Originally Posted by
darthbimmer
Indeed. Foreign colleagues of mine who've become fluent in spoken English have said that the hardest part to learn was how to separate words when listening to a native speaker. (Reading proper English is much easier than hearing it conversationally.) Because of this I slow down my rate of speech, enunciate carefully, and structure my cadence around key phrases. Several colleagues have said they find my English easier to understand than anyone else's.
I do the same. It was a lesson learned from a former secretary who was born in Hong Kong and a native Chinese speaker. She once mentioned she could tell whether I was talking on a business call or talking to a friend. Even though she was fluent in English she could not understand me when I was speaking with a friend. Until then I never thought there was a difference.