Overcoming The Language Barrier

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Overcoming the language barrier Have you ever been in a country where you don’t speak the language? How far did you go without speaking it? This probably depends on your creativity and how willing you are to look like a fool with arm gestures, finger pointing, facial expressions, and various fluctuations of voice and tone. However once we get past the idea that communication is between words and through language, it actually gets easier. The trick is to trust the other individual in their intelligence and focus on the point you want to convey to them. The lack of words eliminates redundancies, the fat of language. If you ask anybody how is it that they communicate with other people, most likely they’ll reply that they do so through “talking”. We talk, with words. It is our primary form of conveying our message to another. Surprisingly, the “words” and “language” we put so much emphasis on our communication encompasses only 7% of all our total communication. Studies have shown that in most forms of communication, 55% of it is visual. That is, body language and eye contact. The other 38% left is vocal meaning the pitch of your voice, speed, volume. (Gallo) As the world is slowly becoming more and more globalized with easy transportation, and fast communication such as the internet, people of different languages and different cultures are clashing more often. Therefore it is important to pay attention to this larger component of communication. Whether visual expressions such as smiling and laughing, which indicates humor and joy, or furrowing your eye brows closer could mean confusion or anger when accompanied with the showing of your teeth, these expressions are common across cultures. Even if someone has no idea what you are talking about, your facial expressions and the tone you say things in would convey your message. Not only keeping in mind
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