What Did He Say? English Language Learners Ask

Three big challenges for anyone learning English are

• understanding the different accents of English speakers,
• trying to understand when English is spoken quickly,
• trying to understand speech that is connected.

You might hear people speaking English with British, American, Irish, Scottish, Australian, Indian, South African, Nigerian, Kenyan, accents – to name just a few of the accents.

In addition, frequently, people who are learning English as a second language or as a foreign language complain that native speakers of English talk too quickly!

And to add to the English learners confusion is the way the English language connects the sounds of the words in a sentence together.  For example, many learners have difficulty understanding “do it” because they hear /dowit/ and they don’t recognize that word….

In this humorous video we discover that native English speakers also have a difficulty understanding accents, as well as fast and connected speech!

Hmmm, at the end of the video do you understand what the jockey tells the news reporter? How many times did you listen to the video before you understood what he said?

Write what you think he says in the box below.

Enjoy the video!