Andy
Discouraged by learning English I made a phone call to my school office for the I-20 issue this morning. When I was talking with the operator, she said " I am sorry, actually, I do not understand what you are saying. I will transfer you to a helper. what's your country? " Maybe she did not mean to do it, but it is really hurt me. I am so disappointed by myself. I have been to U.S. for almost six months, however, my English is still make no sense even though I study very hard. What shall I do?
Jun 30, 2015 9:45 PM
Corrections · 9
First you need to examine if it is an isolated case. Is it in just this case you were talking to someone and having problems communicating. If it is just this one time and generally you have not trouble communicating with native speakers, there is not need to worry. If however this is not an isolated case then you need to start focusing on speaking to native speakers, listening to them and understanding what is the difference between the way they talk and yourself. In fact once you have identified the area you need to improve it is pretty straight forward to work towards it. I am sure there are a lot of people who can help you towards your goal. In addition i totally agree with the points made by both Madeeha and missymarie753. I think they both described situations like that very nicely, and gave very reasonable explanations to situations similar to the one you experienced.
July 1, 2015
ya, don't feel bad, I have to answer the phone for my job and even native speakers can be difficult to understand, it is one of those things she detected an accent, was probably hitting over load at her job, after talking to people all of the time your brain turns to mush and the ability to try and understand goes away, just keep working on it, and as the other people have posted I have gone to other places and heard native speakers in english and walked out without an idea what they where saying, ran into a woman who went to school with my mother, they had a conversation and she would say something to me every now and then (I know by the way she looked at me and waited for me to respond) and other then saying I looked like my mother, I had no idea what she was saying.
June 30, 2015

Discouraged by learning My English

 

This morning, I made a phoned call to my school's office for about the issuance of the my I-20 issue this morning. or This morning, I made a call to my school's office about my I-20. When While I was talking with asked to be transferred to the proper channels, the lady operator, she said,

 

"I am sorry. Actually, I do not can't understand what you are saying. I will transfer you to someone who can a helper  you better. What's your country?" "

 

Maybe Perhaps, she did not mean to do it, to hurt me but it is really did hurt me. I am so disappointed by in myself. I have been to in the U.S. for almost six months, however, and my English is still makes no sense to others even though I study very hard. What shall can I do?

 

除非你听觉與口音超众, 六月时间, 对於言語来說, 是不久的时期, 至少要一两年, 每天勤学的功夫與他人交談. 在談话的时候, 你要慢慢地說, 每句发音要明确地叙述. 讲得快就乱音横出, 听者就此难明, 尤其是 不在直面对话.  实际上是电话接线员帮了你一个忙让你知道自己的英文弱點, 就此努力善進. 拋弃無於救助.

June 30, 2015
Maybe you are studying all of time on books, try to focus on pronunciation
June 30, 2015
I'm a native English speaker and I went to another city a few years back where my brother was living. The first few times I went to visit him I couldnt understand what people were saying there in public, even though they were speaking in English. I kept looking at my brother and they all must have thought I didn't know English ;o)) Sometimes different accents are hard to catch until your mind gets used to them, it doesnt take too long actually. But remember that some natives face this trouble with each other. Don't feel discouraged, practice speaking and listening, read out loud, watch movies, you're learning English and you have an enormous amount of resources on the internet! Just don't give up, you've come this far and you can get better.
June 30, 2015
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