Patty : I'm really excited for Aunt Mary's surprise birthday party this afternoon! Aren't you?

Susan : Yeah! How old is she?

Patty: She'll be 55 on May 14[fourteenth]

Susan: Wow! I didn't know that my mom was older - she's going to be 57 on September 2[second]. Anyway May's going to be so surprised to see us all here!

Patty: I know! But we still have to get all the food set up before she gets here... OK! We're all ready now. Shh. She's here!

All: Surprise!

Language Notes

• I'm really excited.. Notice the emphasis on "really." "Really" is used to emphasize the adjective "excited" here.


• Birthday party Notice that the normal stress for a compound noun falls on the first element of the compound.


• Aren't you?  This negative tag is used to show that the speaker expects a positive answer. Patty assumes that Susan is also looking forward to the party.


• She'll be 55 Notice that "55" is stressed here. This detail answers the question "how old is she?"


• Fourteenth Notice that we use "th" for ordinal numbers, starting with 4 [but first, second and third]. The stress is on the second syllable [fourTEENTH]. Compare this with "fortieth: 40th"[FORtieth].


• She's going to be... Notice how this is pronounced like "gonna be." Instead of four syllables "go/ing/to/be" there are three syallable "ga/na/be."