“Hey, what’s up?” Of course, they are just greeting you and asking, “How
are you?” but they are using the real casual English that is much more
common among native speakers.
In fact, as a teacher in San Francisco, I heard this common complaint most
often from students. They traveled from many countries to study in America.
Many new students thought of themselves as advanced English learners.
Many had great test scores.
However, when they tried to communicate with real people, they had
tremendous problems. I remember one student named Humberto saying to
me, “I can’t understand what anyone is saying. I don’t understand people at
the bus stop. I don’t understand the waitresses in restaurants. I thought I was
advanced, but I can’t understand anyone.” Like most students, Humberto had
studied formal textbook English but had never learned real conversational
English. He did well on tests but could not function in the real world.
Real pronunciation is also much different than what you’ll find in
textbooks and their audios. This is another source of difficulty for those who
learn using traditional methods. Schools typically teach the formal dictionary
pronunciation of English words. While the textbook will teach you “How are
you?” a real American speaker is likely to say something like, “Howya
doin’?” “Howzit goin’?” “Hey, whassup?” or “Nice-ta meetcha.”
To really communicate in English, you absolutely must understand this
real English. And these are only the simplest examples of greetings. The
entire language is full of such examples. No wonder even “advanced”
textbook English learners struggle to communicate with real people.
Idioms are another common problem for textbook learners. Spoken
American English is full of idioms, yet you’ll learn few of them from
textbooks. Recently, I recorded a conversation with my Dad on the topic of
business. Later, as I reviewed the recording, I was shocked by just how many
idioms we used in that short conversation.
Idioms are phrases that have a meaning different from the individual
words in it. They are often based on metaphors or cultural topics and can be
quite hard to understand logically. For example, in a business meeting, a
