This is about an article, “Lost in Translation: The Different Ways Men and Women Talk About Troubles” by Deborah Tannen, and I’m doing a review about it, so before reading my review, I suggest reading her article first.
LINK; https://thebeehive.bumble.com/bumbleblog/troubles-talk-dont-tell-me-what-to-do
Men and women have different communication skills and interactions with each other and with the same gender. After reading an article, “Lost in Translation: The Different Ways Men and Women Talk About Troubles” by Deborah Tannen, her statement was about how men and women have their own way to communicate. Deborah Tannen’s story points at topics such as engaging in a conversation, starting a conversation, confessing, and interacting. Furthermore, she talks about scenarios with people about their interaction and communication. I understand her statement and views between men and women’s communication; however, I would like to share my perspective about the differences between men’s and women’s communication and her views.
“what did you say? And what did she say? And why do you think she said that? And how did that make you feel? And what did you say next? The failure to ask those follow-up questions may be the most frustrating thing about his telling her how to fix the problem. By describing the problem, she meant to start a conversation.”
Bumble. “Lost in Translation: The Different Ways Men and Women Talk About Troubles.” The BeeHive, The BeeHive, 26 Jan. 2018, thebeehive.bumble.com/bumbleblog/troubles-talk-dont-tell-me-what-to-do.
She first explains the relationship between a couple, where their communication is different from each other. The women wanted to confess and communicate more, but the man wants to think and begins to show emotions or reaction towards the conversation. In the article, the women make it complicated for the man to understand her, by questioning him about the issue, but not literally saying what the actual problem is. The man begins to get frustrated and is not getting the message she is telling him. Both of these people are making it harder for each other, and they have to understand their way to communicate and confess to each other in order to improve and help their relationship. Her story about the couples end with them moving on from the conversation instead of continuing it. Therefore, couples should change their ways to confess and listen, the women should go straight to the topic without questioning or making the man think because that would result in frustration and time to know what she’s recall. For the man, he must understand that the women is trying to communicate and getting frustrated would stop making the man listen to his partner.
She then continues with the story about women, how she is the type of person who listens and expresses her feelings to someone. However, since they both fail to communicate, and moved on, this is one of many errors that couples tend to do to solve their problems but would result to make the situation worse. If they don’t come to an agreement on solving their issues, they’re both are not going to be happy or improve to communicate.
Tannen moves on to talk about a taxi service, where passengers have access to choose their drivers to be male or female. Therefore, a driver was introduced, Martha Pitterson, as she drives the majority of her time for other females. She listens and has a conversation with her passengers when female passengers come to her car, they start wanting to communicate and relate topics to the driver. Martha discovers that it’s not about the conversations with her passengers, but the connections and understand what other women are going through.
Deborah Tannen explains and talks about more of her scenarios about people, but I think these were important scenarios to bring up about.
The result made me think, the majority of people that have the same gender are communicating with each other, as they have their own form of communicating with each other. However, not all men or women are the same, men and women can both be complicated whether if it’s questioning someone or reacting towards it. Men and women should understand that communicating with someone helps each other. The scenario between the couple should realize that they are still bothered by their discussion, therefore, they cannot and should not move on from their issue to each other. With the taxi driver, Martha is learning and listening, as it a great opportunity to communicate with the passenger. However, Martha should realize and confess that matching each other to start a conversation is not the way to start a conversation with someone about someone or a problem. My view is that if someone is going to bring up a problem with someone or something, to actually confront them, and communicate differently, by listening and speaking about it. Tannen’s stories were great for me to think and act differently to someone so I can improve my communication with that person.
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