English conversation practice with real everyday dialogues

Start a conversation: say the first line now

Repeat “It’s nice to meet you.”

The exercise opens on a line from a filmed introduction at 0:08: “It’s nice to meet you.”, the first thing you say when you meet someone. Listen once, say it when the speaker finishes, then open Compare and play your take beside the original. Your recordings stay on your device.

How to practise a two-person conversation alone

Conversation is two skills: understanding what is said to you, and finding your answer in time. A filmed dialogue trains both before you need them with a real person:

1. Hear the whole dialogue once. Open any line in the tables below, play the video from the start, and follow the situation before you read.
2. Say each line after the speaker. Every link opens one line in After the speaker mode: the speaker says it in full, then you say it.
3. Record and compare. Play your take beside the original in Compare, and see which of your words Sada recognised and which it missed.
4. Take one part. Play the other person’s lines and say yours without reading them, as if you were there.
5. Change one word. Make the line yours: “a table for four” becomes “a table for two”, “a smaller size” becomes “a bigger size”.

If it feels fast, slow the video to 0.75 and then go back to normal speed. These dialogues run at about 160 to 200 words a minute, an ordinary speaking pace, not a slowed one, so hearing a line two or three times before you say it is normal.

Everyday English dialogues, line by line

The dialogues come from Ellii’s Everyday English Dialogues series on YouTube, whose captions are written by people, not generated. From each one we kept the lines that sit whole in one caption line; the full dialogue is in the video. Tap any line to practise it.

How do you introduce yourself and others in English?

Amy introduces her brother Charlie to her roommate Richard. The shortest dialogue here, with what you say when you meet a new colleague or neighbour.

How do you ask for a table and order at a restaurant?

Two short scenes: a customer asks for a table for four, then another orders from the server, asks for a few more minutes and takes a suggestion.

How do you shop and pay in English?

A customer in a clothes shop is just looking, tries on a sweater, asks for a smaller size and pays.

How do you ask for directions in English?

Someone asks the way to the post office. The first person doesn’t know; the second explains, and offers to repeat it.

How do you make plans with a friend on the phone?

Bill and Amy talk on the phone about what to do at the weekend, and one of them would rather see a film.

How do you make a doctor’s appointment by phone?

Ruth calls a clinic because she has a sore throat, and takes the first time they offer.

A three-week plan for speaking practice at home

1. Week 1: introductions and the restaurant. Two or three lines a day, said until they come out without reading.
2. Week 2: shopping and directions, then the introductions again, taking the other part.
3. Week 3: the phone call and the doctor, then each dialogue from start to finish in one part.

After each session, say one sentence about your own day with the words you practised, and record it. We don’t promise fluency in a set number of days; short practice every day does more than one long session a week.

What Sada does, and what it doesn’t

Sada plays the line from a real speaker, records your voice on your device, shows which of your words it recognised and compares your pace with the speaker’s. It does not grade individual sounds, stress or intonation, so use your ear for those: play your take, then the original. And it is not a conversation partner that answers you or corrects free speech; it is practice with real lines you will need when you do find someone to talk to.

There is no airport dialogue here yet: we found none with human-written captions we could trust to split into lines. You can paste any captioned YouTube video into Sada, airport dialogues included, and practise it line by line.

When the dialogues feel easy: a scene from a TV show

The filmed dialogues above are clear and orderly. In TV shows people talk faster, interrupt each other and cut their sentences short. Try this line from an official Friends clip:

1. 0:18 Are you two talking about the same baby?

Hear it to the end, say it after the speaker and compare your take with the original. For more lines from films and shows: learn English with movies and TV shows.

Keep going

For greetings, thanks and everyday questions from real speakers: daily use English sentences. No one to talk to? See how to practise speaking English alone. To answer without long pauses: how to speak English fluently. Preparing for work: English job interview practice, with a whole interview between two people. More single sentences, from short to long: listen and repeat practice. Building each reply in your own language and translating it before you speak? See how to think in English.