Block Your Ears! 3 People NOT to Listen to When Learning a Language
Generally speaking, listening to as many people as possible is a good idea when you are learning a new language. It is by doing this that you pick up new words and get more confident with your listening skills. However, what if the person you are listening to is talking complete and utter unadulterated horse manure?
It is quite difficult to work out at first who is talking nonsense in your new language, as you can only make out a small percentage of what is being said anyway. Thankfully, there are some people who can always to be trusted to spout unintelligible rubbish.
Here are a few of those you will want to avoid:
Railway Announcers
In case you hadn’t noticed, this is the 21st century. I can call my mum on the other side of the planet in a video conference and she can see and hear me clearly enough to know that I have lost weight, I am not sleeping enough and I am probably hanging around with the wrong crowd. I also have a phone, which is smarter than me, and a car, which is only marginally dumber than me. So why oh why can no one invent a railway tannoy system which lets you hear the words instead of strange noises and nonsense? Spend too long listening to the person making these announcements and you will learn an entirely new language.
Street Vendors
I don’t even understand street vendors when they speak English. All over the world these people speak a mangled version of the local language which only they are fluent in. I once tried to buy a stick of deodorant off a guy in the street in Ecuador. I spent about 10 minutes trying to work out what he was trying to tell me, even though I was fairly confident in Spanish at that stage. Eventually, I realised that the pink deodorant I was trying to buy was for women. So I had to explain that I was colour blind as well as being rubbish at Spanish and unable to understand street vendor jargon.
Politicians
If there is one rule I have tried to stick to in life it is that staying away from politicians is a good idea. I once tuned into a news programme in Spanish and had no idea that the guy being interviewed was some sort of election candidate. I just about made out the question being thrown at him but the answer was unintelligible nonsense. Don’t forget that politicians are snatched from their cradles by serpents when they are babies. They are then taught how to avoid answering direct questions by wandering off into irrelevant subjects. If you want to learn new words and keep your sanity then I would definitely suggest adding politicians onto your list of people to ignore.
Can you think of any more? Let us know in the comments below!