On a Much More Work-Positive Note...
My neighbor friend who normally works at the Board with me is filling in for the math teacher at Okoppe JHS this month (she's on maternity leave), so her position is being filled by the wife of the school's English teacher. Now, this guy is my favorite JTE, so I figured the odds were good I'd like his wife.
Lo, I do. She doesn't speak any English (aside from a handful of words she half-recalls from high school), but she speaks wonderfully clear and well-enunciated Japanese and is completely on board with the idea of slowing down and using simpler sentence structures when necessary. I am very seldom at a loss to figure out what she's saying, and she's good at pulling out the synonyms and definitions until she gets a hit. Plus she's friendly and laid-back and overall a pleasure to talk to.
Someday I'd like to compile a simple guide to conversing with people who speak your language non-fluently. It's hard to appreciate how important the skill is until you've tried listening to someone who mumbles rapidly in a thick local dialect, but once you have? Man, I can feel the cockle-warming glow of my appreciation.
Lo, I do. She doesn't speak any English (aside from a handful of words she half-recalls from high school), but she speaks wonderfully clear and well-enunciated Japanese and is completely on board with the idea of slowing down and using simpler sentence structures when necessary. I am very seldom at a loss to figure out what she's saying, and she's good at pulling out the synonyms and definitions until she gets a hit. Plus she's friendly and laid-back and overall a pleasure to talk to.
Someday I'd like to compile a simple guide to conversing with people who speak your language non-fluently. It's hard to appreciate how important the skill is until you've tried listening to someone who mumbles rapidly in a thick local dialect, but once you have? Man, I can feel the cockle-warming glow of my appreciation.