Day 257 - Please Say What You Mean

by  Brisbane City Council  I work four days a week these days. It was the arrangement I made with the office at the State Department that my company supports when I explained that we would be moving to San Diego, but that I hoped I could continue working for them from a distance. I thought the reduction in my hours was what the office wanted. I recently learned that they thought the reduction in hours is what I wanted. If only we had all just said what we meant. I think I speak directly. That doesn't mean I say everything that I think. I admit that I have many politically incorrect, even unkind thoughts and opinions which if spoken aloud might anger or hurt someone or even change someone's good opinion of me. I keep those thoughts to myself if I think the words will hurt someone. I hope that my actions speak louder than my unspoken words. But when I say something, I intend it to be unambiguous and direct.

I had difficulty speaking or writing this way when I lived in Romania. Or more precisely, I had difficulty being understood when I spoke or wrote this way. My colleague, Chris, the British lecturer, would tell me when our colleagues in the English Department would ask what I meant by what I wrote in the Department book. Over and over again, I would declare that I meant what I wrote, nothing else. Still, they asked again.

This desire to say what I mean, nothing more and nothing less, has impeded by fluency in foreign languages. I love to learn languages, but until I know I can say exactly what I mean, I hold back. I spend my time listening instead of speaking. It took me some time to learn this about myself. I knew I hesitated to speak, and I knew this was a possible disadvantage to my developing fluency. But nothing could overcome my hesitency to speak until I knew I was saying everything right - using the right words and correct grammar. And now that I know a little bit of several languages but none of them completely, I dare not speak at all because the languages are all mixed up. I speak Foreign Language, not any particular foreign language, and I'm the only one who speaks that particular variant of Foreign Language. I'm the only one who understands me.

My first foreign language was German. In ninth grade, my junior high offered German in addition to Latin, the dead foreign language that I would have had on my schedule because everyone told me it would be good to study Latin. No one could tell me why. But when German was added, I knew that was for me. I didn't know anyone I could speak Latin with, but I knew I could try speaking German with my grandfather. That is, if I ever felt comfortable speaking with him at all. I wasn't convinced Grandpa like kids.

The approach of the German teacher involved memorization of dialogs which we took turns speaking to classmates in pairs until we could repeat the both halves of the entire dialog without referring to the book. I can still repeat some of those dialogs.

Speaker 1: Ich kann nicht meine Gummischuhe finden. (I can't find my rubbers.)

Speaker 2: Ach, hier sind sie, hinter der Tür. (Oh, here they are, behind the door.)

Very useful in an emergency.

These days, the language I end up having to translate is a technological one. It is a good experience for me because it is a reminder that not everyone says what they mean. Because not everyone knows the words or grammar to convey what they mean.

As an example, my colleagues frequently ask me to give them a SharePoint site. But that isn't always what they need. They don't know the right words to ask for what they need. So I don't give them what they ask for. I ask what they are planning to do, what problems they hope to solve. With that information, I then suggest what I believe they need, not a site, but a library or a list or a page or some combination of those options.

So I will continue to speak directly, with a bit of diplomacy now and then when holding my tongue isn't possible.