Lesson 3 · Practice Without a Partner

Six phrases for talking with friends — and the fix for the real problem, which is that you have nobody to use them on yet.

First: lesson 2's seven, cold

Same as last time, and for the same reason. Before you read anything new, produce lesson 2's seven phrases from memory. Do not open lesson 2 first. They have partly faded — that is the condition under which this drill does its work.

One rule before you start. If you finish with fewer than 4 of 7, stop after the drill. Go back to lesson 2, re-run its phrase drill, and come back to this page tomorrow. That is not a setback and it costs you nothing — adding six more phrases on top of seven that have not landed is how a course quietly stops working.

The thing standing in the way

You have told me there is nobody you speak English with in a normal week. I want to say plainly that this is the most important fact about your English right now — more important than any phrase on this page.

Look at how the last two lessons ended. "In your next English conversation, use one of them." "In your next English conversation, do the three-part answer once." If that next conversation does not come for a month, the phrases stay where they are: on a page, understood perfectly, and unavailable when you open your mouth.

So this lesson does two things. It gives you six phrases, as usual. And it changes how you practise, so that speaking out loud alone stops being a poor substitute for a conversation and becomes the actual training.

Ten minutes a week with a real person beats an hour alone Practising alone builds speed. What it cannot build is the part where somebody answers in a way you did not expect — and that is the part that makes you freeze. Three ways to get a real person, cheapest first. Ask Igor for ten minutes of English a week, at a fixed time, with one rule: he is not allowed to switch to Croatian. Second, Conversation Exchange matches you free with someone who wants to practise Croatian — you each get half the call. Third, Toastmasters has clubs in Croatia that meet in English, and their Table Topics round is one to two minutes of speaking on a question you have not seen. That last one is almost exactly the thing you said you want to be able to do.

Six phrases for talking with friends

Lesson 1 was for work calls, lesson 2 for strangers and small talk. These six are for friends, and they all do the same underlying job: they keep you talking while a story is still assembling itself in your head.

A · Keep the story moving

So anyway… Puts you back on the main story after you have wandered off it. It is also a rescue: if you get lost halfway through, 'So anyway' jumps you to the point with no explanation and no apology.
Long story short… Your escape hatch. When a story is going badly, this ends it in one sentence and nobody minds at all. Say it, give the ending, stop. Native speakers use it constantly and it never sounds like giving up.

B · When the exact word will not come

…or something like that. A tail you hang on the end when you are not sure the word was right. It turns an approximate word into an acceptable one instead of a mistake: "It was a kind of soup, or something like that."
It was one of those… Lesson 1's It's like a…, grown up for stories. Start it and then describe the thing: "It was one of those… small shops where they sell everything." The listener always arrives before you do.

C · Sounding like a friend, not a report

To be honest… A running start for an opinion, and much warmer than "in my opinion". Buys two seconds. Fine with friends and easy colleagues; leave it out of a first call with a client.
You know what I mean? Hands your friend a small beat while you catch up. It does lesson 2's job of passing the turn back, but smaller — you get a second, and they only have to nod. Friends only.

The rule in one line: a story that stops because a word is missing is a lost story. Four of these six exist so that you can keep going without the word.

Drill 1 · The six, from memory

You know how this works. Read the situation, say your phrase out loud, then type it. Do not scroll up.

Drill 2 · Say it under time — and count your silences

You said the 2·1½·1 timing works, so it stays. The same talk three times, less time each round, nothing new added — only the speed goes up.

One thing is new, and it is the reason this lesson can work without a partner: record the last round. Use the voice recorder on your phone, run the 1-minute round, and keep the recording.

Then play it back once, and count on your fingers every silence that lasts longer than about three seconds. Do not judge your grammar, your accent or your vocabulary while you listen — count silences and nothing else. Write the number down. That number is the thing this whole course is trying to move.

The only rule, again Do not stop, and do not correct your grammar. If you run out of ideas, say the same thing in different words. We are training speed; accuracy is a separate strand of work and repairing it mid-flow destroys the effect being trained. The recording is for counting silences, not for marking yourself.

Your one tangible win

This one you can do today, alone, and it is the closest thing to a real conversation that does not need a second person.

Out loud, ask yourself a question — a real one, the kind a stranger actually asks. "So, what do you do?" Answer it with lesson 2's shape: answer, add one detail, ask back. Then answer your own question, the same way. Three exchanges, in the kitchen or in the car. It feels ridiculous for about thirty seconds and then it stops feeling ridiculous, and what is left is your mouth practising the exact thing it freezes on.

Tell me how it went

Answer below, in Croatian, and it reaches me directly — you no longer have to remember to tell Igor. Everything is optional, one field still helps, and you can come back and change an answer whenever you like.

Read or watch this

Ten minutes: open YouGlish and search "to be honest". Listen to five speakers say it and copy the rhythm out loud — it is faster and flatter than you expect, almost one word. Then do the same with "you know what I mean".

Two minutes, and it proves a point: open SkELL and type or something like that. You will get dozens of real sentences from ordinary English. That is how you check any phrase you are unsure about — including the ones I give you.

Ask me anything. Two questions from lesson 2 are still open and they are holding up lesson 4: which of those seven phrases felt strange in your mouth, and whether any of them felt too casual for work. Lesson 2 now has a short Croatian form at the bottom — answer there and it reaches me directly. And if the ten-minutes-a-week idea is not realistic, say that too, in the box above. I will build around it instead of pretending otherwise.