Chinese is a difficult language. While I was working the other day, I could overhear the servers in the Chinese department talking loudly in strange voices. When I realized they were speaking another language, I looked over at them and they were looking at me. Unlike the rude Chinese people who were staring at me, I quickly turned away and tried to pretend like I was wiping off the counter (unfortunately, I grabbed a magazine, so it probably did not look that convincing). I thought to myself, "They could be saying anything about me. Hey, look at the kid with the neck that is too large for his head! Is he a turtle-neck model or is it just naturally that way?" Who were they to point at me and speak in a different language? You don't see me pulling out the old Swahili and going, "Click, Click, Click," towards other people! Main point of blog post: language barriers are a bad thing.
In school I take Spanish. I am pretty good at it. I can conjugate all the necessary forms of certain verbs and tell you which one goes with what person, but once I hear it I am lost. One time, we were doing a listening assignment and we were expected to listen to a recording of a woman's day and say what she did. After listening to the tape, I was pretty sure she had been driving to her sister's house to pick up her garbage because she was handicapped and couldn't reach the front door. Apparently, that was wrong! She was buying a hotel! I guess that explains the elevator, but still! It made no sense to me!
The solution I would like to offer in response to language barriers is this: wave your hands around as much as possible. If I am speaking to someone and I want to know where the restrooms is, I can usually get my point across pretty well. Also, it might be useful to bring up things that all countries share. If I am looking for the nearest Copacabana, I might just hum a few bars of that beloved Barry Manilow hit that changed our lives so many years ago. Another option is to simply yell, "ENGLISH!?" really loud until someone says, "Stop yelling!" There, ask that person for directions. Guiding your way through different languages may be tough but just remember that we all speak one language: love....and television.
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