Understanding what we say in person but not over the phone?

Question

English is my second laguage but I can read it write it and speak it fluently. However when I talk on the phone with people who's first language is english sometimes and depending on who it is.. i cannot understand what they say.. but in person is totally different and im able to understand everything... Why is that?

Answer 1

I think both chancelikely and supertop have part of the answer. Technically, only a limited bandwidth of the frequency that human voice comes in is transmitted (hence the often "tinny" sound of voices over the phone), and often a lot of disturbing noise alongside it. While native speakers can "filter out" likely combinations of speech sounds that make sense, that is much more difficult for non-native speakers.

More generally, human language was developed for face-to-face communication. In that situation, a lot of information is transmitted via paraverbal (such as pitch, speed, loudness, some of which is difficult to hear over the phone) and nonverbal channels (such as facial expression, gestures, distance between interlocutors etc. - all impossible to transmit over the phone). So while face-to-face communication works at three levels at the same time, telephone communication is restricted to one level, and this is rather restricted in its expression compared to natural human voice communication.

So no wonder that as a non-native speaker you are disadvantaged in your capability to guess what your interlocutor might mean on the phone.

Answer 2

Heh... there are people whose English I can't understand over the phone, and I'm a native speaker.

I suspect that body language, facial expressions, and lip reading may make it slightly easier for you (or anyone) to understand a person. Without any visual evidence, the only thing you have to go on outside of the actual words is tone of voice.

Answer 3

Guess it might be because when learning English as a second language and depending on the teacher, emphasis is put on observing the mouth of the speaker

Answer 4

It is because the telephone is not perfect; unless they pronounce the consonants distinctly, they are not transmitted very well.
Some people's voices carry better than others; you may here a few people that you can understand better. I do.