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How to Confirm Understanding

Some useful expressions to make sure you’re following someone.

If you’re being asked questions in an English exam, at work or at university, you need to be able to make sure you understand what the other person has asked you. Practise using some useful expressions from our ‘5 Minute Functions’ video lesson below. This video was made with IELTS students in mind but will be useful for anyone facing a Speaking exam or wanting to improve their speaking skills.

Transcript for ‘How to Confirm Understanding’

As you probably already know, Part 3 of the IELTS Speaking exam is designed to be a discussion between yourself and the examiner. Unlike in Part 1 where the questions are simple ice-breakers that the examiner reads from a script, in Part 3 the examiner is more free to react to your own answers more spontaneously.  

Consequently, there’s always a chance that you might need to check you understand something the examiner asks or make sure the examiner understands something you’ve said. 

In this lesson we’ll look at phrases you can use to confirm understanding.

The worst that can happen is you simply don’t understand or haven’t heard what the examiner has asked. In this case use this phrase to ask the examiner to repeat the question. 

Sorry … I’m afraid I didn’t catch that. Could you say that again?

Let’s imagine you hear everything clearly but are not sure about the meaning of a word or phrase, or might not fully understand what the examiner means. In this case you can say something like this. For example: 

Could you explain what you mean by distance learning?

You may not fully understand what the examiner has asked but you might feel confident enough to make a guess in which case you can use these expressions. For example:

When you say … do you mean …?
By … do you mean …?
When you say ‘distance learning’ do you mean learning on your own and not in a classroom?

The following are similar to the previous two phrases, If you feel pretty confident you understand but just want to confirm this these phrases are useful. For example: 

Are you asking whether/if …
If I understand you correctly you’re asking …

Are you asking if I think educational opportunities should be more equal?

Now let’s look at what you can say to make sure the examiner understands something you’ve said. 

Do you know what I mean?

Native speakers will often fill their speech with ‘Do you know what I mean’. This is often used in some cases simply to fill the gaps rather like a filler rather than to confirm understanding. This might come across as a little informal during an exam so you should try not overusing this expression. However,  If you get the impression you have said something that the examiner is unclear about. Feel free to use it along with

Does that make sense?
Do you follow me?

To sum up here are the phrases we’ve looked at to confirm understanding. Try to use a variety of them in your exam preparation. 

I’m afraid I didn’t catch that … 
Could you explain what you mean by …
By … do you mean …?
When you say … do you mean …?
Are you asking whether/if …
If I understand you correctly you’re asking …
Do you know what I mean?
Does that make sense?
Do you follow me?

Filed Under: Cambridge C1: Business Higher (BEC), Functions, Skills

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