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Spain flagNacho Salazar
Interview in English Today, I have had my first english interview by phone. I have felt ridiculous because in three sentences I heard, I only understood one sentence. I'm improve my english all days three hours. I'm reading in English, listening vaughan radio or watching Vaughan TV, I'm writing in text, doing crosswords...but I don't understand when someone speak in English. What can I do??

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Today, I have had my first eEnglish interview by phone.
I have felt ridiculous because in of the three sentences I heard, I only understood only one sentence.

I'm improve my eEnglish all days by studying for three hours every day. I'm reading in English, listening to vaughan radio or watching Vaughan TV, I'm writing in write texts, doing crosswords...but I don't understand when someone speaks in English.

What can I do??

 

Here’s another way.  This is how I would write it in everyday language.

 

Today, I had my first interview in English over the phone.  I felt ridiculous because I understood only one of the three sentences I heard. (or:  “one out of every three sentences,”  depending on your meaning.)

 

I try to improve my English by studying for three hours every day.  I read English, listen to English on the radio or watch English TV, write exercises or essays in English, work crossword puzzles, etc…but I still can’t understand spoken English.

 

What can I do?

 

According to correct grammar, the word “only” comes before the word it modifies, so it would be correct to say, “I understood only one sentence.”  This is a grammatical mistake made by the majority of Americans.

 

Use the Simple Present to express the idea that an action is repeated or usual. The action can be a habit, a hobby, a daily event, a scheduled event or something that often happens.  (I read, listen etc…)

 

Use the Simple Past to express the idea that an action started and finished at a specific time in the past.  (I had my first interview today.)

 

We use the Present Perfect to say that an action happened at an unspecified time before now. The exact time is not important. You CANNOT use the Present Perfect with specific time expressions such as: yesterday, one year ago, last week, when I was a child, when I lived in Japan, at that moment, that day, one day, etc. We CAN use the Present Perfect with unspecific expressions such as: ever, never, once, many times, several times, before, so far, already, yet, etc.  (Example: I have had four interviews so far.)

 

A good way to improve listening comprehension in a language is to listen to the language being spoken.  Reading and writing helps one to read and write but not to understand the spoken word.  One technique I like is to listen to recordings while I simultaneously read a text of what is being said.  Practice in speaking and listening to the spoken language are necessary to improve aural comprehension.

 

There is another factor which interferes with our learning a language rapidly.  The more often we revert to our native language, the more we reinforce the speech patterns of our native language.  That prevents us from mastering the patterns of the language we are studying.  The ideal environment for learning another language is to be where one does not use his native language at all.  For most of us that is not possible, so we have to put up with the slow process.  Pero, poco a poco se va lejos.

 

“I have felt ridiculous because in three sentences I heard, I only understood one sentence.”  I’m not sure what you meant here.  Did you mean that you understood only one of every three sentences you heard?

 

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Interview in English

Today, I have had my first English interview by phone.
I have felt ridiculous because in three sentences I heard, I only understood one sentence.

I'm improve my english all days three hours I work at improving my English for three hours every day. I'm reading in English, listening to Vaughan radio or watching Vaughan TV, I'm writing in text, doing crosswords...but I don't understand when someone speaks in English.

What can I do??

I have a similar problem, I find listening and talking in Spanish much harder than writing and reading. Three things help me:-

 

1. Talking to real people using Skype - you will find plenty of nice people here on iTalki. This is much better for me than TV.

2. Sometimes I play back difficult sentences from Spanish audio books at a slow speed which helps me to distinguish words better. 

3. I find it useful to try and understand at first, the gist of what people are saying rather than trying to understand everything perfectly and then getting bogged down at the start and not hearing what comes later in a sentence, or a few sentences later.

 

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