Introduction
The following is a short guide to making your English more understandable when you're in a foreign country.
Whilst it's great to learn a foreign language, often we can communicate more effectively by simply improving our own language and being more attentive to our audience.
The following may seem blindingly obvious to some TEFL teachers on the board, however, this would all be completely new stuff to me two years ago.
This is by no means a comprehensive guide, nor is it a perfect explanation of English grammar, but by thinking about these points I feel it will help your communication when you travel abroad.
Obviously, feel free to add any more points below that I've missed out. We are lucky to have a lot of non-native speakers here with a very high level of English (Satoshi, Vicious and Brodiaga come to mind) so maybe they can contribute also.
First thing:
Part One) Speak Slowly
It sounds obvious, but the vast majority of people speak too quickly. SLOW DOWN and pronounce EACH word individually. Avoid work linkages where you can.
This is actually quite difficult if you've never tried before.
Example: 'Wheredoyawanagotomorrow?' should become 'Where do you want to go tomorrow?". TAKE YOUR DAMN TIME.
I remember my first CELTA lesson. It was my first time speaking to non-native speakers. I rambled on at them for twenty minutes in my horrible British accent and the resulting feedback was "They didn't understand a word! my God speak slower!". Nowadays, I speak half as quickly.
Actually, my friends back home had trouble understanding me at times. That's a good indication that you're going to be impossible to understand for a non-native speaker.
You'll feel stupid doing it at first. But practice and be confident with those new found pauses in your sentences.
Part Two) Emphasis
With negatives such as 'don't' and 'not', add EXTRA emphasis for clarity. Pause and stress the word like you're JayJuanGee:
"What food do you like?" -> "What food DON'T you like?" -> "What food do you NOT like?"
It can be hard for them to pick up the subtle difference between positive and negative verbs if you say the sentence naturally without stopping and pausing. (You may also want to add this emphasis on question words, i.e "WHEN did you come to Thailand?".)
Break up the contractions too. "I mustn't bang any British girls on my trip" should become "I must NOT bang any British girls on my trip"
With comparatives, using 'more' can make the sentence easier to understand: "Thai girls are MORE sexy than American girls" may be easier to understand than "Thai girls are sexier than American girls" even though the grammar is incorrect.
Part Three) Avoid Phrasal Verbs
Avoid these as much as you can. Even advanced speakers of English don't know many of them.
Examples of phrasal verbs: pick her up, push her down, take it out, shove it in, take it out, slap it around, shoot it over her, put it away, throw her out...
Using too many of these is the equivalent of dropping 'ubiquitous' 'indefatigable' and 'facetious' into a sentence when all you want is a damn sandwich.
Non-native speakers have to remember these in the same way as complicated items of vocabulary.
I'm even careful about using too many of these around forum member 'Satoshi', even though he has fantastic English.
Obviously, don't overdo it. You can continue to use the simpler ones: go out, pick up, come back.....
Part Four: The Tenses
OK this is the biggest thing to be careful about. If you haven't studied English grammar before, you may not have thought about this much.
Typically, non-native speakers will become comfortable with the tenses in the following order. You can actually go up the tense hierarchy like this to assess a girl's level of English:
To note: THIS IS NOT a comprehensive guide to English grammar. This is just showing a list of tenses from easiest to hardest.
Past Simple
'To be' and 'to do'.
The easiest tense. Example questions 'Do you live in Thailand?' 'Are you happy?'
Includes third person forms: 'Is he..? Does he...? Do they...? and uses of the tense with Who, What, When, Why, Where, How, How Often etc. (i.e How often to do bang Asian girls? Every week. Why don't you bang British girls?' Because they are fat).
Future Simple with 'will'
The next tense in the hierarchy is future simple with 'will'.
Will you go to out tomorrow? Why will you go out tomorrow? When will you come home? ....
This requires no change the verb, so it is the next easiest tense. It is easy to visualise too.
As mentioned before, you can obviously use this tense with 'Who, where, was, why etc.' and third person forms, as with all tenses, so I won't mention this again from here on.
Present Continuous for Actions Happening RIGHT NOW
'to be' + 'verb -ing'
'What are you doing? 'I am messaging girls on Thai Friendly'
Requires changing the verb to the 'ing' form so is slightly more difficult than future with 'will'
Present Continuous for Planned Actions in the future
Same grammatical form as present continuous, but used for future plans with a high certainty of being carried through.
'When are you going to Phuket?' 'I am going next week' (it is a planned action for the future)
Why are you going? Who are you going with? How are you going? etc
More difficult than future with 'will'
A Note on the tenses so far
There are plenty of girls who are only comfortable with English up to this level. However, you can still have very good conversations with people using only the aforementioned tenses. The skill is to keep it narrow and deep, NOT wide and shallow (Also a good proverb for vagina maintenance).
Past Simple with 'to be'
This tense is easier than past simple with 'to do'
'Are you happy?' becomes 'Were you happy yesterday?'. 'Were you bad when you were a child?'
'Was' and 'were' are the easiest words to use when you really want to push conversation towards a PAST ACTION. Also add your emphasis here on the 'was' and 'were'.
Past Simple with 'to do'
A bit more difficult than past simple with 'to be' as the word 'did' doesn't usually click a girl's mind into past simple like 'was' and 'were' do.
Emphasis the 'did'. 'Why DID you eat so much?'
For extra emphasis, you may want to add the time reference even if it sounds unnatural: "Why DID you do that?" -> "Why DID you do that yesterday?". This way two words in the sentence are clicking the girls' mind into past simple.
Present Perfect
Ok. This is the last real one that someone needs to be conversational in English IMO, because of the sheer frequency in which we use it.
If the girl's English is not good, keep to past simple as much as you can.
The vast majority of my students revert back into present simple when they try to use this tense, asking me 'How long do you live in Thailand?' when they mean 'How long have you live in Thailand?'
Be aware of this. For instance, you might want to know the answer to the question 'Have you been to America?!'. If she doesn't understand present perfect, go back down the tense hierarchy, i.e "Did you go to America last year?" "Do you like to go to America?" etc
This tense is an absolute nightmare for Thai's in particular as their language is so flat in regards to time.
The way to make this easier is to use the time reference in the question -> "Have you been to Phuket?' -> "Have you been to Phuket THIS YEAR?" to indicate unfinished time.
Rule of thumb: if a girl is comfortable with all forms of the present perfect, she has enough English not to bore you to death.
Other tenses
Avoid them. If they're non-native speakers and they're English isn't advanced, you should never use them. Even past continuous, it has limited use (unless you want to tell someone you were doing something and something suddenly happened).
Avoid past perfect in particular: if you need to certain information across, you can always use past simple twice and a sequencer. Example: "I was hungry because I hadn't eaten" should become "I didn't eat, so I was hungry".
In the first sentence they'll look at you blankly and throw faeces at you. With the second sentence they'll understand. These are some of the tricks to making yourself more understandable.
Part Five: Use American Grammar
There are two main differences between British and American grammar:
Present simple:
American: "Do you have a pen?". British: "Have you got a pen?"
They mean exactly the same thing, but stick to the American form, it's much simpler. If you use the British form the person your speaking to may panic and think 'OH FUCK IT'S PRESENT PERFECT'. They won't know what you're talking about.
The second difference is:
Why are you full?
American "I just ate". British "I've just eaten"
Again. Use the American grammar. Its much simpler and easier to visualise for non-native speakers. In Britain we use the present perfect here to indicate a past action's relevance to a present situation (and usually the fact it was a short time ago). Don't bother with it. Use the American form.
Part Six: British vs American Vocabulary
And finally, be aware of your vocabulary. In Taiwan they'll look at you blankly when you start talking about football, the postman and shops. In Thailand, they can do the same if you start talking about soccer, a mail carrier and stores.
Typically most places lean towards the American vocabulary. However, in Europe and Thailand, I've noticed more of a lean towards the British vocabulary.
The following is a short guide to making your English more understandable when you're in a foreign country.
Whilst it's great to learn a foreign language, often we can communicate more effectively by simply improving our own language and being more attentive to our audience.
The following may seem blindingly obvious to some TEFL teachers on the board, however, this would all be completely new stuff to me two years ago.
This is by no means a comprehensive guide, nor is it a perfect explanation of English grammar, but by thinking about these points I feel it will help your communication when you travel abroad.
Obviously, feel free to add any more points below that I've missed out. We are lucky to have a lot of non-native speakers here with a very high level of English (Satoshi, Vicious and Brodiaga come to mind) so maybe they can contribute also.
First thing:
Part One) Speak Slowly
It sounds obvious, but the vast majority of people speak too quickly. SLOW DOWN and pronounce EACH word individually. Avoid work linkages where you can.
This is actually quite difficult if you've never tried before.
Example: 'Wheredoyawanagotomorrow?' should become 'Where do you want to go tomorrow?". TAKE YOUR DAMN TIME.
I remember my first CELTA lesson. It was my first time speaking to non-native speakers. I rambled on at them for twenty minutes in my horrible British accent and the resulting feedback was "They didn't understand a word! my God speak slower!". Nowadays, I speak half as quickly.
Actually, my friends back home had trouble understanding me at times. That's a good indication that you're going to be impossible to understand for a non-native speaker.
You'll feel stupid doing it at first. But practice and be confident with those new found pauses in your sentences.
Part Two) Emphasis
With negatives such as 'don't' and 'not', add EXTRA emphasis for clarity. Pause and stress the word like you're JayJuanGee:
"What food do you like?" -> "What food DON'T you like?" -> "What food do you NOT like?"
It can be hard for them to pick up the subtle difference between positive and negative verbs if you say the sentence naturally without stopping and pausing. (You may also want to add this emphasis on question words, i.e "WHEN did you come to Thailand?".)
Break up the contractions too. "I mustn't bang any British girls on my trip" should become "I must NOT bang any British girls on my trip"
With comparatives, using 'more' can make the sentence easier to understand: "Thai girls are MORE sexy than American girls" may be easier to understand than "Thai girls are sexier than American girls" even though the grammar is incorrect.
Part Three) Avoid Phrasal Verbs
Avoid these as much as you can. Even advanced speakers of English don't know many of them.
Examples of phrasal verbs: pick her up, push her down, take it out, shove it in, take it out, slap it around, shoot it over her, put it away, throw her out...
Using too many of these is the equivalent of dropping 'ubiquitous' 'indefatigable' and 'facetious' into a sentence when all you want is a damn sandwich.
Non-native speakers have to remember these in the same way as complicated items of vocabulary.
I'm even careful about using too many of these around forum member 'Satoshi', even though he has fantastic English.
Obviously, don't overdo it. You can continue to use the simpler ones: go out, pick up, come back.....
Part Four: The Tenses
OK this is the biggest thing to be careful about. If you haven't studied English grammar before, you may not have thought about this much.
Typically, non-native speakers will become comfortable with the tenses in the following order. You can actually go up the tense hierarchy like this to assess a girl's level of English:
To note: THIS IS NOT a comprehensive guide to English grammar. This is just showing a list of tenses from easiest to hardest.
Past Simple
'To be' and 'to do'.
The easiest tense. Example questions 'Do you live in Thailand?' 'Are you happy?'
Includes third person forms: 'Is he..? Does he...? Do they...? and uses of the tense with Who, What, When, Why, Where, How, How Often etc. (i.e How often to do bang Asian girls? Every week. Why don't you bang British girls?' Because they are fat).
Future Simple with 'will'
The next tense in the hierarchy is future simple with 'will'.
Will you go to out tomorrow? Why will you go out tomorrow? When will you come home? ....
This requires no change the verb, so it is the next easiest tense. It is easy to visualise too.
As mentioned before, you can obviously use this tense with 'Who, where, was, why etc.' and third person forms, as with all tenses, so I won't mention this again from here on.
Present Continuous for Actions Happening RIGHT NOW
'to be' + 'verb -ing'
'What are you doing? 'I am messaging girls on Thai Friendly'
Requires changing the verb to the 'ing' form so is slightly more difficult than future with 'will'
Present Continuous for Planned Actions in the future
Same grammatical form as present continuous, but used for future plans with a high certainty of being carried through.
'When are you going to Phuket?' 'I am going next week' (it is a planned action for the future)
Why are you going? Who are you going with? How are you going? etc
More difficult than future with 'will'
A Note on the tenses so far
There are plenty of girls who are only comfortable with English up to this level. However, you can still have very good conversations with people using only the aforementioned tenses. The skill is to keep it narrow and deep, NOT wide and shallow (Also a good proverb for vagina maintenance).
Past Simple with 'to be'
This tense is easier than past simple with 'to do'
'Are you happy?' becomes 'Were you happy yesterday?'. 'Were you bad when you were a child?'
'Was' and 'were' are the easiest words to use when you really want to push conversation towards a PAST ACTION. Also add your emphasis here on the 'was' and 'were'.
Past Simple with 'to do'
A bit more difficult than past simple with 'to be' as the word 'did' doesn't usually click a girl's mind into past simple like 'was' and 'were' do.
Emphasis the 'did'. 'Why DID you eat so much?'
For extra emphasis, you may want to add the time reference even if it sounds unnatural: "Why DID you do that?" -> "Why DID you do that yesterday?". This way two words in the sentence are clicking the girls' mind into past simple.
Present Perfect
Ok. This is the last real one that someone needs to be conversational in English IMO, because of the sheer frequency in which we use it.
If the girl's English is not good, keep to past simple as much as you can.
The vast majority of my students revert back into present simple when they try to use this tense, asking me 'How long do you live in Thailand?' when they mean 'How long have you live in Thailand?'
Be aware of this. For instance, you might want to know the answer to the question 'Have you been to America?!'. If she doesn't understand present perfect, go back down the tense hierarchy, i.e "Did you go to America last year?" "Do you like to go to America?" etc
This tense is an absolute nightmare for Thai's in particular as their language is so flat in regards to time.
The way to make this easier is to use the time reference in the question -> "Have you been to Phuket?' -> "Have you been to Phuket THIS YEAR?" to indicate unfinished time.
Rule of thumb: if a girl is comfortable with all forms of the present perfect, she has enough English not to bore you to death.
Other tenses
Avoid them. If they're non-native speakers and they're English isn't advanced, you should never use them. Even past continuous, it has limited use (unless you want to tell someone you were doing something and something suddenly happened).
Avoid past perfect in particular: if you need to certain information across, you can always use past simple twice and a sequencer. Example: "I was hungry because I hadn't eaten" should become "I didn't eat, so I was hungry".
In the first sentence they'll look at you blankly and throw faeces at you. With the second sentence they'll understand. These are some of the tricks to making yourself more understandable.
Part Five: Use American Grammar
There are two main differences between British and American grammar:
Present simple:
American: "Do you have a pen?". British: "Have you got a pen?"
They mean exactly the same thing, but stick to the American form, it's much simpler. If you use the British form the person your speaking to may panic and think 'OH FUCK IT'S PRESENT PERFECT'. They won't know what you're talking about.
The second difference is:
Why are you full?
American "I just ate". British "I've just eaten"
Again. Use the American grammar. Its much simpler and easier to visualise for non-native speakers. In Britain we use the present perfect here to indicate a past action's relevance to a present situation (and usually the fact it was a short time ago). Don't bother with it. Use the American form.
Part Six: British vs American Vocabulary
And finally, be aware of your vocabulary. In Taiwan they'll look at you blankly when you start talking about football, the postman and shops. In Thailand, they can do the same if you start talking about soccer, a mail carrier and stores.
Typically most places lean towards the American vocabulary. However, in Europe and Thailand, I've noticed more of a lean towards the British vocabulary.
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