What Can I Use if I Don't Have a Dutch Oven

Learning a new language can be a tricky business organization; just yous want to get it correct. Correct?

When you are learning English, a lot of effort is put into picking upwardly vocabulary, spelling, reading and writing.

However, the area where your learning becomes most crucial is when it finally gets put into practice – not just in the classroom, but in real life. In the classroom, be information technology online or in a school, someone is at hand to heed, to support, to test you and shape your learning.

But how tin y'all make certain you empathise what'due south going on once you go out into the globe and begin to exercise your English? Oft as we begin to practice our new-found language skills, we realize that the way words sound in chat can exist very unlike from how we learned originally. Accents, speed, slang and idiomatic variances can mean we feel very lost – nearly as if the other person isn't speaking English language at all.

Here is the EF English Live guide to helpful phrases and words to use when you're not quite sure what someone is telling y'all…

Formal

These short phrases are polite ways to communicate that y'all didn't hear or don't understand something in the English language language.

• Pitiful?
• Excuse me?
• Pardon?
• I beg your pardon?
  [this is especially formal and now mostly used in England]

Longer formal sentences

These sentences volition help you when yous don't understand something even though you take heard it.

• Deplorable, I'm afraid I don't follow y'all.
• Excuse me, could you repeat the question?
• I'chiliad sorry, I don't understand. Could yous say it again?
• I'm sorry, I didn't take hold of that. Would you lot mind speaking more slowly?
• I'm dislocated. Could you lot tell me again?
• I'g sorry, I didn't sympathize. Could you echo a piddling louder, delight?
• I didn't hear you. Please could you tell me over again?

Breezy

These are more mutual, casual, conversational means to enquire someone to repeat themselves, or communicate your lack of understanding. Some are more informal (i.e. rude!) than others.

• Sorry? – most useful for when you simply didn't hear
• Lamentable, what? – useful for not recognizing the sound yous heard
• A picayune more informal (can be rude)
• 'Scuse me? – a more casual version of 'excuse me'
• Huh? – not quite a give-and-take but a sound; careful how y'all apply it as information technology can sound rude; as a sound is more commonly associated with 'I don't get it' or 'I don't empathise' rather than 'I can't hear you lot'
• What? – sometimes this tin seem aggressive, be conscientious!
• Eh? – a sound usually used to communicate that it is hard to hear/decipher someone
• Hmm? – a sound used when you are a scrap more than absent or maybe not listening so hard

Slang

• Come again?
• Say what? – this is especially American English language
• Laissez passer that by me again?
• You lot what? – this is more common in the Great britain
• I don't get it… not a question but a argument, meaning simply 'I don't understand'

Idioms

Idioms are sayings particular to their linguistic communication of origin. Here we take a look at three that you might use if you wanted to discover a more creative way of saying something that sounds complicated, unclear or difficult to empathize.

• I can't make caput nor tail of what you're proverb.
• This is all Greek to me.
• Pitiful this is as articulate as mud to me.

Wil

Wil is a writer, teacher, learning technologist and keen language learner. He'southward taught English in classrooms and online for nearly x years, trained teachers in using classroom and spider web technology, and written e-learning materials for several major websites. He speaks four languages and is currently looking for another one to start learning.

joneswasur1942.blogspot.com

Source: https://englishlive.ef.com/blog/language-lab/say-didnt-understand-someone-english/