Freelancers with odesk and elance - how often do you communicate with clients by voice in English?

Question

Upwork

Colleagues, good afternoon,
Faced a problem in the last 24 hours - in two projects, clients refused to work with me because of spoken English. More precisely, because I said that I would not be able to discuss the project with their voice. I usually explain this to them with a phrase like "My verbal English is not good, so we can only chat in Skype".
Moreover, I have been writing emails and chatting on Skype for the past two years. And then I thought about how to assess whether my "verbal English" is bad or maybe I wind myself up in vain.
Q: How often do clients ask you to speak to them by voice? Perhaps someone has a skype meeting once a week, or someone likes to chat with the client in English at the beginning / during the project. Share your experience please

Answer 1

I think you are screwing up. The main thing is to try. What is worth starting.
Probably for the first client you wrote sorry for my English.

Answer 2

Usually they ask to talk once, I try not to refuse if it’s quiet and a good channel, and then it always turns out if I can understand the client or if he speaks very quickly and indistinctly and I can’t understand him.
There is fear at first, and then the attempt is not torture

Answer 3

I had the opportunity to get a job for one Canadian, a permanent remote job, I mean. So, at an interview in English, he noticed that I didn’t have this very spoken English and asked if I agreed to raise his level in the courses, i.e. I was even ready to pay for the courses. As a result, he did not dare to give me a job purely because of English. There were 2-3 more times when they offered to discuss the details on Skype, but after learning that I didn’t successfully merge with the conversation. In general, I concluded for myself that spoken English, even if not necessary, can help increase your competitiveness in the market and, as a result, your rate.