[General] What am I trying to say?

[Silverobama]

Let's say that I was talking to my friend and I wanted to use a word but I didn't remember the pronunciation of the word, I tried to say it but I failed.

"You can make it more epic we can do much wider, cinema, cinema.....cinemography. What am I trying to say?"

Are the italic sentences natural? The intended meaning is "What's that word?"

Also is it natural to say "What is the word I'm trying to get out?"

 

[emsr2d2]

Let's say that I was talking to my friend and I wanted to use a word but I [STRIKE]didn't[/STRIKE] couldn't remember the pronunciation of the word. I tried to say it but I failed.

"You can make it more epic. We can do much wider, cinema, cinema ... cinemography. What am I trying to say?"

Are the italic sentences natural? The intended meaning is "What's that word?"

Also, is it natural to say "What is the word I'm trying to get out?"

Note my corrections above. An ellipsis between two full words consists of a space, then three dots, then another space.

Which are you trying to say - that you can't remember the word or you know the word but can't say it? You've suggested both. Either you know that the word is "cinematography" but you pronounced it incorrectly, or you couldn't quite recall the word "cinematography".

Your final question is grammatically correct but it's more common for native speakers to use "What am I trying to say?", "What's the word I need?" or "Aaargh, I can never pronounce that word!"

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Let's say that I was talking to my friend and I wanted to use a word, but I didn't remember the pronunciation of the word. I tried to say it, but I failed.

"You can make it more epic. We can do much wider, cinema, cinema ... cinemography. What am I trying to say?"

Are the italic sentences natural?

Yes.

The intended meaning is "What's that word?"

That's natural, too.

Also, is it natural to say "What is the word I'm looking for?"

It's natural as corrected.

As you probably know by now, you wanted cinematography.

Mind your punctuation!

 

[Silverobama]

Note my corrections above. An ellipsis between two full words consists of a space, then three dots, then another space.

Which are you trying to say - that you can't remember the word or you know the word but can't say it? You've suggested both. Either you know that the word is "cinematography" but you pronounced it incorrectly, or you couldn't quite recall the word "cinematography".

Your final question is grammatically correct but it's more common for native speakers to use "What am I trying to say?", "What's the word I need?" or "Aaargh, I can never pronounce that word!"

If I don't remember how to pronounce "cinematography", I should say "Aaargh, I can never pronounce that word!".
If I don't recall that word, I can say "What am I trying to say?" or "What's the word I need?".

Am I right?

 

[Tdol]

I agree with Charlies about What's the word I am looking for, but you could add It's on the tip of my tongue as you think you know it.

 

[jutfrank]

If I don't remember how to pronounce "cinematography", I should say "Aaargh, I can never pronounce that word!".
If I don't recall that word, I can say "What am I trying to say?" or "What's the word I need?".

Am I right?

I think What's the word? works fine for both cases.