What sound does a cow make?

Building strong interpretation skills

Common Sense Center www.commonsensecenter.com

My father in law was in Japan a while back and tiring of the traditional fare he was eating went to a grocery store to get a steak to cook back at his hotel. When arriving at the meat counter he was greeted with an array of choices. The meat display was huge with a selection of cuts and variety that blended fish and many unidentifiable types of meat. He could not easily pick out what was a beefsteak and what was not. The descriptions were all in Japanese and not being a native speaker he could not decipher the writing. He looked around for comparisons but these did not offer him any solace.

 

He waved the clerk over for help however the clerk, not speaking English, could not understand his attempts at communication. He tried pointing and gesturing all to no avail.

He reverted to what many of us do when we cannot be understood. He tried Charades. He put his fingers to his temples, like horns, and made a loud mooing noise. The sound like a cow makes.

The clerk jumped back in terror not sure what the Gaijin was doing. My father in law is 6’3 and has a commanding presence. The people around looked on with surprise. What was the tall white guy doing and why was he putting his hands to his head and making strange noises?

Security was called and soon a group of people were clustered around. Everyone was starting to get into the act. My father in law started to get upset at all the attention- after all he only wanted a steak not a convention. He repeated the mooing and fingers to the temple charade still with no resolve. He tried pawing his foot, making the Ole sound of a matador. Nothing seemed to work other than providing entertainment for the pleasure of the shoppers. The situation was getting out of control when, luckily, a random English-speaking bystander overheard the commotion, approached my father in law and quickly told the clerk the request. The situation was worked out without any more acting. Apologies were exchanged and my father in law left with a beautiful steak.

If the same situation happened in an English speaking country chances are that when someone made a mooing noise everyone would understand it was the noise that a cow makes. In Japan cows don’t moo they moo moo.

Something so easily taken for granted as an animal sound may get misunderstood in different languages and different dialects- the sound is different.

When we communicate with people we often take for granted that they will inherently understand what we mean. We may be asking for help or giving directions. If you think of a time when you misunderstood someone’s directions it probably will be around the way you made sense. “Turn right at the next light, go for a few blocks, you will see a big grey building, turn left at the intersection and keep going- you can’t miss it!” This is an issue of Interpretation- making sense. What we hear may not be what the speaker intended or there was an issue with the way we processed the information. On the other hand it was possible that we couldn’t hear- it was noisy or we were distracted. Not wanting the speaker to continuously repeat themselves or the directions we nod our head and try to figure out what was said on our own.

Written directions and policies can pose the same challenge. Many legal issues arise from differing interpretations. Our goal to keep our worksite safe and productive presents many interesting challenges