Comments on: Go Ahead Screw Up

By: Familia

Familia — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:30:17 +0000

My sweetie is from Mexico, and he is VERY… well… he gets embarassed… about his accent. He says a lot of people laugh at him because of it. So, everyone was very shocked when he actually called and spoke to me.

Honestly, it DOES take active listening when someone you are dating is learning your language. And there ARE some times when I have to ask him to repeat himself.

However, (I am seeing its all men posting, so I wanted to throw this in), hearing him speak to me lets me know that he is aware I will NOT laugh, and I appreciate that he has confidence in my ability to understand him.

And, in turn, I am trying to learn Spanish. I feel that if he is trying so hard to speak to me, when he usually feels uncomfortable speaking to people, that I should meet him in the middle.

It is VERY VERY hard to learn a new language, and I give every single one of you “props” (I’m cheering for you), for doing just that.

Even now, I can translate what he writes to me, but I make a LOT of mistakes when I try to speak Spanish.

All of you men, it takes time and effort, and its just fine to make mistakes, because its all about learning. So as the title of this thing says “Go ahead, screw up”. because you are doing AWSOME!

By: Todd

Todd — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:31:29 +0000

I recently went to Ukraine for a few weeks and I was having dinner with some very pretty girls. I speak a little russian but I can barely understand them when they speak it because it all goes by too fast and blends together. Anyway(s), it was still a lot of fun trying. I would try to make a joke in russian and they didn’t get it. Then they would joke with me in english and I didn’t get it. It was like time-delayed laughter, or making jokes in slow motion. It takes a while before the words sink in and then sudden you realize, she was making a joke and vise-versa.

It’s fun to learn another language, even just a little bit when you travel. But not russian! English is a piece of cake compared to a language that has 10 different endings for every noun, verb and adjective in the language! You need to memorize every word 10 different ways from sunday!

By: Sean

Sean — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 01:07:37 +0000

ha I find it funny how we mess up the same words! Being from New Jersey when I went down to Virgina for college many of my friends love to mock and joke around about how I say water and drawer and you described it perfectly. Love your blog keep up the great work

By: Infinity

Infinity — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:15:47 +0000

Like I told my buddy who is from Spain. It’s never about your speaking language if you know how to say things in different ways. And he knows how to do it. Unfortunately, in his country, being upfront and and straight to the point is his style and can be a turn off for some women.

But for others, he turns on attraction switches like no other.

By: K

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 03:34:07 +0000

This is so true, even for native English speakers. It may be hard to listen and respond to others because we are trying to think of something clever to say – so we get distracted. But to have to translate both the incoming words and outgoing thoughts before speaking? Then throw in the regional and national accents and that’s really tough. Don’t forget to smile and give eye contact!

By: leo

leo — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:15:49 +0000

I am from Southeast asian country and English (American) is our second language. For seven years now of living here in Canada I still experience hardship in pronounciation of some words. What I meant to say is the accent. It takes time for me/us to express what I/we want to say because I/we need to translate my/our ideas from our own language to English.

The funny thing is that usage of some terminologies . Somebody corrected me for using the word “naughty”. Here, this word applies only to women or for a kid. They usually used the word ” asshole” for a guy instead. Even the word “anyway” , here they pronounce and spell it with an “s” at the end of the word.

Anyways, this is not really a big problem for me because I live in a multi-cultural environment. This is just matter of observation. A lot of immigrants experience the same things.