What did you say?

When we don’t quite catch what the other has said, my partner and I tend to repeat back what it sounded like just for the giggles , even if we could use context and reality to decipher it. So, ‘tickly mice ear’ was really  ‘it’s particularly nice here’ just like ‘what did they say about the bubble and squeak?’ was really, ‘what did they say about the weather next week?’  It’s a reminder that either I’m mumbling, or he is trying to talk to me from another room. Or do we just hear what we want to hear? None of it bodes well for accurate communication.

We are both learning a bit of French at the moment and are experiencing the truth that learning another language goes in this order: written words, hearing words, speaking words. We marvel at non-English speakers trying to pick up English when we speak with the slang, abbreviations and the tendency to  slur our words together. So we don’t berate ourselves when we are struggling with the listening exercises and have to switch to slow mode. Gleaning meaning from the two words we might recognise out of a whole sentence would be foolish. Context is key. Focus, attention and a real desire to understand is required.

If you want a quality conversation in English you need the same focus, attention and real desire to understand. Hearing someone is not the same as listening. How many misunderstandings are there due to the meaning being lost or missed without those three essentials?

You hear, “You didn’t tell me you were going to be late again”, but if you listen you can understand it as, “I don’t feel important to you.”

Of course, the other part of the story are the words we choose to use. Do you want them to hear your voice or do you want them to know how much it means to you? If it is the latter it requires a focus on the real issue, to pay attention to what you say and have a real desire to help them understand.

You say, “You never think ahead!”, but if you want them to understand, you could say, “It feels like I have all the responsibility here and it’s a lot to manage.”

It can be complicated trying to properly communicate what we really mean.  But before moving into defence mode (well you should’ve../I was only trying to..), a “thank you” and “sorry” before anything else can go such a long way: thanks for being patient/for waiting/for telling me, sorry I could’ve tried/done it sooner/told you.

In the words from Guan Yin:

When you want to judge, be love

When you want to fight, be love

When you want to be right, be love.