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.