1.   At times, his mind strained to understand the language spoken to him.

2.   But too often you had to strain to understand them.

3.   Cousins strain to understand her when she talks.

4.   Groups of Germans and Portuguese sat on the museum steps in spring sun, straining to understand picketing employees who explained their cause in rapid French.

5.   Some have joined their transplanted brethren in the bars, straining to understand and soaking in the atmosphere.

6.   That conclusion, though still tentative, is the latest in a series of surprises that theorists have been straining to understand.