Text messaging

You want to talk to your friend. What do you usually prefer to do, phone or text message him or her? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? Listen to Jake and Lindsay talking about how they feel about text messaging and choose the correct answers for the questions that appear on the screen. If you want, you can listen again and click on 'text view ON' to read the script at the same time.

Here are a few text messages for you. Write the complete sentences in the box - but pay attention to the time!

More Practice? Try:

Text messaging in English

Mini sagas: writing the last word

Do you remember what mini sagas are? They are stories written in exactly 50 words. It may be a challenge to write such a short text, but it's also a lot of fun! Here are four mini sagas. The last word of each story is missing. Can you guess what they are?

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Writing mini sagas

Writing mini sagas

What is a mini saga? A mini saga is a text with exactly 50 words in it. Writing a text in a few words may seem challenging, but here are a few examples of mini sagas, written by children:

Mrs Bailey’s glasses

My teacher Mrs Bailey wears a pair of spectacles. They’re rather rounded and perched there, glaring at you! One day they fell. She perched them on again. The left lens said, ‘I hate looking at books, I want holidays in the sun.’ Mrs Bailey only sees half the class, now. (aged 9)

Rich but still hungry

I had a chicken. Daily it laid an egg for my breakfast until one day it started laying golden eggs and so I was hungry every morning getting thinner and thinner. Until I thought to sell the golden eggs to a jeweller and buy bacon and eggs from the shop. (aged 7)

Rain aid

It is raining here but it isn’t in Africa. The people are hungry. Some of the children’s Mummies and Daddies have died. And the children are dying too. I hope that it doesn’t happen to us. I sent Tee Shirts to Africa. I wish I could send the rain too. (aged 7)

Some mini sagas also have a touch of humour.

So how can you write a mini saga? Well, start by selecting a story you would liketo tell. Maybe it comes from a newspaper article you read, maybe it's something that happened to you or to someone you know, maybe it's based on a story everybody knows. What are you going to write about?

Next, write the story. Don't worry about the number of words, you can edit your text later. Now read what you've written. Is the story complete? So now you can start editing it; read it again and again, eliminating extra words, or maybe substituting whole expressions for one single word.

How many words do you have now? Go on reading and editing your text until you have exactly 50 words. You may have to adapt your story, substitute words and eliminate those that are not absolutely essential.

What about the title? It should have a maximum of 15 words, and it must give your readers an idea of what your mini saga is about!

Now you can publish your mini saga clicking on 'COMMENTS' here, so that everybody can read it too!

Check also:

Mini sagas: writing the last word

Restaurant vocabulary

How about practising your listening and writing with a quick dictation? Here's a recording with some words related to restaurants and eating out. Listen and write down the words, then check your answers here.

The lost consonant

The Lost Consonant is a series of funny illustrations made by Graham Rawle, which appeared in the British newspaper The Guardian for 15 years. Each picture had a caption with a spelling mistake which created a humorous effect. Can you find the mistake in the caption below? Check clicking on 'comments'

How's your spelling?

Getting the correct spelling of some English words can be challenging sometimes! Test how sharp your writing is by doing two quizzes that focus on commonly mispelled words. Click on the links for quiz 1 and quiz 2.

Protests in Myanmar

Myanmar, in southeast Asia, has been the center of international news in the past few days after a series of protests around the country gained the support of buddhist monks. Listen to the broadcast at breakingnewenglish.com and recreate the text, which has been cut up in phrases. If you want, you can click on the button to listen to separate parts of the audio recording.

A spelling mistake...

The paragraph below comes from an article published by the Associated Press less than an hour ago. Can you spot the spelling mistake? See it in 'comments'...

8 killed when trains collide near Rio

By PETER MUELLO, Associated Press Writer (23 minutes ago)

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - A fast-moving train carrying hundreds of commuters slammed into an empty train near Rio de Janeiro on Thursday, killing at least eight people and injuring 60, officials said. The collision about 200 years from a train station on Rio's poor north side left some people trapped in wreckage. (click here to read the whole article)

Silent letters

Silent letters are letters that you can't hear when you say the word, but that are there when you write the word.There are no rules, you just have to learn them. For example, we do not pronounce the letter 'k' in knight (it should sound like 'night'). Here are two quizzes, one at elementary and one at pre-intermediate level, and a really cool game (different levels) with sound to get some practise. Enjoy!

Too many words!

I had a teacher at university who used to say that "writing is the art of shortening texts". This is very true when you're a journalist writing for a newspaper or magazine, but being able to use the exact word to express an idea is an important skill, particularly for advanced students. Look at the sentences in this activity . Can you can find the right word to replace each phrase?

Watch what you write!

Here is a funny example of a real sign written in English. What is wrong with it? How would you re-write it to eliminate the ambiguity?

Here are more examples of ambiguous signs. Can you 'fix' them?

Text messaging in English

Sending instant messages (using AOL or MSN, for example) or text messages (using your cellphone) means being economical with words. There is a maximum number of characters we can use, so people have been finding very creative ways of writing words, combining letters, numbers and punctuation. Here is a BBC article about instant messaging in Britain (you can listen too, if you have Real Audio installed in your computer).

Can you read "text message English"? Try this multiple choice quiz and find out! Then take a look at this list of text messages and see how many you can read (pass the mouse over the icon to get the correct sentence).

Still having problems? NetLingo is a great dictionary of internet terms, so I bookmarked it on our del.icio.us page.

Try also:

Text messaging

Bad spelling - ooops!

Spelling mistakes like the one in the picture on the left are very obvious, because the word "sotp" does not exist in English. The problem begins when we misspell a word, but the new one also exists in the language! Look at the sentences below; in each one, there is a subtle spelling mistake. Can you find them? Then click here to check the answers.

1. He gave her a beautiful red hose for her birthday; it was so romantic!

2. If you win the competition, they will give you a trip which includes free fights, meals and hotel accommodation.

3. I think I'll have a coke. Wind usually gives me a headache the next morning...

4. For sale: a pair of vandals, brand new.

5. Doctors say the ultra-violent rays of the sun can be bad for your skin, so don't forget your sunscreen.