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's does not
understand you ok so to begin I just
wanted to talk about some situations a
lot of people learning English find
themselves in a lot of students are a
lot of people study in English when they
speak English they say people don't
understand me
ok 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 once 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 begin 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 ok 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 keyword 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 the
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 favorite
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 favorite 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
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 favorite
restaurant tell me about school ok 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 ok and this way when they hear
that
then it prepares them for the
conversation ok so now let's look at
some more expressions and some practice
for how to introduce the topic ok so
we've talked about how to use keywords
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
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 five years I love my job the people
that are fantastic okay so I've
highlighted the keyword work here this
is just a 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
five 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 break down
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 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 wwlp.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 and grammar and many more so until
next time they
you for watching and take care