For sufferers of this form of aphasia, speech is difficult to initiate, nonfluent, labored, and halting. Intonation and stress patterns are deficient. Language is reduced to disjointed words and sentence construction is poor; a person with expressive aphasia might say "Son ... University ... Smart ... Boy ... Good ... Good ... "
Comprehension is usually preserved and patients who recover go on to say that they knew what they wanted to say but could not express themselves.
Compare and contrast this with Wernicke's aphasia / receptive aphasia.