One of the things that often prevents us from practicing a new language is the fear of making a mistake. It’s an obvious wound to one’s pride if someone laughs at you, or looks at you in bewilderment because while you’re trying to ask for directions, you confuse the word “left” with the word “shirt.” However, this pride can unfortunately cause you to stay at home and isolate yourself. If you can dare to allow yourself to make mistakes and risk being laughed at, you will learn much more than you would at home. Okay, watching TV in a foreign language is a great way to learn it, but it doesn’t correct your grammatical accent. In the spirit of trying to encourage you, I’ll tell you about some of my own “traumatic” experiences with mistakes in a foreign language. Hopefully you’ll see that you’ll at least have tons of fun stories to tell for years to come.
London England – I studied at the London School of Economics in 1990 and considered myself quite intelligent. Since I am an American and have been speaking this language all my life, I assumed that American and English are exactly the same language, so I never expected to encounter any language problems when I lived there. I was humbled when my friends and I got lost one night trying to find Gloucester Road. We ran into a policeman, so I thought he would be a good person to ask.
“Excuse me sir, could you tell me which way we are going to get to Gloucester Road?” I asked.
The policeman burst into hysterical laughter. It was very funny, because I assumed that all the policemen in London were very, very serious. This one, however, practically cracked up. I didn’t quite get the joke, until he corrected my pronunciation: “‘Glow-chester’ Road? There’s no such place. But if you mean ‘Gloster’ Road, it’s just down and to the right.”
Paris France. I was in a drugstore and found a man frantically searching the shelves. He couldn’t find what he needed, so he approached the pharmacist and I heard him say, in broken French: “Ah, pour ma femme. Ou est les douches?” I understood that he wanted a feminine product for his wife, but he left the pharmacist scratching her head trying to understand why she would help him find the showers. I jumped in and helped the man get what he needed, and we had a good laugh in the process.
Strasbourg and Louvieres, France – I have two French host families, and one summer I visited them both, starting in Strasbourg. I’m always eager to learn new lingo, so I was delighted when my family in Strasbourg taught me the word “tarre”, which means, as they explained to me, “dumb”, or as I like to joke with good friends, “you’re retarded” as in “you are a fool!” We laughed with delight, and every time he said the word, everyone had a blast. So, I went to the wedding of one of my host sisters in Normandy. They asked me to get on a chair and give a speech.
Naturally, I wanted to share how much I loved everyone present and make them laugh, so I announced: “Les Francais, vous etes tous tarres, et je vous amour enormously!” She was delighted to tell them that I loved her nonsense. Unfortunately, I learned that, like in the US, different regions have different definitions for the same word. In Normandy, calling someone “tarre” implies that you are the child of a parent who is medically retarded and therefore mentally challenged. Highly insulting. Fortunately, only one member of my host family took the offense seriously and wasn’t too eager to talk to me for a while, but I will never forget or misuse that word again!
Paris France. When I was working in Paris, one of the marketing managers working in our New York office visited our Paris location to make a presentation to a group of Americans. The manager was French, but he had an excellent command of the English language. Well, mostly. I was invited to listen to his presentation and he got very excited about an idea that he wanted to emphasize. He meant to underscore its importance with the phrase, “the belly of the beast.” Instead, from his mouth came, “…and this idea came from the bowels of the beast.” There was not a single dry eye on the table and it was impossible to stop laughing for at least five minutes. Then he had an enraptured audience, hanging on his every word, waiting for him to make another mistake.
This is what these experiences taught me:
Laughter is universal. It can actually be a bonding experience to make someone laugh.
Mistakes help you learn. I often remember words because I can remember one of my many funny stories and the person who corrects my grammar or pronunciation. So the bigger the impact of your mistake, the more likely you are to speak better next time!
Friends will forgive you. If you make a really dramatic mistake and end up saying something insulting, your friends will understand and forgive you.
