Episode 2: Small Talk
Post-Listening
- Warm-up Questions & Vocabulary
- Present Simple: Other Verbs
- Listening Practice
- Word Stress: Two Syllable Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Prepositions
- Rhythm: Sentence Stress
- Stop Consonants /t/ and /d/
- Intonation: Questions
- Fragments
- Reductions: I hear you, need to, What’s up?, How are you?
- Inference: Hesitation
- Review
Use the search function to find more episodes with the same content.
Fragments
Which one is a complete sentence, 1 or 2? Which one is a fluent speaker more likely to say?
I got home late last night.
Got home late last night.
The first one is a complete sentence because it has a subject, I. English speakers say both, but they often use incomplete sentences or fragments when they’re speaking casually. This happens because fluent speakers want to save time and breath.
However, fragments only work if the listener knows what the missing part is. For example, in Sounds like a plan, the missing word is It (sounds like a plan).
Practice: What are the missing parts in these fragments from the conversation?
- Didn’t expect to see you here.
- Glad the weekend’s almost here.
- Should be fun.
- So glad I bumped into you.
- Got plans this weekend?
- I didn’t expect to see you here.
- I’m glad the weekend’s almost here.
- It should be fun.
- I’m so glad I bumped into you.
- Have you got plans this weekend? (This is a mix of North American and British English.)