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I`ve been acclimatizing to my my new job but the hardest thing to adjust to is that I speak to native English speakers daily as opposed to once in a blue moon or often less. The thing is they can`t understand a word I`m saying thanks to the mumble and a speed of 500 words a minute.

When I was doing my old job, I went on my own to a random school and spoke English only to 12 year old children, “Do you like bananas?”, eager teachers after a free English lesson, “Do you like bananas?” and on occasions Japanese who were near-fluent English speakers with whom I could often have a normal albeit slightly stilted conversation.

Blogging, the Internet and reading English books, newspapers and magazines have kept my reading and writing skills going strong yet my oratory skills - never having been high in the first place have sunk to new depths. I`m asked a question and my brain has the answer fine but along the journey from brain to mouth the words seem in a competition to see which can arrive out first and the result is they come out as a “mwap” sound.

“Do you like bananas Simon?”
“Mwap.”
“Where are you from?”
“Mwap mwap”
“How long have you been in Japan?”
“Mwap”

Talking to Japanese I could always pass this off as a fault on their part:

“What do you mean you can`t understand what I`m saying? I`m English! I thought you said you could speak English?”

This would come out of course as “mwap mwap?” Sadly with native English speakers, this is impossible. I`m sure I`ll adjust to this or more accurately they`ll adjust to me. It`ll take them time but quicker than me slowing down.