The most embarrassing kind of ignorance
It’s taken a lot for me to get over my native embarrassment at the inevitable moments where I look like an idiot when speaking another language. Of course I am going to mess up at some point; it kind of goes along with being a learner and hence not a native speaker, but I still dread those moments.
I think out of all of the times that I feel red-faced and impotent when I don’t understand, it’s the jokes that get me. If someone asks me a question I don’t understand, I can always ask them to repeat it or rephrase. When I’m in a group, I can just politely nod along and get by OK (as long as there’s no pop quiz afterwards). And then someone cracks a joke. And I don’t get it. And I just sit there like an idiot because, even worse than looking like I don’t understand is pretending that I do and fake laughing along with everyone else.
I’m not even sure that other people notice when I don’t laugh. Perhaps they secretly know that I probably wouldn’t think it was funny even if I did understand. But it’s little moments like these that make me really, really want to improve my language skills.
Does anyone else have a least favourite language situation?
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Sammi said,
October 13, 2010 @ 5:26 am
Absolutely! I recall a time at a friends house when her French Canadian flatmate shared a joke with his partner and they fell about. Of course we were all intrigued and he was trying to explain that it only really worked in French as it was a play on words in his own language. We persevered in nagging him to tell us and in English it translated roughly to “a man ran to join the police, but the police moved, and he hit a brick wall”. I had to think about it but then a rather Monty Pythonesque visual played out in my mind and I ended up rolling on the floor. It was worth the effort to ask for the translation!