This past weekend, I was in Autrans with some teacher friends and we were playing a game called Bananagrams.

It’s a word game (like Scrabble, but way more (beaucoup plus) fun!), so I’m sure you can imagine that we English teachers were having a blast (s’amuser comme des fous)/

As we were playing, I laid down (j’ai placé) the word “Totem.”

Jane, a British friend asked me what word I had.

“Todem.” I said, with my American accent.

“That’s not a word. Totem is, but not todem!” (The difference is in the pronunciation—try it!)

That’s what I said “to-Tem”, I replied, trying to do my best British accent.

Clearly, my American accent meant that British Jane didn’t understand what I said. And we speak the same language!

If you’ve ever had problems understanding your American colleagues, perhaps you thought that it was because English is not your native language.

But in fact, it can also be due to their American accent.

I don’t have to tell you that Americans don’t always articulate and that it sometimes (ok, often…) sounds like (donne l’impression) all the sounds run together.

It’s so frustrating, especially when you know that your English is decent.

But it doesn’t have to be so difficult, if you’ve got some of the “secrets” to understanding the American accent.

Of course, I can’t give you all the secrets at once, but this week’s episode of SBFG TV shows you how to understand some VERY common expressions: “What are you…” and “What do you…”.

It’s one very useful secret. 🙂

Don’t let the simplicity of the written structures fool you (Ne laissez pas la simplicité des structures écrites vous tromper). When you read them, they’re extremely simple. When you hear them…well, that’s where it gets complicated.

This week’s episode will greatly help you better understand your American colleagues.