Having been immersed in a culture where very few people speak my language, I have been able to observe so many important lessons in the art of cross-cultural communication.
When two people speak different languages, all you have to rely on is what little you hold in common, accompanied by intermittent gestures.
A couple of lessons:
Listen! This might be one of the most important things that a person can do, and it's probably the most difficult. The natural reaction - at least for Americans - is to keep talking, to fill the void of silence. What we often don't understand is that all this talking does is jumble things up for both speakers. Furthermore, this can lead to putting words in someone else's mouth, preventing communication. Take time to listen. Listen well. This will make everything smoother.
Empathize. One of the things that has helped me is to put myself in that person's shoes. Think about history, about backgrounds, about linguistic influences, and then use those to interpret messages. For example, Arabic doesn't contain the letter "p." Knowing this, it's easy for me to interpret when a speaker says "beoble," that he is, in fact, saying "people." Another example, I was at a cafe the other day, and I asked the man for hummus or bread, or anything to eat. He said that he didn't have anything, and then he proceeded to continue the conversation in Arabic. Knowing literally nothing that he was saying, I thought about how giving the Arabic people are, and I was able to surmise that he was asking me if I wanted him to walk down the street to get me food. A little application of cultural knowledge can give way to linguistic understanding.
Recognize Patterns. Much like empathizing, certain patterns can be seen in a language, and they can help out a lot. For example, I have noticed that people here call grocery stores subermarkets. Not thinking about it, I asked my Iraqi roommate what time the grocery store opened. He looked at me, confused, and said he didn't know. This left me really confused because it was such a simple question, and I knew that he knew the answer. Later, I was able to discover that he didn't even know the word grocery store because everyone here says subermarket. This also includes acknowledging filler words. Here, the word "yani" gets said all the time. There is no definite meaning in most cases. Just a filler.
Make It Easy. Don't read incorrectly. I said make it easy, not dumb it down. Communication can be achieved with increasing difficulty depending upon the grammatical structures and words employed. Therefore, it's usually best to communicate in the simplest ways, even though they may not sound as smart or polite. Don't try to impress, just try to get the point across.
Accept Nuances and Adapt. Sometimes there will be words that are misused, phrases that are taken out of context, things that are misunderstood. Most of the time, it's best to take it for what it's worth and just move on. Again, the goal is getting the point across, not achieving perfection.
Cross-cultural communication is not easy. It's messy, and it takes time to get it right. I'm doing my best here. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
For example, today in class, my classmate was trying to say 'exactly' (bizaBt), and she accidentally said 'naked' (bizaLt). Hilarity ensued, followed by the other guy in class and myself using bizaLt in our next few example sentences. The lesson? Never will I ever forget how to say 'naked' in Arabic.
When two people speak different languages, all you have to rely on is what little you hold in common, accompanied by intermittent gestures.
A couple of lessons:
Listen! This might be one of the most important things that a person can do, and it's probably the most difficult. The natural reaction - at least for Americans - is to keep talking, to fill the void of silence. What we often don't understand is that all this talking does is jumble things up for both speakers. Furthermore, this can lead to putting words in someone else's mouth, preventing communication. Take time to listen. Listen well. This will make everything smoother.
Empathize. One of the things that has helped me is to put myself in that person's shoes. Think about history, about backgrounds, about linguistic influences, and then use those to interpret messages. For example, Arabic doesn't contain the letter "p." Knowing this, it's easy for me to interpret when a speaker says "beoble," that he is, in fact, saying "people." Another example, I was at a cafe the other day, and I asked the man for hummus or bread, or anything to eat. He said that he didn't have anything, and then he proceeded to continue the conversation in Arabic. Knowing literally nothing that he was saying, I thought about how giving the Arabic people are, and I was able to surmise that he was asking me if I wanted him to walk down the street to get me food. A little application of cultural knowledge can give way to linguistic understanding.
Recognize Patterns. Much like empathizing, certain patterns can be seen in a language, and they can help out a lot. For example, I have noticed that people here call grocery stores subermarkets. Not thinking about it, I asked my Iraqi roommate what time the grocery store opened. He looked at me, confused, and said he didn't know. This left me really confused because it was such a simple question, and I knew that he knew the answer. Later, I was able to discover that he didn't even know the word grocery store because everyone here says subermarket. This also includes acknowledging filler words. Here, the word "yani" gets said all the time. There is no definite meaning in most cases. Just a filler.
Make It Easy. Don't read incorrectly. I said make it easy, not dumb it down. Communication can be achieved with increasing difficulty depending upon the grammatical structures and words employed. Therefore, it's usually best to communicate in the simplest ways, even though they may not sound as smart or polite. Don't try to impress, just try to get the point across.
Accept Nuances and Adapt. Sometimes there will be words that are misused, phrases that are taken out of context, things that are misunderstood. Most of the time, it's best to take it for what it's worth and just move on. Again, the goal is getting the point across, not achieving perfection.
Cross-cultural communication is not easy. It's messy, and it takes time to get it right. I'm doing my best here. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
For example, today in class, my classmate was trying to say 'exactly' (bizaBt), and she accidentally said 'naked' (bizaLt). Hilarity ensued, followed by the other guy in class and myself using bizaLt in our next few example sentences. The lesson? Never will I ever forget how to say 'naked' in Arabic.
Great blog entry... good lessons!
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