I read this e-mail from Jen about communicating across language barriers and accents years There is a lot of true in this article. But I don’t think that keeping slang, idiom and jargons to a minimum is good thing. Becouse this is the everyday language.
English slang (and many other things like grammar) makes sometimes problems to me as well:) But if I don’t understand I always ask. Thanks this I know today what does “bud” or “you are rule” mean. (Thank you Derek and Jarra).
Sometimes I really feel foolish when I’m asking, but it is like when a child is three years old. He/she starts to speak and to learn mother’s language. And many words seems to be without meaning to this child. So he/she asks oft “why?” , “what does it mean?” We can call this age Asking Age. So all people, whom are learning a foreign language need to get through this “Asking Age” to improve language skills.
And please don’t appreciate people when they speak in foreign language. Because the level of their (for example) English can be low and they just can’t explain their thoughts.
This happened to me four years ago. I worked with one guy from Syria. His Slovak was weak. He answered only “yes” or “no”. That’s why I thought he isn’t very intelligent. I met him yesterday after two years . His Slovak is much better now and I know that he is young genius with a lot of dreams and great ideas.