One thing has come up over and over in my classes, and this is one of my major limitations in language learning. One must be able to live with a certain amount of ambiguity. I'm just not comfortable with not understanding. I think I have to understand everything, and I think everyone has to understand me. Unfortunately for language learning, this is not how it is supposed to happen. If something is unclear, you file it away for future use. You notice the structure or word again, and it adds to your understanding. Things that you heard earlier become clear when you meet it again in a new situation. I just don't like that area of ambiguity.
About a month ago Rusty had a fever. We did the starve a fever thing--he couldn't really eat anyway. Then his fever broke, and we decided to try some soup. I've never made chicken soup so I thought I would get Pawn to make some. I went down and described the kind of soup I wanted--chicken, chicken broth, rice, and some vegetables--just like my Grandma used to make. Pawn said the name of the soup, and I thought she was right. But I just couldn't leave it at that. I wanted to reach perfect understanding. I told her like a lady had made at church. I was referring to a few weeks ago not what we had eaten at church the day before. Pawn named off a few ingredients and even though I didn't understand I was sure we were on the same page. Here's what we ended up with...
I think I should have just left it with the boiled rice soup. We ended up with chicken soup with seaweed and tofu. It was great for Rusty's stomach, but it was not what I had envisioned. I went for the total understanding when I should have just left it alone. One good thing about it--my instructor said I can develop this characteristics so that's one of my goals. Noticing and more noticing in the future is on the agenda.
