Polite

May 24, 2009

Since I’ve already delved into the communication practices in Australia, let me show examples on how people use politeness in communication and how an idiot foreigner like me would respond to it.

Most of the time, a simple conversation will start with greetings and then asking about one’s situation.

“Hi Rex, how are you?”

The polite thing to say is “Good, thanks. Yourself?” or in some situations a “Good, thanks” is fine.

The idiot response would be: A nod and smile. Or always asking them back.  It sounds a bit kindergarten when you respond “I’m-fine-thank-you-how-about-you?”

“How’s it going?” This is almost the same with the “How are you?” question. So the polite thing to do is reply back with “Not too bad” or “Am alright, thanks”

The idiot response would be: Again, nod and smile. Or saying “How’s what going?” or “I’m not going”.

When people are telling a good story or something, it is perfectly acceptable to become LA Lopezes as discussed on the previous post.  Use words like, “That’s amazing!”, “That sounds terrific!”, “Oh my goodness gracious, what a wonderful stupendous, lovely and marvellous comment on the weather!” Only Jimmy Santos can pull off the last example.

Finally at the end of the conversation, the following might come up when you are about to part from each other.

“Have a nice day”, “Have a good one”, “Enjoy the rest of the week” or “Have a great weekend”.

The polite response would be “You too.” Or sometimes, “Will do!” is good response.

The idiot response would be “And also with you”. We’re not in church.

Sometimes, like on phone conversations it usually ends up with “Catch you later.”, “See you soon” or “Speak to you soon”

The polite response would be “Yeah, see you later.” or if you’re comfortable you can already add “mate” at the end. I do this sometimes, but I’m still shy about it. Hihi.

The idiot response in this telephone conversation would be:  “Nice to see you!”

I must admit that because this sort of communication is all new to me my responses are a bit programmed based on a situation, I have to be very careful how I react. Another idiot response to the example above would be, as I am programmed to answer in most cases is “You too!”.  I am just so used to giving that response that even at a fast food joint when they say “Enjoy your meal” I can’t help but respond with a very excited ”You too!”.

So anyway, I am still doing a lot of practice, talking to random people and excitedly giving them my polite answers.  I will update you with any progress in my quest to become the polite communicator from the pilipins! 

Thanks so much for reading this post!  Um…you too?