No common language

Transcript

Yesterday I went to a large hardware store near my house. As usual, I went by bicycle. I wore a small fanny pack to carry things back from the store.

At the store I found the stuff I needed, and then I spent some time looking at tools. Like many guys who like to work with their hands, I love tools. In the store there were six or seven other foreigners. When I heard them speaking to each other, I guessed that they were from Brazil. The guys were nearby, also looking at tools. Of course.

Later, just outside the entrance, I sat down on a small bench beside one of the young foreign men I'd seen in the store. He was holding a nice little tool set that he'd bought. As I tried to get everything I'd bought into my fanny pack, he and I both chuckled. It was obviously futile.

We tried to talk to each other, but we couldn't find a common language. He tried his native language, which I think was Portuguese, but that didn't work. I tried Japanese, but that didn't work, either. Finally, I tried English. I pointed to his tool set and said, "Nice tools." He nodded and repeated, "Mmm, tools," but we weren't able to find any other words that we both knew. Finally, as I left, I said, "Thank you." He waved, smiled again, and replied, "Thank you." We waved to each other one more time as I rode away on my bicycle.

That young man seemed to be a really nice guy, and I'm sure we could have had a good conversation if we'd had a common language or an interpreter. As it was, we were stuck with facial expressions and gestures, and that wasn't enough. It's impossible to have a conversation without a common language.