HOW PRECIOUS THINGS ARE DAMAGED BY MISUNDERSTOOD WORDS
Words are the greatest source of misunderstanding. And especially when one is reading in another language.
I have never added a moral value to the words I read in a language that is not mine, because I lack the good understanding of the context in which it was written.
I help people from around the world, a little at a time, with their English language skills and the lack of context, I feel their lack of excellence originates from the lack of discourse.
In English, it is common to make a statement which is neither addressed to you nor the person reading it but a statement ready for discourse: Ego is the basis of all structural defects.
If a Portuguese speaking person reads this: they may think one or two things: What is a Structural defect or they may say to themselves: why is he talking like this to ME.
I am not sure who taught me this, but surely I was very young when the wise person said to me:
The WORST conversation is about YOURSELF
The next worse conversation is when you are taking about OTHERS
The best conversation is when you talk about IDEAS.
After reading Michel Foucault, I began to relish the idea of discourse. I love discourse.
For this reason when I am writing to a non native English speaker, I try not to say: You can understand Yogic philosophy by participation, because it is misunderstood as if I am admonishing the person by addressing THEM as YOU, not in the general way that I meant.
Lack of understanding of DISCOURSE also gets TIT for TAT responses. It was extremely annoying for me when I was in France when this Tit for Tat or action creating this type of conversation would quickly lead to nothing.
Action and Reaction are PHYSICS concepts and there Is no room in human interaction for such a mechanical thinking.
Learning a new language is a very good exercise for the brain. It is said that English is the EASIEST language to speak BADLY. I would add, unless you have lived in an English speaking country or French speaking country or Spanish speaking country for a while, it is difficult to understand the nuances of the language. And English is the most nuanced of them all.
Stop talking about yourself, Stop gossiping about others, but talk about ideas and you would see how wonderful the conversations are among FRIENDS.
In an intimate relationship or when you are living with someone, or in love with someone who is living far away, there has to be adjustments in that mundane everyday things would be necessarily included in the conversation. In fact, I had compiled a few rules for successful long distance relationships as many people around the world are in such relationships.
Be in contact as many times as possible during the day.
Respect the other person’s time and schedule
Talk about mundane and everyday things such as what you are going to cook for dinner
Make sure that the other person knows that you are present and that you are there for them when they feeling lonely, dejected or tired or want to talk.
Very few long distance relationships are successful because people begin to think of them as normal relationships where you see each other more often.
Languages can unite us and at the same time it can divide us also. Whenever I am in Asia, after about two weeks I want to leave because however well they speak English (English has become the International Language), the nuances become irritative to explain. This can be avoided, but very rarely possible, by speaking in a third language which is not the native language of either of the people.
Words help you come closer to another person and at the same time words can destroy a relationship as well.
Especially if it is not your language..
I have thousands of examples of lost in translation words but they mainly are about grammar or vocabulary and not the lack of discourse.
When I was an exchange student in Sweden, one of my classmates was from Swedish Lappland and he often say to me : Did you have a funny time yesterday? For him Funny is an adjective of FUN, but to an English speaker FUNNY has a different connotation than FUN.
In my opinion and experience the best English spoken outside the Native English speaking world, which unfortunately includes USA are in :
Sweden Norway Finland Denmark Holland Germany in Europe
Israel in the Middle East
India
PS THANKS FOR ALL MY FRIENDS FOR KEEPING ME COMPANY OVER THESE MONTHS OF ISOLATION
