So-So Japanese

As you know, my English is so-so even I made such an English blog. But almost every Japanese going to US (or somewhere) tend to hesitate to speak their own, in case they have someone to translate.

I always try to encourage them "Please speak yourself as possible as you could. Do not hesitate to make grammatical mistake. Since English is not our native language, nobody expects you to use perfect English. Just speak loud and slow."

Another thing I always say is that "I could translate everything for you, but if I did so, people only look my face, not you. You might fail to give them good impression. Is it OK for you?"

Good character!

One day when I was in US, a young guy came to visit US customer. As usual he had said to me "I cannot speak English well", but I though it was excuse. But, he was true that he could not almost any English speaking/hearing.

His TOEIC score was just around 300/990.
I thought it was going to be nightmare but... the reality was not.

Usually people just look my face when they speak in Japanese asking me to translate, but he was not. He just looked the customer's face and kept speaking with fluent Japanese. I was surprised to see that even the customer nod to him like understanding what he said.

So I understood that he really wanted to communicate with the customer
And I realized again that "heart" is common language in the world.

After that he succeeded to be intimate with the customer. How nice!