for beginning students. |
 Conversation
This is a collection of 36 situational conversations
which focus on spoken American English in a relatively
natural way....these
lessons are for intermediate students. |
 Conversation
English conversation lessons. 52
lessons covering pronunciation, speaking,
writing, and grammar topics....these
lessons are for beginning students. |
 Conversation
English conversation lessons. 30
lessons focusing mostly on communication and
grammar topics....these
lessons are for intermediate students. |
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