<p>tango -
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<p>This is really an important aspect of communication, especially in speech communication. Successful communication requires the receptive attitude both of the listener and the speaker. Communication can be easily stalled if one party does not believe that the other party cannot communicate. During my early years of living in the US, I found that a lot of times my conversation with many English speaking people went very well because they listened and encouraged me to speak. I felt very encouraged when people did not understand me and said “Pardon me…,” or "Could you repeat?” But there was a huge negative effect on me when I started the conversation and some people told me “I don’t understand a thing what you say” and were ready to walk away. I also found that sometimes I could communicate better with students from other countries than with some native English students because foreign students and I were in the same boat: we both had difficulty in speaking and listening, and we were trying to be better speakers and listeners.</p>
<p>In electrical communication, when a receiver cannot decode a signal sent by the transmitter, it can do one the two followings: 1) Declare communication failure. 2) Ask the transmitter to retransmit. This same principle can be applied to human communication with some modification. The speakers can rephrase the questions or the answers. I find that when people don’t understand me the first time, if I rephrase my sentences they will understand. Similarly, when I don’t understand people and if they rephrase what they say I will understand.</p>