1. If there are more than 2 other people on the table during the break (sometimes there can be 5 of them!) and they start talking about many topics, if I REALLY want to follow the conversation well, I don't have much time to start formulating my responses. Why? Because if I start thinking about my responses (especially if they're long ones), I'll LOSE TRACK of the rest of the conversation.
Thus I resort to focusing on the conversation and I end up just smiling or nodding or showing the right mimic and blurting out short phrases. So I've become a passive listener instead of being an active participant of the conversation.
This problem is not as bad if there's only one other person with me or maximum two other people with me.
2. If I don't understand some words (which happen regularly since they talk about LOTS of stuff and my vocabulary is still limited - plus in normal conversations people sometimes use the slang words), I feel bad if I keep on asking as I'll ruin the flow of the conversation. ---> I'm pretty sure they won't mind if I ask them, but it just doesn't feel okay to ask all the time EVERY single day, every single break we have...
Thus I only try to guess - sometimes I guess well, sometimes I just don't have a clue of what they're talking about. Sometimes I can remember the word or phrase that I don't know so that I can ask R2 about it when I get back home or I can look it up in the dictionary, but most of the time I don't remember anymore as the conversation shifts to other topics.
This problem can be eliminated if I only talk to ONE other person, since then if I don't understand, we won't be able to carry a conversation, right? So either I have to ask or pretend that I understand hi hi hi hi...I don't mind asking if it's a one-on-one conversation since it's pretty easy to do.
3. More often than not, after our break is over, I start formulating my responses to whatever they have talked about during the break, but then once I know what to say, it's already too late to say it to them, right? It's kinda crazy, but I'm still in this phase of learning this language.
Okay, I just thought I should write these down here to remind myself about this. I'll blog-hop later, OK? I'm so sleepy he he he...
