How should my English sound? Lesson 3

How should my English sound? Lesson 3

Pardon me? Could you say that again? - Understanding conversation

Let's check this conversation:

A: I've just got this one bag.

B: Wow! Do you always travel so light?

A: Yeah. I can't stand the wait, you know at the airport...

B: Yeah. I know. My bag's really heavy. But it's got wheels, so I don't have to carry it.

A: No, I mean the waiting, you know, waiting for your cases to come out on the belt.

It seems we have a little misunderstanding here. What is the cause of it?

Though the speaker may pronounce the words clearly when they speak there can be a misunderstanding if in the context there are words with the same pronunciation.

Another good example is when you ask a Londoner the time and he answers: It's 'free' forty-four. In this case we can understand that 'free' actually is 'three' from the context.

Look at this video: Can you get all the misunderstandings in the video? Sometimes it's difficult to understand what people say due to their accent.

Exercise:

In each of the sentences below there is one word misspelt because it reproduces a different kind of accent. Guess from the context which word is wrong.

1. She is a very famous rider of romantic novels.
2. I read about it in the noos paper.
3. She went to the casualty because she suffered a art attack.
4. We watched the film and den we went to bed.
5. We want to tank you.
6. With a bit of look we can win the game.

Bibliography: HANKOK, Mark. English Pronunciation in Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

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