Trova Inglese Insegnanti
yujini
Is it wrong/unnatural to say “sorry, I didn’t *hear* your name. Could you plz say it again?” In the textbook i have, it says “hear” is for sounds that come to our ears without us necessarily trying to hear them, and “listen” is used to describe us intentionally paying attention to sounds. Thus using “hear” in that sentence above would be wrong and we should say “I didn’t *catch* your name.” But I feel like I heard native speakers saying 1. “i didnt *hear* your name”, or similar lines such as 2. “I’ll give him a call and you’re going to *hear* his responses…” - both of which seem to me are a “voluntary, intentional” action of a person trying to listen to something. Are 1. & 2. plainly wrong? What is a correct way to use this word-hear? Thanks in advance.
18 mag 2022 15:22
Risposte · 3
1
We naturally say, "sorry, I didn't hear your name", because your failure was involuntary. If you say you didn't "listen to" someone's name, that means you deliberately ignored them, which would be very rude. Feel free to ask me follow-up questions.
18 maggio 2022
1
You could say that sentence with hear, and it is also a phrase to say "I didn't catch your name," as you said. You will hear both. You will never hear I didn't "listen" to your name because that is saying that the person was speaking but you were not paying attention or not trying to understand what they are saying (hence the intentional action described in your book). "I did not hear" refers to physically not hearing it clearly, "I did not listen" is saying you were not trying to. I hope this helps.
18 maggio 2022
1
"I didn’t *hear* your name" is natural. You can also say, "I can't hear the radio, please turn it up." Afterward, you could say, "I listened to the radio." The description in your textbook sounds correct; the difference between "hear" and "listen" may be best illustrated by examples.
18 maggio 2022
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