Foreign Language Users

by Paradise Found 3 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Paradise Found

  I have been embarressed by my inabilty to express myself on the board. Oftern I write what I mean but what I wrote is miss-understood and I come across sounding totally stupid or miss-understood.

  If you are a lurker on the board (English your mother tounge or not)does your ability to write English stop you posting?

  If you contribute to the board and your natural language is not English are you happy with how you express yourself?

  If your natural language is English are you happy that what you write expresses your thoughts and emotions?
• 

  Been there

  PF

  English is my first (and only) language (if you don't count the sign language I have been known to use while driving). I always feel stupid and mis-understood when I post (but thats just me). Your English is fine. Frenchbabyface started a thread a couple weeks ago about her English and how she wanted to get better at it, although she does make errors my brain always seems to figure out what she is saying. Practice makes perfect so they say.
• 

  myauntfanny

  Dear PF

  I am an English speaker who lives in Germany and I know exactly how you feel, I mean EXACTLY. I say something in German and then I get a blank look from people and I feel really anxious, because I don't know if it means that they misunderstood me, disagreed with me, thought it was all gibberish, or just don't like me much. And I worry all the time that I've hurt people's feelings unintentionally.

  Yesterday I discussed this with a group of German speakers, and I was astonished to find that most of them sometimes feel embarrassed, misunderstood, frustrated and and maladjusted in their own language. That helped me a lot, as I had thought they all were very confident. True communication is difficult, with or without language differences (but more difficult with them, for sure).
• 

  lazyslob

  I´m not too sensitive about it. The only thing I´m afraid of is if my irony and sarcasm translates right. Sometimes I just get a feeling that people don´t get it.