Listening problems

[wannabeafreak]

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[Ncao]

I think one reason why a non native Cantonese speaker sometimes has problems understanding it is because Cantonese is full of slang words. HK is famous for making up new slang words.

[Mike]

I know what you mean wannabeafreak. I don't know about Chinese because my speaking and listening skills are rubbish but in French I find the same thing. Sometimes I realise that the other person just used one word I didn't know, maybe a slang or swear word, and that puts me off understanding the whole sentence, even when I already know the context. The other one is when I kind of start listening properly half way through a word or a sentence and I guess my head tries to start sorting out all the words in the string of sounds at the wrong place. So, as an example, these words arrive at my ears "Where are you going on holiday this year" but the inside of my head makes it into "Where are youg oingon hol iday this year" :-) The other thing is that I reckon the brain has a place to go to get information on particular subjects and sometime it just can't remember quick enough where that place is. It's not strictly a memory problem but a retrieval problem!!!