Weekend words April 6th - a podcast by Alan Palmer

hello everybody

For my weekend words today, I want to talk about why sometimes it is difficult to understand native speakers, even when you may have been learning English a long time.

I discovered a long time ago that the language you hear in class with a teacher, or normally on sound recordings can be easily understood, and yet when you go to the country and listen to native speakers - you may not understand so much.

There are many reasons for this, and firstly I want to say - don't worry about it. The more you worry, the more it will either frustrate or annoy you when this happens. Just accept that this will happen, the moment you set foot in the country.

Here are some reasons I believe can make listening to native speakers difficult:

1. There is usually some background noise - some examples:street noise, other people speaking nearby, television is on. This makes it difficult to concentrate on the person speaking to you.

2. The native speaker will hear you speak first and assume you know much more than you know - and they make speak quite fast - this makes it difficult to hear everything they say and make sure you understand it,

3. The native speaker may use dialect words, slang words or common expressions that you may not be familiar with - or only some. This makes it harder for you to understand, because you have first to understand the slang words or expressions and then translate that to normal speech and then understand it. Don't be afraid to say "I am not familiar with this word/these words, what do they mean exactly?"

4. The native speaker can also make mistakes themselves--- did you think of that one? There are few native speakers who speak perfectly!

5. The native speaker may have an accent that you are unfamilar with. In England for example, there are many different accents and some accents may clip the words short, use different sounding vowels or even miss out words. In the north of England where I come from, sometimes we clip words and drop "h"'s. This is especially done when we speak with family and friends. Here is an example:

Standard English: " Are you going to come with me to the cinema?"

Northern accent: "Are yer goin' t'come wi' me to th'cinema?"

You can easily hear that the first is easier to understand than the second, but both are saying the same thing.

Don't worry.In my experience, the native speaker will not mind changing his/her speech to make it a little more controlled and easier for you to understand - providing you ask!

So the key to understanding a native speaker better is to accept that you are not a native speaker - but a serious non-native learner and don't be afraid to tell people you meet this fact. It will not mean they become frustrated with you, on the contrary - the native speaker will usually be very glad to make sure you understand everything - and even explain things more precisely to you. So you end up with good communication and a language lesson for free!

Bye for now

See you next time

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