Technology & Digital Life — Part 5
The Celpip Plus team
Written and reviewed against the official CELPIP scoring criteria
What you'll learn: casual, spoken chunks native speakers use when talking about devices and apps in everyday conversation — "my phone's about to die," "I'm not very tech-savvy" — so CELPIP Speaking answers about technology sound spontaneous rather than scripted.
Why spoken chunks matter for Speaking tasks
Technology comes up constantly in informal small talk — complaining about a slow phone, asking a friend for tech help, joking about being bad with computers. CELPIP Speaking Task 1 and 8 often reward this kind of casual, relatable register more than formal vocabulary would. This lesson collects the natural chunks that make a tech-related answer sound like something a real person would actually say.
Core collocations
| Collocation | Meaning | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|
| about to die | (of a device) almost out of battery | Can we wrap this up? My phone's about to die. |
| let me google that | I'll search for that information online | I have no idea — let me google that real quick. |
| not very tech-savvy | not skilled or comfortable with technology | My grandfather isn't very tech-savvy, so I set up his phone for him. |
| on the fritz | malfunctioning or broken | My laptop's been on the fritz all week. |
| hang on, let me restart it | a request for a moment to reboot a device | It's frozen again — hang on, let me restart it. |
| shoot someone a text | send a quick text message | I'll just shoot you a text when I'm outside. |
| on the same page | in agreement or sharing the same understanding | Let's hop on a call so we're on the same page about the plan. |
| long story short | a way to summarize before giving a quick version | Long story short, my phone died and I missed the call. |
| no worries | a casual way of saying something is fine | No worries, I'll just charge it at the office. |
| hop on a call | join a phone or video call | Can we hop on a call instead of texting back and forth? |
| glued to your phone | constantly looking at your phone | My little brother is always glued to his phone. |
| lose signal | lose connection to a mobile or Wi-Fi network | We kept losing signal in the elevator. |
Worked example — CELPIP Speaking Task 1 (giving advice)
Prompt: A friend's phone keeps freezing and they don't know what to do.
Okay, first thing — hang on, let me restart it myself, that fixes half of these issues honestly. If that doesn't work, don't worry, no worries, we'll figure it out. Is your phone charged, or is it about to die? Sometimes low battery makes things freeze weirdly. If it's still acting up, let me google that model and see if other people are having the same problem — it might just be on the fritz because of a bad update. Honestly, I know you're not very tech-savvy, so just shoot me a text later and I'll walk you through it, or we can hop on a call so we're on the same page the whole time. Long story short, don't panic — this is usually an easy fix.
Common mistakes
- Saying "my phone is dying" too literally in formal writing — about to die is casual and belongs in spoken English only.
- Using "tech-savvy" without "not very" or "quite" to modify it — the collocation almost always appears with a degree word.
- Writing "on the fritz" in a formal email — it's an informal idiom, appropriate for Speaking, not Writing Task 1 to a manager.
- Confusing "hop on a call" with "pick up a call" — the former means joining/starting a call, the latter means answering one.
- Saying "glued on your phone" instead of the correct preposition, glued to your phone.
Recap
Casual chunks like about to die, not very tech-savvy, on the fritz, hop on a call, and long story short give your Speaking answers about technology the relaxed, natural rhythm of a real conversation rather than a rehearsed script.