Meeting an old friend

Listen to the conversation between two old friends to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

MultipleChoice_MjMzNzM=

Transcript

Selina: Patrick? Is that you?

Patrick: Selina! Hello!

Selina: Well, well. Patrick Eastwood. How have you been?

Patrick: Good. Great, actually. How are you? I haven't seen you for ... how long?

Selina: It's been ages. At least fifteen years. Wow.

Patrick: Yeah. Wow.

Patrick and Selina: So, what are you doing here?

Selina: Sorry, you go first.

Patrick: OK. What are you doing here? I thought you'd moved to London.

Selina: I was in London for a couple of years. But it didn't work out.

Patrick: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Are you ... OK?

Selina: I'm fine! The dream job wasn't really a dream, you know? Um ... and London is great but it's so expensive. I mean, just the rent on a flat is ... uh … crazy expensive.

Patrick: I see.

Selina: So, I came back. I've been back now for almost five months. Living back home with Mum and Dad. Which is err ... interesting. Um ... but anyway, what about you?

Patrick: Me? Oh, nothing new. You know me – 'Patrick the predictable'. I never left here.

Selina: Oh. And is that ...?

Patrick: Oh, I'm very happy. I'm married now. We've just celebrated our tenth anniversary.

Selina: No way! You? Married? To …?

Patrick: I don't think you know her. Her name's Marigold. And we've got two kids. They're five and eight years old.

Selina: Married and with two kids? Wow!

Patrick: Don't look so surprised!

Selina: No, no … I'm just amazed how time flies! I'm happy for you. I really am.

Patrick: Thanks. You should really come round to the house one day.

Selina: That would be great. Let's swap numbers and ...

Task 1

TrueOrFalse_MjMzNzQ=.xml

Task 2

GapFillTyping_MjMzNzU=.xml

Discussion

Do you keep in touch with old friends?

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Worksheet72.52 KB

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Language level

B1 Intermediate

Topics

family and friends

conversation

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yes, I have been keeping touch with my bestfriend since we fell apart from high school , we also have group in one of the social network application , in spite of the huge distance we try to keep link with each other through social network.

It' been ages that I haven't seen one of my university friend. I had searched her account on facebook by using her name and I also tried calling her old ph number she gave me, but I couldn't find her. Last five months ago, I searched by posting on our university fb group and was found it a friend of hers. Then she gave me my old friend fb account. We are keep in touch now. How happy is that!

It's have been ages, I haven't met since five years. I missed my old friends who are very mischievous, naught in the class. I don't use any social media app so now I should make profile on social media. So I met and contact old friends.

Yes, I try to keep the contact with my old friends. They are around the world and their lives change a lot. I love when we catch up and talk like the old times.

I don´t keep in touch with my friends, actually we don't see us since a lot of years. Now we keep in contact with the social networks like whatsapp and we ever say that we have to meet all together but never do it

Hello, I don't understand why the "perfect" is the correct explanation for "The dream job wasn't really A DREAM". I think that's "boring", but that will be "disappointed" completely correct. Pls see "Listening B1: Meeting an old friend – preparation". If we let's listen to the audio or look at the transcript, we can see Selina is disappointed because her dream job wasn't really a dream. I think Selina don't think that is great or perfect. Thank you for your answer, With regards

Hi lean,

Right, in the listening, Selina's dream job was disappointing. But the preparation task asks you to choose the correct meaning of the word in CAPITALS. So, The dream job wasn't really A DREAM - this is the same as saying The dream job wasn't really PERFECT (i.e. both sentences mean there were some problems with the job). 'A dream' means the same thing as 'perfect' in this sentence.

Does that make sense?

Jonathan

The LearnEnglish Team

Ah :-)))) Yes, that was simply Thanks a lot

It's pleasant to have more friends so extend our social life's limits.

I've remained in contact with my old colleagues, when I were working in other job role and in a different city. I didn't keep in touch with my old schoolmates, but, not many weeks ago, I've received a phone call from a schoolmate of my classic high school: we've had a chat very pleasant, remembering the past times.