Talking about where you live and where to stay

Abstract

One of the important things about being a successful language learner is to be able to filter out surplus information and go for the essentials. This is why you are asked to watch out for certain words and phrases before you listen. You need to be able to recognize these amongst a barrage of language which may be too fast or complicated for you to understand – especially the first time. So don’t panic when faced with a new conversation and don’t feel that you have to understand every single word. It just isn’t necessary. Remember too that there will be language which you will want to be able to produce yourself and a great deal more which you will want to understand, but not necessarily to use. It’s a good idea at this stage to distinguish between what you want to say (active language) and what you simply want to understand (passive). Why not mark new vocabulary either ‘a’ for active or ‘p’ for passive?