{"id":3174,"date":"2015-03-11T06:22:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-11T10:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/?p=3174"},"modified":"2020-10-02T12:56:47","modified_gmt":"2020-10-02T16:56:47","slug":"youre-just-too-polite-for-your-own-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/2015\/03\/11\/youre-just-too-polite-for-your-own-good\/","title":{"rendered":"You’re Just Too Polite for Your Own Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Itchy<\/a><\/p>\n

I have a bad habit that I often fall into when I speak a foreign language: I try to please the listener, at my own expense.<\/p>\n

Come to think of\u00a0it, this\u00a0might just be a bad habit of mine in general, in any language. Who doesn\u2019t want to be seen a good light by the person they\u2019re speaking to? We test the waters with various jokes or anecdotes, pay attention to what the other person laughs at, doesn\u2019t get, or frowns at, and we adjust accordingly. I do this, anyway. Whoever I\u2019m talking to, I want them to feel comfortable in my presence.<\/p>\n

But with foreign languages in particular, I often offer this comfort at my own expense, in various ways. I might, for example, use incorrect English on purpose, if I notice the person I\u2019m talking to is doing it, so they don\u2019t feel bad about the errors. If I\u2019ve been mistaken for a native speaker, I might speak really fast or mumble, slurring my words together to give the impression that I\u2019m a totally fluent local, so as not to break the illusion. Worst of all, I often don\u2019t want to interrupt the flow of conversation by asking what a particular word means, so I\u2019ll just smile and nod and pretend to\u00a0know exactly what we\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t conscious decisions, of course. They\u2019re just habits I need to break.<\/p>\n

Using incorrect English on purpose has obvious consequences\u2014my own wife continues to make certain small, silly mistakes because I\u2019ve started using them too.\u00a0Muttering and mumbling to try to sound fluent isn\u2019t just making me more<\/em> incomprehensible, it also inhibits my ability to \u201cproofread\u201d myself while I\u2019m talking, taking note of where I\u2019ve said something I know is incorrect, and how to say it right next time. If I don\u2019t ask what a word means, and I can\u2019t grasp it from the context of the conversation, how am I supposed to learn it without carrying around a dictionary?<\/p>\n

In language learning, as in life, you\u2019ve got to allow\u00a0yourself to be uncomfortable. No two ways about it. For me, that means accepting that I might possibly embarrass, surprise, or irritate the person I\u2019m speaking to\u2014even though the most likely scenario is that they won’t mind at all. Most people are perfectly friendly. I just need to get over it.<\/p>\n

What about you? Do you try to gratify others at your own expense, or do you have some other bad habits that need breaking?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

I have a bad habit that I often fall into when I speak a foreign language: I try to please the listener, at my own expense. Come to think of\u00a0it, this\u00a0might just be a bad habit of mine in general, in any language. Who doesn\u2019t want to be seen a good light by the person…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":115,"featured_media":4459,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[542801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3174","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived-posts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/115"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3175,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3174\/revisions\/3175"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/language-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}