| LISTEN TO THE CONVERSATION | |
| Select a conversation partner to practice speaking. You will say the other character’s part. Or click the play button to listen to the whole conversation | |
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| Ryan: Do you like your boss? Trisha: I have mixed feelings about her. Ryan: What do you mean? Trisha: Well, on the one hand, she can be kind of mean, and she is always serious. But on the other hand, she doesn’t sugarcoat anything, so I always get direct feedback from her. Her direct feedback is sometimes tough to hear, but it helps me do my job better and helps me improve. Ryan: What do you mean by ‘sugarcoat’? Trisha: If a person sugarcoats something, they make something bad or negative sound better than it is. It’s like putting sugar on top of disgusting food to make it taste better. It is the same thing as that but with words. Ryan: I think I get it. It is basically exaggerating the positives of something to make a person feel better. Trisha: That’s right. | |
Key Vocabulary | |
| 1. to sugarcoat: to make something appear or sound more pleasant and good than it actually is | |
| • Don’t sugarcoat it. Just be honest with me. | |
| • She is very sensitive so you have to sugarcoat criticism when you are giving her feedback. | |
| 2. to have mixed feelings: to feel the opposite feelings at the same time (i.e. good and bad; or happy and sad) | |
| • I have mixed feelings about joining a new company. | |
| • My friend is moving to Europe for her new job. I have mixed feelings about it. | |
| 3. to exaggerate: to say something is more or less than it actually is; to overstate | |
| • She ate one cookie, but she told everybody she ate 10 cookies. She always exaggerates like that. | |
| • He exaggerates a lot, so don’t believe everything that he says. | |
English Conversation Practice Index
