Conversation Skills: A quick & easy way to make people understand you

Hello.

My name is Emma, and in today's video I am going to teach you a tip that will really

help you when you're in a conversation and somebody does not understand you.

Okay?

So, to begin I just wanted to talk about some situations a lot of people learning English

find themselves in.

A lot of students or a lot of people studying English, when they speak English, they say:

"People don't understand me."

Okay?

Sometimes people who are learning English, they have very strong accents and they have

trouble with pronunciation.

Sometimes people just want to be a clearer speaker, they want people to understand them

better.

So, this video is for anyone who falls into these categories; anyone who has had people

not understand them before, and wants an easy thing they can do to help people understand.

So, what can you do?

Well, the number one thing you can do when someone doesn't understand you in conversation

is you can start by introducing the topic before you being speaking.

If the person who is listening knows the topic, it helps their understanding so much.

So, introducing the topic first increases understanding.

It makes it a lot easier to understand if a person knows the topic before you start

to speak.

Okay?

So, what is a topic?

A topic is the main idea of what you want to talk about.

So, some examples of topics are: Sports, family, work, school, politics, religion, celebrities,

movies, books.

There are a lot of different topics.

And so, before you start talking about a topic, you can introduce the topic and I'll teach

you how to do that in one moment.

The other thing I just wanted to say quickly is another tip is if you introduce a topic

and the person doesn't understand what you're saying, you can always write down the key

word or the topic word.

Okay?

So if I'm talking about baseball, and somebody doesn't understand what I'm saying, I can

write down the word: "Baseball", and that will make the rest of the conversation easier

for the person to understand.

So now let's talk about some expressions you can use to introduce the topic which will

help people understand you.

Okay, so you're about to have a conversation, a good idea is before you start talking, you

can choose a key topic word that you're going to introduce your topic with.

Okay?

So before the conversation, think about the key word that you're about to talk about.

So this might be the weather, this might be school-okay?-it might be university, it might

be family.

But just think about the key word, so that's a first step.

The next thing you can do is you can say a sentence, your first sentence with this key

word in it.

When you say this key word, you make sure you say it loud and long.

Okay?

Because in English, the most important parts of the sentences, we say them louder and longer.

Okay?

This helps the listener know what part of the sentence is important.

So let's look at an example.

So, imagine I want to talk about my favourite restaurant.

Okay?

And I don't think the person who is listening is going to understand me, what I can say

is I can start by saying: "I'd like to tell you about my favourite restaurant."

Notice how I said the word: "restaurant" louder and longer.

By saying "restaurant" louder and longer, it makes it easier for the listener to understand

me.

Okay?

So now I can start talking about restaurants, and they're going to understand what I'm talking

about because I've introduced the subject.

The conversation is going to be a lot easier for the listener.

Okay?

So, what are some other ways to introduce a topic?

Well, you can start by saying: "I have a question" if you're going to ask a question.

This tells the listener that a question is coming, and so it prepares them.

If you're not asking a question, you can say...

And you want them to tell you something, you can say: "Tell me about", "Tell me about your

family", "Tell me about your favourite restaurant", "Tell me about school".

Okay?

So, again, I'm saying the last word, which is the key word, louder and longer.

Maybe I want to talk about myself.

I can say something, like: "Let me tell you about school.", "Let me tell you about work.",

"Let me tell you about my vacation."

So even if your pronunciation...

Maybe you have some trouble with pronunciation, even if you have some trouble, because you're

saying the key word louder and longer, it will really help the listener.

You can say: "I'd like to talk about", and you just say the topic here.

"I'd like to talk about sports."

If you want to say something a bit shorter, you can also just say: "You know sports?"

Okay?

And this way when they hear that, then it prepares them for the conversation.

Okay, so now let's look at some more expressions and some practice for how to introduce the

topic.

Okay, so we've talked about how to use key words or the topic word to help people understand

you better.

So let's do an example.

Imagine you're trying to talk to somebody and they don't understand what you say.

What do they say to you?

"I'm sorry.

I don't understand what you're saying."

So what you can do now is now that you know how important the topic word is, you can use

that.

You can say: "I'm talking about work."

And, again, "work" is louder and longer.

And when they hear the word "work", it will be easier for them to follow the conversation.

So let's look at another example.

Imagine you want to introduce the topic, you can say: "Let me tell you about my work."

So, again, "work" is the key word here and it's general.

"I work at ABCD Company.

I've worked there for 5 years.

I love my job.

The people there are fantastic."

Okay, so I've highlighted the key word "work" here.

This is just to show that you go from general or the big idea, the topic, which is "work",

and you go more and more specific.

So, for example, "ABCD Company" is more specific, or "5 years", that's more specific.

By following this...

And, oh, one other thing I should say is if somebody doesn't understand you, like I've

said before, imagine they said: "I'm sorry.

I don't understand", and you say: "I'm talking about work." and they still don't understand,

you can write the word "work" down on a piece of paper.

That can really help the conversation and it can help people understand you better if

there's a conversation breakdown.

Okay, so we've learned a very good tip on what to do if people don't understand you

or you have a very strong accent and you're having a trouble communicating.

Using the key word can really help you when you say your first sentence.

This will really help with understanding and improving your conversation.

So, thank you for watching this video.

I invite you to check out our website at www.engvid.com; there, you can actually do a quiz to practice

what you've learned and heard in this video.

I also invite you to check out my channel and subscribe; we have a lot of great resources

on that channel, including tips on pronunciation, work, work English, vocabulary, expressions,

slang, grammar, and many more.

So until next time, thank you for watching and take care.