May 23, 2011

How Well Do You Understand What I Mean?

I might be the biggest fan of my own weblog. When I read my journals, I think that it's very clear and easy to understand what these journals mean, natch, because I wrote them by myself.

My wife says to me that she can understand what I mean in my English journals (I’m a Japanese native speaker and an English learner as a secondary language, so we talk in Japanese in my house), because we talk about the same topics, which I write on my weblog, and she knows my way of thinking very well. We share a lot of things, which help her understanding my journal, but how about the other readers, who don’t share culture and backgrounds with me? I can't imagine how they understand my journals.

Logically there is no perfect communication. I can't understand what you mean completely, and you can't know how I understand what you mean. But actually we can do with imperfect communication.

In fact I always have misunderstandings in Japanese communication even with my wife. But when I speak in Japanese, I don't care about misunderstandings seriously, because I can imagine how they understand and misunderstand what I mean.

But I worry if they can understand what I mean when I speak or write in English. I've got a lot of feedback to my Japanese remarks throughout my life, but I haven’t had enough feedback to my English remarks.

I can have good chances to get feedback to my English remarks on Facebook and Lang8. When I read comments on my journal, I guess that some people understand what I mean precisely and other people don't understand it well.

How do you understand what I mean? If you don't mind, please give me your comment for the improvement of my English. Thank you.

3 comments:

  1. Hi, I just saw your blog - your english is great and I am really enjoying reading your thoughts. I hope to visit Japan this year so look forward to reading more stories that you post!
    Regards,
    Mihir

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, I just saw your blog - your english is great and I am really enjoying reading your thoughts. I hope to visit Japan this year so look forward to reading more stories that you post!
    Regards,
    Mihir

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm really glad to hear that. Welcome to Japan!

    ReplyDelete