3 Funny Stories About English Communication Problems

Hi guys my name is F@nny. Welcome to this series on communication problems.

And in this video, I'm gonna talk to you about the importance of pronunciation in English.

Especially the difference between long sounds and short sounds.

Why?

Because in English there are a lot of words that are almost the same

except that one has a long sound, one has a short sound.

And they have completely different meaning.

...you know... depending on the length of the sound.

So let me just give you a simple example.

If you say, "beach".

You know what a beach is right? You go on holiday. You like going to the beach.

And does not have the same meaning as b!tch.

And you know forgive me for saying the word but and...

It doesn't have the same meaning.

And it's actually a very rude word,

so you should be very careful.

And... I have a story about that which is quite funny.

It wasn't funny at the time but now it's funny actually.

And when I taught English in France,

I had a student once in my classroom, and you know I was explaining ..ummm.. I think

you know some grammar or something.

And he was clearly distracted.

So I got really angry and I said, "Hey! What are you doing?"

And he said, "Oh oh madam I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm searching my sh!t."

Umm... so two mistakes. First mistake - he forgot the preposition 'for'.

Ok. So 'search for'.

But that's ok. I understand that.

But he said, "sh!t". And he actually meant 'sheet'.

- for you know a piece of paper.

I didn't get it.

And I got really angry, you know.

And he didn't understand why I was getting angry.

And I said, "You can't say that word," you know.

And what does he even mean?

"Searching your sh!t." I mean that's getting really weird.

And and so then he understand he was like, "No, no, no."

I mean, you know, he showed me a piece of paper.

As I said, "That's not 'sh!t', that's 'sheet'. Okay.

So yeah I think he got really stressed out because he didn't know why I was getting angry.

And I didn't know what he was talking about.

So I think you should really - you should be careful.

Because you know, - long sound, short sound -

It's sometimes it's a different word with a completely different meaning.

And if the word that you're saying is rude, is rude, then, you know, it's quite annoying.

So just be careful, okay?

So thanks for watching and see you in the next video.

Thank you guys for watching my video.

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See you.

Hello, guys. my name is Fanni. Welcome to this series on communication problems.

And in this video, I want to talk to you about communication problems that occur

when we use different kinds of English because as you know we don't have the

same English in the UK and in the US, for example.

So some Americans don't understand me when I speak English

because I don't have the same pronunciation and because I don't always use the same words.

Most of the time we do understand each other

but sometimes we don't and it can be quite confusing at times.

For example, umm, to me there's a ground floor in a building.

To an American person my ground floor is their first floor.

So if I talk about the first floor, I don't mean the same floor as an American person.

So see it can get a bit confusing.

And talking about confusion, I have a story which is quite funny.

I was in college at the time and I was on the phone with an American friend

and we talked you know for 20-25 minutes and

then we decide to go grab a drink together. So I'm like, "yeah we should we you know we

should go out and have a drink."

And she's like, "Okay yeah sure. What a good idea." And then she says,

"Let me just put on some pants."

Now you have to know pants in the USA,

means like trousers.

Okay your pants. Okay like these.

In British English, pants are underpants. Okay?

So for me, when she says, "Let me put on some pants."

I get this image of my friend talking to me for 20 minutes naked.

You know with no underpants on.

So I was quite shocked and I said,

"What?"

She said, "Yeah, yeah. Just grab some pants.

I said, "What do you mean pants?"

She said, "Oh no no no, I mean trousers."

And then we just laughed so hard because you know

for a minute there, there was a just a lot of confusion.

Um, so yeah, depending on where you come from, I think you shouldn't underestimate ...um..

you know the differences. And you have to be careful sometimes with

the words that you choose. You know? So...

Yeah that's something that can happen. So you see even native speakers sometimes

..um.. don't really understand each other.

That happens as well.

So yeah that's what I wanted to tell you.

Umm, I hope you've enjoyed. And see you in the next video.

Thank you guys for watching my video. I hope you liked it.

If you did please show us your support. Click like, subscribe to our channel,

share the video with your friends, and put your comments below if you have some.

Thank you and see you.

Hello, guys. My name is fanny.

And in this video, I want to talk to you about communication problems.

And when you're an English teacher working abroad or even if you've traveled,

you do know that there are often communication problems.

And from my experience as a teacher, I think these problems and often arise because

people try and translate their mother tongue into English.

And my main piece of advice as a teacher, to you, is don't do that.

Don’t try and translate.

Because every language has their own words

and expressions you know…and I know that when you're not that fluent,

it's reassuring to use your own language and translate it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't, it's not going to work out.

And, umm, For example, let's just and take an example.

I taught…umm.. English in France for a few years.

And French has a lot of expressions and we for example say, umm,

“To get a blue.” So that's the expression in French.

“Avoir un bleu.” And that means ‘to get bruised’.

Okay so ‘a bruise’ in French is literally ‘a blue’.

So.. but, you can't say, “I got a blue.” If you say, “I got a blue,”

you… you're actually translating the exact words from French into English.

And I'm not gonna understand what you mean.

And I've had people say that.

I've had someone one day, umm, say “oh I got a blue,”

and I obviously didn't know what that meant.

So…

And that is something that you should avoid doing okay?

Um… and I got a story about that. For example, umm,

I was correcting an essay once because I worked in a high school.

And some … this student had written you know an essay in English.

I think she was describing a holiday or something.

And, umm, at some point I can read,

“Oh on the last day, I was so sad and because

I was walking in the garden and suddenly I fell and broke my face.”

And it honestly took me a good 10 minutes to understand what she meant.

And it's actually because there's an expression in French,

"suis cassé la figure" Which is literally, “to break your face,”

and it means to hurt yourself. And so, she wanted to say, “I was walking

in the garden, suddenly I fell and hurt myself,”

But she translated French into English

You know… Thinking umm, and I guess you know we all think that.

We all think, oh my language is the reference.

It's the standard and every other language imitates mine.

And just you know I can simply translate.

But, unfortunately, you can't.

So as a teacher, again, with years of experience, umm please don't try and do that.

Don't translate your mother tongue. You just have to learn as much as you can.

Watch films. Read books.

Try and understand how people talk in English. You know the expressions that they use,

remember them and use them.

But don't translate your mother tongue into English.

Okay?

I hope this helps. Umm thank you very much for watching guys

and see you in the next video.

Thank you guys for watching my video.

I hope you've liked it. If you have, please show us your support.

Click ‘like’. Subscribe to the channel.

Put your comments below and share with your friends.

See you.