Sorry?..Sorry?.. Forget it.

This is the ninth month of mine in the United States. Since I have been here I realize that my English I have learnt from Thailand is very different from here. Although some words are the same, the pronunciations are different to those I learnt. Many new words with new pronunciations come to me everyday. They come again and again to my ear so that eventually they made me familiar with them. However there are many things come from English speakers that I still don't understand well, especially when they talk very fast or speak in different accents from the pronunciations I heard before. Sometimes I did not know what people talked about. If they talked to me and I did not understand, I would say "Sorry?".

I would always say "Sorry?" once when I did not understand at the first time. Then people whom I was talking to said to me again, but I still did not understand and I would keep saying "Sorry?" again. So sometimes it made people impatient and said "Forget it" to me. This situation did happen to me. It happened when I talked to an Indian student. He knows English very well and he speaks very fast with his accent. I always do not understand well what he talked. My face was full of question marks and my mouth said "Sorry?" when I did not understand. So he said again and even tried to make me understand, but I still not understood and said "Sorry?" again. He never said at the third time and would say "Ah..Forget it". That caused stopping the conversation. I felt like I was very stupid that I did not understand what he said so that he did not want to talk to me anymore. For me 'forget it' means that people whom I talk to are not be patient enough to explain to me and don't want to talk about that anymore. They might think there is no sense in talking to me. The situation like that did not just happen to me once but many times. It is just because I do not understand what people say and keep asking "Sorry?.. Sorry?".

It used to be when somebody said "Forget it" to me at the earlier times I was in the United States, it made me feel very bad with my English listening. I would also lose my self-confident in speaking English. Many times when being in a group of conversation, I kept quiet because I just did not want to interrupt people with my words "Sorry! I don't understand. What are you guys talking about?". I always kept my not understanding in my mind and asked somebody in the group later. I know that this is not such a good way to learn English and it hindered me from learning English. I should ask immediately when I did not understand because it might help people understand that I did not understand English very well and give me a clear answer. So I might understand English faster. However keeping quiet made me feel more confident than feeling of being an interrupter of the conversation.

I have been aware that this habit is the big hindrance in my learning English. I thought I should break the hindrance and beat it otherwise how I could improve my English listening. Therefore I keep practicing in English listening not just in everyday conversations but also from radio, TV shows, and movies. I still keep saying "Sorry" when I don't understand. Even sometimes I would hear "Forget it" and I still feel bad about that, I do not care much. If I worried too much, my hindrance would not be reduced. So I have tried to ask in other ways not just "Sorry?" but like "Could you say that again?", "What do you mean?", or "Could you speak slowly?" in order to let people I talked to explain more or to answer in other ways.

I don't know if anybody had any experience like me but I would suggest you who do not understand well in English not keep your curiosity inside without asking any question otherwise it will prevent you from improving your English. Saying "Sorry!" or saying in any alternative way like "What do you mean?" or "whatever" when you do not understand is the best way to make you clearly understand. Even sometimes you might hear "Forget it", do not lose your self-confident. Do not worry much about that. Keep going doing that and then your English will be improved.

-Suwimon
English 123