Lessons in Communication

I have learned about so many aspects of communication this year. The "Communicator" IB (International Baccalaureate) Profile card that used to hang in my classroom flashes in my memory time and time again. I keep thinking that I will be a better IB teacher or any teacher after this time in Japan. I guess, though, the point of the IB Profile of Communicator is to develop not teachers who can teach communication, but people who can communicate...which is something I can do better than I did a year ago.

Lessons:

#1. If+I+want+your+help+I+will+tell+you. does not equal "If I want your help I will tell you."

I was SO shocked when one of the English teachers gave this reply when I offered to help her with a project that was keeping her busy. After about an hour of replaying the scene in my mind and trying to process my feelings-- of shock, hurt, annoyance-- I suddenly realized that to a non-native speaker of English, those words mean just what they say...that if she wanted my help.....she'd tell me. To native speakers-- in this case, me-- that sentence means more than the sum total of its parts. It means, "I DON'T want or need your help!! Back off!" Languages are tough.

#2. To communicate in Japanese I have to use more than Japanese words. I have to use a Japanese mind.

When I ask a Starbucks employee if they have Chai Cream Frappuchinos, and she responds by saying that they have Chai Tea Lattes...and then I say (using Japanese words), "So you don't have them?", forcing her to clarify by saying, "No", I am not speaking Japanese. I am using Japanese words to speak English, which is direct-- and entirely un-Japanese-- and which coerces a Japanese service industry employee into saying "No"-- which is even less Japanese.

#2b. To speak a foreign language, you can't just think of what you want to say in your own language and translate it into the same words in the foreign language and then say them.

When people say, "Thank you" to me I often reply with, "Of course!" If someone thanks me in Japanese, and I reply with the Japanese word for "of course", I sound dumb. Correspondingly, if Japanese people in America directly translated the Japanese words they want to say into English words, we'd have people walking into my American elementary school greeting Shannon and Nancy by saying, "I am under your care." Whaaaat?! That's crazy talk! "I am under your care??!!" What does that even mean?!

#4. It is impossible to understand Japanese people better by intently watching their lips.

If I'm having trouble hearing someone who's speaking English in a quiet voice or trouble understanding someone who speaks Engish with a think Irish accent, I can improve my comprehension by watching and semi-reading their lips. This does NOT work in Japanese. It is unnecessary and even strange to move your mouth much when speaking Japanese.

#5. Personality is largely expressed through communication.

Before this year I think I would have said that "personality" is how someone acts. Not being able to easily communicate with people around me-- because my Japanese skills are rudimentary, as are their English skills-- has produced a quieter version of Mya. It's a Mya who doesn't feel like the real me, a me who feels trapped in a personality that is not my own-- a quiet, non-joking, non-friendly Mya. Which really isn't a Mya at all. It's hard to be me when I can't communicate with words.