Level 1 — Foundation · Spoken Clauses & Connected Speech
Drill 17: Speaking Your Certainty Level Live
Say a claim out loud at the exact confidence level a scenario calls for — choosing a modal or hedging phrase instantly, with no time to plan the sentence first.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this drill, you should be able to:
- Say a modal (may, might, could) inside a spoken sentence immediately and correctly
- Choose, live, whether a scenario calls for a flat claim or a hedged one
- Match spoken stress to the modal or hedge word, since it carries the sentence's real meaning
Introduction
Lesson 17 taught you that "may cause" and "causes" are two different claims. This drill asks you to make that same choice live — hearing a scenario and instantly choosing, out loud, the modal or hedge word that matches how sure you actually are.
Shadow the Model
The delay may have been caused by heavy traffic near the port.
Listen once all the way through, then shadow it. Notice "may" gets nearly the same stress as "caused" — in fluent speech, a hedge word is never mumbled, because it's carrying real information about how confident the speaker is.
Your Turn
Your Turn
Scenario: you see the office lights off and the door locked, but you don't know for certain why. When the timer starts, say one sentence giving a properly hedged explanation — out loud, immediately, no planning pause.
Speak your hedged explanation now
Record Yourself
Say your hedged explanation, then record it and compare against the model.
Model Answer
Show a model answer
There's no single correct sentence — "The office may be closed for the holiday" and "The staff have probably left early today" are both natural. What matters is a real modal or hedge word landing naturally, spoken immediately, rather than a flat claim stated as certain fact.
Vocabulary in Context
lockedadjectiveneutral
fastened shut, usually with a lock (তালাবদ্ধ)
Often with locked gate, be locked, locked out
“The gate was locked, so the driver had to wait outside.”
holidaynounneutral
a day of rest or celebration when normal work stops (ছুটির দিন)
Often with public holiday, on holiday, holiday schedule
“The terminal runs a reduced schedule on public holidays.”
Self-Check
Self-Check
- Did your sentence include a genuine modal or hedge word, spoken with normal stress?
- Did you speak immediately, with no pause to plan the sentence?
- Did you avoid stating the cause as a confirmed fact when the scenario gave you no proof?
Next: Speaking 18 — Shadowing and Saying a Nominalized Sentence: hearing a dense, formal sentence and saying it back at full speed, without stumbling over its long noun phrase.