Instant messages

Read a conversation by instant messages to practise and improve your reading skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and do the exercises.

Preparation

Matching_MjIzMzU=

Reading text

You there, Beatriz?

Hang on, Andrew.

OK. What's up?

It's Caroline's birthday tomorrow.

Oh yeah, that's right!

You thought about what to get her?

You mean a present? Weren't you buying one from both of us?

I'm sorry! It totally slipped my mind!

And I'm working 'til late.

So …

Could you pick up a gift today?

I guess. What sort of thing were you thinking of?

Dunno. Got any ideas?

One sec. Phone.

OK, I'm back.

Just had an idea for a gift.

Go on.

New headphones?

Nah. Jeremy said he was getting her headphones.

OK. What then?

Have you seen those gift certificates for a spa? Maybe one of those?

She'd love that!

I'll pick it up today then.

Thanks a million. Appreciate it.

No worries. See you tomorrow then?

Yep.

What time was it again? 4?

4.30. I can pick you up at your house if you like.

CU then.

Bye for now.

Task 2

Exercise

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Discussion

What do you prefer – sending messages to your friends or phoning them?

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Language level

Upper intermediate: B2

I would prefer phoning contact to my friends.

It depends on the situation, but generally I prefer messaging them or sending voice messages. so they could listen to them and reply when they have time to do it.

I thınk ıt depends on. Sometimes it is better to phone your friends to explain the situation. Messages may misread by people.
To me l use both communicating with my friends and my family.

I think send messages is the best. This is my mind

I usually call him. When matter is not urgent then I leave message to friends.

It depends on the circustance. In some countries, it's difficult to get access to Internet and the cost of using Internet is high. At this situation, it will be more suitable to phone friends. But if he or she is at work, it'd better send a message. I don't like sending message via SMS because in our country, the mobile service enterprises send a lot of messages about their sale promotion and I rarely read those messages. So I miss some of my friends' messages via SMS among these sale promotion messages.

Does the sentence " You thought about what to get her" mean " Have you already thought about which present to give her?"?

Hi Min Htet Kaung,

Yes, exactly :)

Jonathan

The LearnEnglish Team

Now often I text messages because I write faster, but if it something really important and need to happen faster I will call her/him.

Dear team, I would like to inquire about the paid subscription. I left an email a week ago but there was no reply. I'd like to know if I pay for the self-access courses without learning from teachers, are there any extra PDF materials that I can download and study on my own? Also, will it be possible to subscribe on a quarterly basis instead of monthly basis? Thanks a lot and looking forward to your reply. Regards, Ruth

Hello RuthYong,

I'm very sorry you haven't yet received a response. I'm afraid I won't be able to find out what's happened until Monday or Tuesday, but I will follow up and you should hear from someone very quickly. I'll also try to answer your questions below.

There are no teachers in the self-access courses. They are essentially lessons that are carefully sequenced for different levels about different topics. We are working to create a space for our subscribers to have opportunities to interact with teachers, but I'm afraid we haven't managed to do this at this point.

There are currently no PDF materials available to download for subscribers. As far as I know, the option of quarterly subscriptions is not available, but please look for a definitive answer about that in the email you should receive in the next few days.

Thanks very much for your patience and interest.

All the best,

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

Thank you Kirk for your reply. Please look into the email as I've been waiting for a week. I'm interested to learn more topics for the self-access course and would like to know more/get more clarification. Thanks

Hello again RuthYong,

Thanks for letting me know that you got my response. Someone will be in touch via email soon.

All the best,

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

I would certainly prefer to call instead of sending messages. To me, calling my friends would lead to faster response and clear unnecessary doubts. This is also more convenient for me due to my visual impairment.

I sometimes prefer to send messages and other times I prefer to call them.

I hate talking to people. That's why I always choose to send messages. Sometimes I just send an emoji, and that works even better. But remember - formal situations require emailing, not text messaging.

The most certain way to communicate is talking face to face. Other ways like sending sms couse mistake, specially when we communicate with strangers. Nevertheless communicate with new technologies has several merits.

I definitely prefer sending text messages to my friends. I think nowadays this is the main way to communicate with others, and also it's more simple and fast. Nevertheless, a phone call can be very useful depending on the context.

I prefer sending messages, because it is quicker and practice.

Considering the economic cost I prefer to use social messengers like WhatsApp. I often text them and sometimes make a voice or video relation with them.

I honestly prefer more to message them. I mean... I don't always have the time to call someone and be on a call with them for long periods of time (only in serious situations though). So, messaging is my go-to method all the time :)

Always I prefer messaging instead calls but as usual sometimes the best options is make a call, if you need to discuss something important and if you want to avoid the other person ignore your messages, for instance, when you’re selling something or collect money it is better make a call. But if the conversation is between friends the matter is chill more and there is no be problem.

What do you prefer – sending messages to your friends or phoning them? It depends on the type of the message: if I must send a short message not very important, I prefer using whatsapp, but if it's a significant question, which demands a long explanation, I use an email or my phone.

I would rather text them than call it. I’m Not the person to stay at the phone talking even for important things I try in maximum to solve by message,in the last case I call the person.

It depends on the situation. Lately, I prefer texting. I think it's more suitable for almost any case. My friend can be at the driver's seat or has an important meeting, so I just show him my intention to share some information with him and, if he's free we can talk. It became more weighty now, due to the COVID-19 when many of us have to work home with unnormalized hours. Of course, if my message is urgent I call him without all this "texting prelude". But it's not happened often. Mostly I phone just to know what's new or so. I would like to say, it works quite well with my buddies. As for me, I also prefer it when my friend texts me instead of phone calls. I fell more comfortable when I can arrange my time and free some of it for calling in advance.

First, I text my friend if I am at work. Second, I contact her if she didn't text me back. Third, I come over to her house and find out why she didn't respond.

I think it's depend on the situation. Sending messages is useful to talk about daily matters like what's going on with them or just to get in touch with . But if I need to convey something that it's urgent and important I'd rather calling them. If my friend is busy which it could happens once in a while i would firstly send a message to agreed an special time when we can have a conversation.

If the situation is not really urgent, I prefer just sending a message than talking through the phone. Because I can keep it simple and not everybody is in the situation to picking up their cellphone. By sending message we also can think about what we want to say first and not talking spontaneously

Hi everybody. If I have to tell something important and urgent, I will call my friend. Sometimes when I haven´t seen my friends in a long time, I make a long call to tell them about important news in my life. Despite WhatsApp has a lot of "emojis" I think is really hard to express your emotions. I use messages when I want to tell something short, or without importance.

Hi everyone! I think it depends. For example, if I need to say something very important and urgent, I make a call. But, if I don’t need to get a response shortly, I think a message is better than make call. Guys, I’m new here and I would like to ask something. If I write wrong, please correct me. It will helps me a lot. I’m Brazilian and I’m here to improve my English. When I write phrases and texts, I prefer do this without see on Google Translator, because I don’t know if it’s possible to completely trust in it. Thank you!

Well, Prefer to call my friends rather use messages. It bit costly compare to message but in short we convey our thought to the point. Often we need to write very long messages just to share some unnecessary news or thought.

Well, I prefer phoning my friends rather than texting since it is not always possible to write long messages to your friends. Also when you write short texts , they usually don't convey the exact message properly since it lacks the tone of voice. It looks really blank when you text (in most cases). So phoning is better if your friends are not busy.

I prefer sending message to my friends instead of calling them by phone because sometimes the people could be busy and won't able to answer. Then they can reply the message as soon as they could read it.

Well, that depends on how crucial the information is. I'd call them up if it's a matter of urgency. However, I'll still do so even if it's not. Say contacting an old time kind of a "lost and found" friend. In this context, I would love to hear them express their feelings/ experiences through laughter, listen to their verbal talk and get a deeper understanding from their tone of voice. Yet still l could send them messages, especially when I am in the middle of something important, say at work or school where alot of interruptions would obviously be inevitable.

I like phoning them. I don't like sending messages. I usually get annoyed at typing on any device

I prefer phoning people but this kind of contact is rare because everybody is in a hurry and you can disturb if you make a call

I prefer sending them a message. I'm not very good at talking directly with people.

I prefer sending them messages.

In my opinion, when you need to tell something your friend is easier to phone her because talking on the telephone we each other understand better. And if you have to talk important thing, you should definitely call. However, nowaday we hurry everywere and we haven´t time to stop to talk on the telephone so a message could be the best way to communicate.

Actually, I prefer send messages, spite, I know that is very impersonal. I call only when is a urgent situation or the messages wasn't answered.

In today's world it's almost impolite to phone somebody because you may disturb a person. Therefore, before calling somebody, I often notify about that via texting. There are circumstances in which I phone a person immediately, but more frequently I connect with somebody by texting them.

What do you prefer – sending messages to your friends or phoning them? I prefer often to phone with my friends but, if I guess they haven't enough time to respond, I will send messages to them.

After this reading test, I have known many useful instant messages. They can help me chat or reply my friend quickly so I can save my time.

Nowadays people of all ages use smartphones to connect with others sending messages or phoning them. Often young people prefer chatting than phoning because, in this way, they could answer whenever they want and it's faster than typing the telephone number, calling them and hoping they will pick up the phone at that moment. However I prefer sending messages to my friends but sometimes I call them when I have to tell them something important or when I need an aswer very quickly.

As most of introverts, I prefer sending messages. But sometimes it is impolite and I strongly agree that if you really want to know someone's feelings and want to avoid eventually misunderstandings, phoning is quite better.

I prefer phoning my friends rather than messaging them .Hearing their voices helps me to understand them better and figure out their real state of being . As you know sometimes we send a smile by message while we are crying.

Send messages is the better way to avoid unnecessary talk so far ; by the way, you can answer anytime

I prefer phoning my friends, because I am very happy to hear my friend`s voice. But when they are not available, I used to send message.

it deppent on how highly urgue of matters. if I need a fast respon, i preffer to make a call because commonly peoples would have a fast response when the phone is ringing. its different with message, sometime we dont get a direct replied.

I prefer to sending messages because it's so simply and cheap

Instant messages

Preparation

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

Language level