Equivocal Competence

When you're trying to learn a new language, one thing that can help you is equivocal competence. It's when a native speaker of the language you are trying to learn asks you something and you respond to a different question than the one you thought you were asked but they understand you're reply as having an odd relationship to the question they posed. Equivocal competence definitely comes in handy when trying to learn a new language.