学外语的人在和老外交流时总是害怕会犯错误而导致误解，害怕听不懂对方而导致交流无法进行。其实听不懂也不必如此担心，下面就为您支几招应对策略。

For those of you still worried about making mistakes, you should just remember countries like Britain, America, Australia and Canada are all very multicultural¹ countries. Multicultural means² lots of different cultures. In London alone there are people living here from all over the world. Most of them speak English but there are many different accents. Not everyone speaks perfectly³ and people do make mistakes.

But as English speakers, we don't worry about it. We are really used to (familiar with) hearing non-native speakers of English speak English. We don't care at all if they make mistakes as long as we can understand them. So as non-native speakers of English, you shouldn't worry about making mistakes. Small mistakes are fine. But even if you make big mistakes and people can't understand you, they will try to understand - or they will tell you if they don't understand. This gives you a chance to say again in different language what you want to say.

There will be times of course that people maybe won't understand you but you won't know that if you don't try to communicate. Just try your best and really DON'T WORRY. Your English is probably better than you think.

Someone talked about not understanding people when they speak English, so I thought today I would discuss what you can say when you don't understand someone. 听不懂别人的话会有几种情况，不同的情景下可以有不同的应对办法：

If someone is speaking really quickly, don't be afraid to ask them to speak more slowly. 如果对方说地太快，你可以请他/她说慢点：

I'm sorry, but can you speak a little slower please?

That was a little bit to fast for me. Could you speak a bit slower please?

And don't be afraid to tell someone you don't understand. 如果你听不懂，就直接说听不懂：

I'm sorry I don't understand.

I'm sorry I didn't catch that. (I didn't understand)

You could just ask them to say the same thing again. 你可以让他们重复一遍：

I'm sorry, could you repeat that please?

Would you mind repeating that sentence again - I didn't get what you said? (I didn't understand).

There is nothing bad about asking someone to repeat or speak slower. It's better to ask than to pretend⁴ you understand (make someone think you understand when you don't). It will really help you to communicate with English speakers. Sometimes they don't realise⁵ they are speaking so fast or using difficult words, so it's good for you to tell them.

I do understand the problems a lot of you are talking about. I studied French and German at university (a long time ago!) and I didn't have many French or German people to talk to. I made sure I listened to a lot of native speakers on the TV or radio or on cassettes⁶ from my teachers. I spoke⁷ to myself. I spoke to my classmates and I read a lot. Reading aloud (reading and speaking the words as you read) is also a good thing to do to practise speaking. Fortunately I did have a chance to visit those countries as they are not so far away as Britain or America is from China - but a lot of the time it was up to me to try to improve as best as I could without being able to speak to French of German people.

That is what you should all do with your English. I wish you LOTS of luck with your studies and I hope the advice helps.