How to Avoid Getting Stuck in a Conversation in English | Survival English Phrases

If you have any experience speaking English  in the real world you might have noticed that  

one thing is learning English from the comfort  of your home, your school or through your own  

study methods and a whole other thing is actually  using English in an authentic speaking situation.  

There is this considerable gap between learning  English on paper and English in use. The more  

advanced your English is the shorter this gap  will be. However even highly proficient English  

speakers regularly encounter situations where  they're not completely sure what to say in certain  

situations. Now there's a solution to this problem  and it's what we call survival phrases. Think of  

survival phrases as the pocket version of English.  They're phrases that you can count on when you're  

looking for certain information or you need to ask  for something they can even help you get out of a  

sticky situation and also help you confidently  make conversations and be understood by other  

English speakers. So in this lesson we'll begin  by talking about types of survival phrases that  

can help you facilitate conversation. Then we'll  talk about chunking and learning without grammar  

which is a method for learning vocabulary that's  related to survival phrases. After that I'll teach  

you bonus survival phrases that you will sure  need when you're in an English-speaking country  

and you find yourself at a restaurant, in a hotel,  using public transport or asking for information.  

Now in case you're new here every week we help you  to understand fast native speech, to be understood  

by anyone and connect to the world. Just like  Julia from Italy who says that thanks to our  

lessons her accent has improved a lot. So hit  that subscribe button and the bell down below,  

that way you won't miss any of our new lessons"

When you're conversing with another English  speaker depending on your level of proficiency you  

may encounter some difficulties in understanding  what the other person is saying. This is by no  

means something that you have to feel sorry  about as you can always ask for clarification.  

However a common mistake I've seen learners make  way too often is asking for clarification in a way  

that's not culturally delicate. Let me illustrate  this with this short little chat I have with Max.

When you're having a conversation with someone and  you don't understand something there are always  

better ways to react and ask for clarification  than saying what or I don't understand.  

Also it's never a good idea to say: huh when you  don't understand the message or make a confused  

or puzzled look. Remember that your body language  is an important part of what you communicate, so  

don't use it to express fear or frustration rather  use it to communicate a more proactive intention  

of wanting to understand the other person. So what  are some better more culturally delicate ways to  

ask for clarification? When you don't understand  something somebody says lean forward and say 

Although we do say what from time to time if  it's someone you don't know very well it's  

better to avoid this. What makes this word sound  even more clumsy is saying it with a sharp "t"  

(what). English is a polite language and this  can sound quite abrupt and rude. So instead of  

focusing on the negative "I don't understand"  focus on the solution and say "can you repeat  

that". If your English is still in elementary  level you could even communicate it by saying  

I don't speak much English, could you speak  a little slower please. You might also say  

"can you say that again" or "say that again  please"" sometimes maybe it's not that you didn't  

comprehend but that you didn't actually hear. Then  you could say "Sorry I didn't catch what you said"  

or "can you speak louder please". If it needs  repeating avoid what at all costs. In a recent  

podcast that we recorded Ollie shared this story  in Australia. If we don't hear someone or we don't  

understand someone we normally say "pardon"  instead of excuse me or "what". I remember one  

of my brazilian friends came to Australia and  used to say to my sister "what" "what" and my  

sister said to me can you tell him to stop saying  "what" and tell him to use "pardon" because it's  

more polite and now what if it's just that the  other person used the word that you don't know?  

Here's when you would say "what does said  word mean" in the example of my chat with  

Max he could have said "what does enjoy mean" or  "what does that mean" depending on the situation  

you might want to say "sorry what does that mean"  an advantage of survival phrases is that you can  

consider them as units and you don't need to worry  about grammar or the individual words they contain  

they're supposed to be easily accessible to  you when you need them as they require little  

thinking. We'll talk more about that in a little  bit when we discuss the concept of chunking.  

The other advantage of survival phrases is that  you can quickly learn to say them with fluency.  

Imagine if you considered this "what does that  mean" as a grammatical construction? It would  

take too much energy to think of each individual  word and your fluency would suffer. Instead of  

putting energy into that learn to say it in one go  like "what does that mean" and you'll soon realize  

you can say that phrase as well as anyone even if  you're a beginner. When you don't know how to say  

a word in English you don't need to get confused.  If you are fluent in this phrase you can either  

ask "how do you say..." a word from your native  language or describe it with your body language or  

if you have enough vocab say "how do you say  plus a description in other words". This is  

also the structure for many other useful  questions. Here's an example where I use a  

description and some body language: how do  you say that thing you use to drive a car?

And if the other person understands  your first language you might say  

"how do you say volante in English?" Next is "what  do you mean" this expresses that you understand  

the content of what the speaker is saying but  the idea doesn't totally make sense. Even if  

you literally don't understand, this phrase is  an excellent way to get the speaker to explain  

or rephrase what they just said. This gives you  another chance to understand and it saves face.  

It also makes you seem a lot more confident in  your communication. Native speakers don't say I  

don't understand much in social interaction. This  seems more formal, more rigid and is not common  

in social situations. The following ones  are useful for when you're the one speaking.

With these phrases you can verify that people  are following you as you speak. This is also  

how we verify a deeper level of understanding  almost like "can you see it from my perspective"  

For example "sometimes I think that Frank  works too much, do you know what I mean?"  

When you say "do you know what I mean" you  can be looking for both verification and  

empathy . These survival phrases provide a safety  net for when you fail to comprehend something  

or you don't know how to say something.  For this reason you can relax more,  

increase your confidence and social skills and  also your ability to flow in spoken English.  

Speaking of social skills and your ability to  flow in spoken English have you tried our Real  

Life native immersion course? If not you can  try our mini course right now absolutely free!  

It will help you to understand fast  speech and improve your fluency.  

You can learn more and sign up now by clicking  up here or in the description box below! 

What is chunking? chunking is learning vocabulary  in context. It means learning phrases or groups of  

words rather than single words. Survival phrases  can be considered chunks if you learn them to say  

and use them as units rather as single words.  Let's take a look at these three chunks 

What do you think we use these  chunks for? here are the options

When you learn vocabulary this way the need for  figuring out the specific way grammar works in  

these chunks isn't so big. You just learn to use  them in the right context and that's usually all  

you need to start applying them in conversation.  Another advantage is that they're more practical  

fluent and idiomatic. Imagine this  situation and then see if you can guess:

You'd say I'm on my way. That's a chunk. You'd  never actually need to stop and think of each  

word individually consider the grammar of that  construction and in terms of pronunciation  

as it's a chunk you're more likely  to learn to say it more fluently,  

like "I'm on my way". Here's another situation  where you would need to use another chunk:

Chunking when applied to specific everyday  situations is what we would refer to as  

survival phrases. If you're enjoying this lesson  and would like to learn more about how to improve  

your pronunciation and fluency I recommend  you watch this lesson we made on this topic.  

You can click up here or down in the description  box below to watch it straight after this lesson. 

So now I'm going to teach you a few key survival  phrases for some situations you're likely to  

encounter on any given day in an Wnglish-speaking  country. So let's start with some survival English  

for the restaurant! First you could ask  the waiter "can I have a menu please?"  

then when you're ready to order you may  say "I'd like the cheese omelet please"  

or "I'll have the cheese omelette" or even  "I'd like to have the cheese omelette please".

If you chose A you're right! At the end of  your meal you can request the bill or check  

saying "can I have the bill or check please?".  When you enter a hotel you'll probably walk  

up to the check-in desk and either tell the  receptionist that you've made a reservation  

or if you haven't that you'd like a room you'd say  "I have a reservation" or "I have a reservation  

under the name..." and then say your last name  if you want to inquire about prices you could ask  

"what are your rates" or "how much is a single  room for the night" for example. Another relevant  

question would be: "what facilities are available  to guests ?" Here you'd be asking whether there's  

a gym or a swimming pool or a spa, etc. Other  important survival phrases are "is there  

WI-FI in the room?" "what time is breakfast?"  "does the room have a view of the mountains?".  

There are some different survival phrases you'll  use depending on whether you use the train the bus  

or take a taxi with the train or bus there's  some overlap. You could ask for a single or  

return ticket to Manchester. When you want to know  the price you could simply ask "how much is it"  

or "how much is the fare please" if you want to  know where the bus stop is you could ask "where  

do I catch the bus?" to other important questions  are "which platform does the train leave from?"  

"is this the bus that goes to the city centre?",  "could you please tell me where to get off?".  

Get off means to exit the bus. So we say get  on when we enter the bus and get off is the  

opposite. When you get into a taxi you'd probably  say "could you take me to..." and then the place  

when you arrive at the destination.  You'd say "how much do I owe you?",  

or "what do I owe you?". I hope that this lesson  is going to help you make a step towards better  

fluency. If you enjoyed it don't forget to hit  the subscribe button and the bell down below.  

Survival phrases are the pocket version of  English think of them as a set of very practical  

phrases that you can use to always know what  to say.They'll help you think more in English,  

adopt more idiomatic expressions and speak more  effortlessly. Just to recap we first learned  

phrases that will facilitate communication. If  you know how to ask for clarification and how  

to verify you've made yourself understood you'll  gain more confidence in your speaking skills. We  

briefly touched on chunking and learning without  grammar. This is a fascinating topic that goes  

hand in hand with survival English. Give us a like  and we might expand on this topic in the future.  

Lastly we covered some bonus survival phrases  that are useful in the context of the restaurant  

the hotel and public transport. I  hope this has raised your awareness  

on what can be achieved by focusing on  vocabulary chunks and survival phrases!  

Now it's your turn to keep exploring English  and learn far more than we've offered you in  

this lesson! You can do it just get out of  your comfort zone and start your adventure!

There are three key aspects of pronunciation  that you need to master if you want to  

become a fluent English speaker these  are: rhythm, intonation and stress.  

Now chances are you've probably  acquired these to some degree  

you've probably imitated certain characteristics  of the way that native speakers speak.