Ask someone to speak a clear English

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giumbolo@gmail.com - 31 Mar 2008 10:50 GMT

My teacher told me that exists a polite way to ask someone to speak a
clear and slow english to facilitate the comprehention.
It is maybe an acronym.
Could you please tell me that term?

Giumbolo

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Matthew Huntbach - 31 Mar 2008 13:26 GMT

> My teacher told me that exists a polite way to ask someone to speak a
> clear and slow english to facilitate the comprehention.
> It is maybe an acronym.
> Could you please tell me that term?

Your English teacher may have given you a phrase you can use to make the
request, and an acronym to help you remember that phrase, but there is no
such acronym which you can simply pronounce and a native English speaker
would know what you meant by it.

"Could you slow down please, my English is not very good?"

would work, but so would any similar phrase, there is not some special
phrase to request it.

Politeness means you take the blame even if the problem doesn't really lie
with you. The above is polite because you make out the problem is yours by
saying "my English is not very good". If you were to say

"Sorry, I can't understand you, please slow down"

even though you've said "sorry" and "please" it comes across as less
polite, because you're suggesting the problem lies with the speaker.

Matthew Huntbach

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / March 2008

Ask someone to speak a clear English