but you can buy yourself a little bit of time with a question to think of your next transition so that when the other person stop talking then you can be ready to transition and ask a different question or talk about something else or whatever. so if you can not have this awkward sliences that will really help the conversation feel better alright now let us talk about having better conversations in English when this is not your first language no1 youu have to realize is that understanding is much much more important than speaking. i have said this many times before but it is worth repeating your ability to speak well is not nearly as important as your ability to understand the other person when i am talking to a student i do not really care how well they speak that is not a big deal for me however i do care about how much they can understand when i am speaking becuase if they can not understand me well then the conversation just does not go well i have to repeat a ton of things i have to look up translations sometimes i have to think of different ways to say things i have to say things really slowly or spell them for the person and it is just not smooth at all okay? so if you are talking to someone who is not an English teacher it would be even worse right? that person dose not have a lot of experience changing the way they speak to help someone else understand them better so there probably not gonna to be very patient in that situation that is why i said understanding is much more imprtant than speaking so no1 in order to have a good conversation in English you have to be abel to understand do not worry as much about the speaking okay first be concerned with actually being able to understand people okay and when do not understand someone because it will happen sometimes even if you have a good level of listening when you do not understand then native speaker when they are talking to you make sure that you appologize and you ask politely for them to repeat it do not say repeat please do not ever say that right? first appologize say i am sorry and then ask them do not command them say could you say that one more time or could you repeat that something like that in a nice way you appologize meaning you accept responsibility and then you ask them to repeat in that case they do not feel bad they do noe feel offended if you just say say that again more slowly or repeat that they are not gonna feel good they are probably gonna have a bad reaction if you command them to do something okay so appologize ask politely for them to repeat it and poke fun at your English sometimes when i say poke fun at something i am saying that you joke a little bit about something just maybe laugh a little about the fact that you could not understand something or whatever do not make it awkward and do not overly denigrate your English the word denigrate means to unfairly critisize something do not denegrate your English and say oh my English suck i am sorry my English is terrible people do not like that okay? however you can poke fun at your English and just likely joke about the fact that you made a mistake or whatever laugh a little bit do not make it really serious or negative make it funny because if you can ?? the fact that you made a mistake or that you did not understand something or whatever it is not uncomfortable for the other person because your ?? you are laughing so the other person will feel like that they can also laugh and not offending you or whatever so have a smile laugh when you make a mistake that is exposed or things like that right? do not act really frustrated or ?? of your English no one likes that okay? just have fun with it poke fun at your English but do not denegrate it. and do not be overly focused on accuracy okay? sometimes i have sutdents that focus on every word that they are saying and the conversation is really slow and unconfortable and boring because they do not want to say things naturally they do not want to just talk and except that they are probably gonna be making some mistakes they focus on the structure of every sentence that they say and they speak really slowly and this is not fun for the other person so do not foucs on accuracy just tey to speak naturally and understand that native speakers do not care that much about mistakes that you make as long as they can understand you well so if you are understandable and you make mistakes the other person is not just foucing on your mistakes they are gonna be engaged in the conversation they are gonna be thinking about the actual topic that you are talking about they are not gonna focus on the grammar errors because the other person is not thinking about the language they are thinking about the topic oaky you are probably thinking a little bit about the language becuase you are speaking a foreign language but the other person is not concerned with that they want to talk about the topic. and focus on what you are discussing okay so native speakers do not really care about your mistakes as long as they can understand you and more importantly as long as you can understand them. agian that is the most important thing and then besides that just focus on speaking naturally is better to speak more fluently than to speak a little bit accurately the native speaker will normally prefer to hear you speak more naturally and normally with fewer mistakes then to have to be really patient with you while you stop and slow down and correct yourself and think about all the words that you are saying before you say them that is much less pleasant so do not do that focus more on your fluency and of course try to be accurate but do not focus on that too much okay because that can ruin the conversation as well. alright those are my tips i hope that you found these tips useful and i hope that you can incorporate them into your own conversations whether it be in your own language or in English and hopefully these can help you and remember that if you want my help understanding native speakers make sure to join my membership so you can get my listening practice siminars where i show you the different patterns that are hard for you to understand and i help you understand them so if you are interested in it the link is down below in the episode description that is patreon.com/listeningtime and if you are ready to practice with real conversations where mulitiple people are speaking to each other then you can sign up for my us conversation podcast the link is alos down below in the episode description that is patreon.com/usconversations and if you like this podcast please share it with anyone you know who is learning English and give it a five-star rating and write a review alright thank you for listening to this episode and i will talk to you on the next episode of listening time.
