Humor in Communication
Since tomorrow's Grace Talk Soup podcast is about humor and we do a segment that is a parody of I Love Lucy (I Love Language) I thought I'd post this clip from one of the Lucy shows where Lucy tries to communicate with her mother in law.
It can be pretty funny to communicate when you don't speak the same language. I know because my MIL is from Mexico! She does understand English fairly well and I understand Spanish a bit but neither of us speaks the other's language. This makes for some pretty funny miscommunication and we play a little charades as well!
6 comments
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Oh, that’s a hoot!!! While I don’t have a MIL who speaks a different language like you and Lucy Ricardo, I have lived in countries where I didn’t speak any of the language and boy, oh boy, do you feel like a fish out of water. I thought it was scary, too. I mean, hey, what if something went wrong and you needed help?
The best/worst instance I had of this was when I first got to Germany as a new bride 37 years ago (shock, horror, gasp!). Ray was sleeping and he wanted something and I had seen a little mom & pop store a few blocks away so off I went. At that time, German packaging was very bland, with very few pictures and just the name of the product. UH-OH. I was in deep doo-doo. I had an English/German dictionary with me and, try as I might, I could not make the proprietor understand what I wanted. Now before I give you the punch line, keep in mind that everyone in Germany at that time (I don’t know about now) was required to take 7 years of English in school. Ahemmm. . . Well, after about 20 minutes of gestures (a la Lucy, but I’m not that good) and trying to describe what I wanted, I broke into tears and headed for the door. As I’m going out, I hear hysterical laughing behind me. I turn around and the same “lovely” proprietor is laughing his butt off and. . . in perfectly UNACCENTED English says. . . “Now what the h*** did you want?” Needless to say, I did NOT patronize that store the whole 4 years I was there. I remember it like it was yesterday, although I can’t remember what I was looking for. From that point on, I learned enough German to get along which, sad to say, I promptly forgot as the plane carrying us back to the states took off from the landing strip. How did I learn German? From watching Sesame Street, of course! LOL