Instant messages

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

Instructions

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.

Discussion

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

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Worksheet129.04 KB

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Language level

B2 - Upper intermediate

Topics

social media

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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