Hmm...This must be a pistachio, this must be a pistachio, and it’s supposed to be
a pistachio, supposed to be a pistachio. What am I saying? Are you able to understand what
I said? This is supposed to be a pistachio. That's what I said; does it happen that you
get confused when other people are talking? May be they are talking too quickly or may
be too low and you just didn't understand? If you want to learn ways to ask someone to
repeat themselves then stay with me in this lesson, I'm your tutor for the day, Michelle. Come join me.
Let's start. So the first thing that you should
do when you are confused, when you didn't understand what somebody said, you should
do is, you should say, that you didn't understand. It's very important to clarify why you are
asking them to repeat. So how to say that you didn't understand? The best thing would
be to start by saying,"I'm sorry, sort of apologizing in the beginning, we'll apologize
later also, we'll come to that later in the lesson. So you could say, I'm Sorry, I didn't
understand." Second, Sorry I didn't catch that. Are you
trying to catch your ball? No, you are trying to catch your word here. Yes, to catch your
word. Uhh... so what kind of word would that be? May be your teacher in the classroom said
that, please open the book onto page number 178. What, which page no.? Sorry, sir I didn't
catch that? Page number 178. Yes, that's how you can ask him to repeat, if you didn't understand
a particular word. Let's look at the next one.
I didn't get it, which means same as I didn't understand. So here get is used as a synonym
for understanding. Let's look at the next one. Sorry I couldn’t hear that. When would
you ask that? When somebody is speaking in a very low voice and you are not able to understand
what they are saying? Maybe they are mumbling, may be they are whispering or maybe they are
murmuring. In such a situation, you could say, I couldn't hear that, you can say more
to express your confusion but we are going to come to that in the later steps for expressing
confusion. Let's look at the second step that you must follow when you are trying to express
confusion. This is why you didn't understand something. So the reason could be English
is not your first language, yes it could be true for many of you. So you could say, please
excuse me English is not my first language. Or you could say, I'm sorry, I'm not very
good with English so please bear with me. What do you mean by bear with me? It means
to cooperate, so please cooperate with me. Cooperate.
I suggest that if there's somebody who gets offended with your level of English, you should
say that, but don’t feel discouraged if somebody is offended with your level of English.
You have worked hard to achieve where you are, so don't be discouraged. Now something
very important about this step, so let's say you are asking for directions, you are on
your way to a particular place and you didn't understand what the person said when they
were trying to direct you. Do you have the time to tell them why you didn't understand?
No, so when you don't have the time to give a reason to give. Say it only when you enough
time to explain why you didn't understand the other person. May be in a job interview,
could be, when you have enough time. With that let's look at step 3 and that is
to ask someone to repeat themselves. Isn't this the most important step? Yes this is
the way to clarify what the other person said. Let's look at the first one. Could you repeat
that? So just now I have given you an example when you are asking for directions somebody
says that, okay you could say that, okay what's the way to Clifton house, could you please
help me? If you ask that question and they reply, okay so you take the first right and
a sharp turn towards Toni nose and there's your destination. That was so quick. You just
didn't understand. So you tell them, could you please repeat that or you could also say,
could you speak more slowly please? Any of these would do in that situation. If someone
is speaking very fast and you want them to repeat you could say, could you speak more
slowly, please? Let’s look at the next one. Could you say
that again? This is also another way of asking someone to repeat themselves again. Again
means to repeat. Would you mind repeating that? This is the third one that we have.
Mind means I hope you will not be offended. I hope you will not feel bad if I ask you
to repeat what you just said. To feel bad.... mind. Now let's look at the one here. Could
you speak up please? Remember we did a phrase here called sorry I couldn't get that. You
can follow this phrase with could you speak up please? This is used when you are not able
to hear what the other person is saying. Not able to hear. So let's say you are on a phone
call and somebody is telling you a particular address and they are telling you their address
and they say that, their address is Oakfield, Bristol House and you ask which road? They
say Oakfield road and you didn't hear the name of the road properly. You could ask them,
could you speak up please, sorry I couldn't hear that and they would reply o-a-k-f-i-e-l-d
which is the most possible response. Let’s look at the next one. I still didn't
get that. So if you still did not hear the name of the road and you want them to repeat
themselves a second time, then you could tell them, I still didn't get that, when you want
someone to repeat themselves the second time.... to repeat the second time.
The last phrase that we have here that you could ask someone... for asking someone to
repeat is, come again. Does that mean to go back and come again? No that’s not what
it means, it's like an informal slang word and this also means asking someone to repeat.
So once it happened that I was at the restaurant with my friend and she was sitting across
me and I was talking to her and I was quite busy in the conversation. The waiter came
and asked me, “Ma’am would you like anything else? And I just couldn’t hear, so what
did I tell him? I told him, come again. That’s informal and you could use it anywhere except
in a formal situation or a professional situation. So you can use it for informal circumstance.
Now let's look at step 4 for expressing confusion and that is to apologize. Yes we were apologizing
here also because you couldn’t understand. However, when you finally understood something
and you want to say sorry about the confusion that you created, may be unintentionally,
you could sorry for the confusion or sorry about the confusion. Sorry for the confusion
and then finally if you understand, you must say, I see which means same as I understand,
they have the same meaning. You could also say, thank you, I get it or thank you I got
it. So if you understand, you say I understand
and if you don't understand you say I don't understand but if you say understand and you
say you don't understand, then how will I understand that you understand? Oh my gosh,
cut the crap just remember, next time you are confused and want someone to repeat, use
one of these phrases and you will know exactly what they want to tell you. I hope to see
you again in more fun learning sessions, till then, you take care and I'll miss you, bye.