Language Skills and Bambi
Meeting someone for the first time can be a bit intimidating, if you don't speak one another's language. Or if one of you has poor skills in the language that is taught almost everywhere. So what do you do? You use the universal language of course, the body language! Use it with a few words of English and you can make yourself somewhat understood.
These thoughts of mine are based on encounters with foreigners and travellers with lack of English skills. I am not a native English speaker myself, it happens to be my third language. When speaking to someone of another country and completely different culture, you really need to think hard and try not to insult the other person. I tend to adjust my English and speak like the person I'm talking to, especially if it's one who has poor English. This happens on the quite rare occassions, such as interacting with tourists. However, if I know the person, I try my best to help them improve and understand with the English I have learned after spending time in class, practicing with friends, singing songs and watching TV. Of course, living with a native English speaking host family has contributed a whole lot.
So, today I had the oppurtunity to try out my very, ridiculously poor excuse for Japanese with a native. A friend has a japanese visitor over and I got to meet him. Feeling a little cocky, I thought beforehand how I was going to speak japanese, alright, thinking up presentation phrases and questions to ask. Then all of a sudden it hit me. How was I supposed to greet him?? The japanese bow, unlike us barbarians who shake dirty hands. Feeling stressed about something so stupid, I arrive at the meeting point. My friend introduces us and the words get caught in my throat and thoughts about comunication disappear with a poof. Smoke was probably blowing through my ears. Nothing besides my name on repeat like a broken record player, comes out. He introduces himself and politely says "How do you do". I burst out some random words and he just looks and laughs awkwardly. First impressions last, right? My friend saves the day and says we should go ice skating. First time for the japanese, probably the ten thousand time for me. You have no need of guessing who owned on the skates.
Feeling more or less like Bambi, I decide to live with it and be a funny dork about it all. Since my japanese skills had been pretty much zero, I find my comfort zone all of a sudden and say in understandable japanese how my foot hurt, and I even understood his response. I felt victorious and kept throwing in some phrases and words here and there. Poor fella probably thought I was butchering his mother tongue. Gomenasai.
What was the point of this post again...? The best way of communication is through body language, praise be to hand gestures and silly faces. Even my mum and her non-existant English, can make herself understood with Swenglish words and hand gestures. You can communicate with anyone with this language. If you happen to be offensive and suggesting things you're not aware, is another question for another day...
I shook his hand the barbaric way.
~M~
These thoughts of mine are based on encounters with foreigners and travellers with lack of English skills. I am not a native English speaker myself, it happens to be my third language. When speaking to someone of another country and completely different culture, you really need to think hard and try not to insult the other person. I tend to adjust my English and speak like the person I'm talking to, especially if it's one who has poor English. This happens on the quite rare occassions, such as interacting with tourists. However, if I know the person, I try my best to help them improve and understand with the English I have learned after spending time in class, practicing with friends, singing songs and watching TV. Of course, living with a native English speaking host family has contributed a whole lot.
So, today I had the oppurtunity to try out my very, ridiculously poor excuse for Japanese with a native. A friend has a japanese visitor over and I got to meet him. Feeling a little cocky, I thought beforehand how I was going to speak japanese, alright, thinking up presentation phrases and questions to ask. Then all of a sudden it hit me. How was I supposed to greet him?? The japanese bow, unlike us barbarians who shake dirty hands. Feeling stressed about something so stupid, I arrive at the meeting point. My friend introduces us and the words get caught in my throat and thoughts about comunication disappear with a poof. Smoke was probably blowing through my ears. Nothing besides my name on repeat like a broken record player, comes out. He introduces himself and politely says "How do you do". I burst out some random words and he just looks and laughs awkwardly. First impressions last, right? My friend saves the day and says we should go ice skating. First time for the japanese, probably the ten thousand time for me. You have no need of guessing who owned on the skates.
Feeling more or less like Bambi, I decide to live with it and be a funny dork about it all. Since my japanese skills had been pretty much zero, I find my comfort zone all of a sudden and say in understandable japanese how my foot hurt, and I even understood his response. I felt victorious and kept throwing in some phrases and words here and there. Poor fella probably thought I was butchering his mother tongue. Gomenasai.
What was the point of this post again...? The best way of communication is through body language, praise be to hand gestures and silly faces. Even my mum and her non-existant English, can make herself understood with Swenglish words and hand gestures. You can communicate with anyone with this language. If you happen to be offensive and suggesting things you're not aware, is another question for another day...
I shook his hand the barbaric way.
~M~