3 Steps to Help you Understand Someone Speaking in Another Language

How do you communicate with someone who is a much higher level speaker than you are?  Don’t be nervous that you cannot communicate well with people that you meet, instead of trying to listen to someone use 100% natural English with you – stop them.

Take these few steps to make sure that you can keep some control of the conversational situation.

1.     STOP them – Don’t just listen to the other person if they are speaking too fast.  Stop them!  Use a phrase such as “Wait a moment” or “Excuse me” hold the other person while you can think.  Remember to be aggressive!  Use a strong voice to interrupt people.

2.     CLARIFY what they mean – After stopping someone, they will be waiting, so ask your question.

·       If they are too FAST – “Could you please speak more slowly?”

·       If you want them to repeat themselves – “Could you please say that again?”

·       If you don’t know what they mean – “What does that mean?” or “What do you mean?”

3.     CONFIRM that you understand – Make sure that you really understand someone.  Try a phrase like “So you mean….” Or “Let me see if I understand, you mean…”

If you can follow these steps then even if you are a low level speaker, you will have a better chance to understand what somebody is saying to you.  Just remember to be brave!  It is hard to say “Excuse me” when somebody is speaking – don’t wait!  Just say it and you will be able to avoid miscommunication early. 

Tag Questions are easy (a little easy). Answering them is a bit tougher.

There are basically 2 types of tag questions: positive and negative.  

Like this:

"You are American, aren't you?"  =  (I think you are American.  Is that right?)

"You aren't American, are you?"  =  (I don't think you are American.  Is that right?)

We use tag questions to confirm information that we think we know.  

You can change the verbs in sentences to use tag questions in many situations.  Like, "this isn't easy, is it?", or "you are getting frustrated, aren't you?".  Anyway, so far so good.  But a lot of people get confused on how to answer.  

Answer these:

1. The fire is hot, isn't it?     (I think the fire is hot)
2. The fire is cold, isn't it?     (I think the fire is cold)
3. The fire isn't hot, is it?     (I think the fire isn't hot)
4. The fire isn't cold, is it?     (I think the fire isn't cold)

How was it?  Could you answer all 4 questions without getting confused?  Let's see.  The best answers should be:

1. Yes, it is.     (agreeing)    
2. No, it isn't!     (disagreeing)
3. Yes, it is!     (disagreeing)
4. No, it isn't.     (agreeing)

I put #2 and #3 in bold type to show that you are disagreeing with me.  Please you a strong voice and shout out that I am wrong!  

Present Tense vs. Present Progressive Tense - Mini Lesson

A quick test.

Q1 - What is she doing?

Q2 - What does she do?

Most of the time the answers I get from students are the same.  I often here “she is studying”, or “she is doing homework”.  But that is almost the same answer.  I asked two completely different questions.

The answer should be:

 A1 - She is studying.  (or any other kind of action)

A2 - She is a doctor. (or any other kind of job)

What does she do? = What is her job. 

For a native speaker, these questions are worlds apart, but test your students.  Many think that they know the answer, so they don’t want to spend much time studying basic tenses.  But a lot of the time, they don’t really know it deeply and instinctively.  Most students do want to master the basics, so push on and make sure they can answer this question.

(As a follow up question to test them, ask “What are you wearing?” followed by “what do you wear?”)