I can't believe I pressed ‘English’… again!

I consider myself to be a pretty good business English coach and mentor. I try to be attentive to the individual needs of my clients and I always try to make each session fun, interesting and rewarding. However, in my personal life, I can sometimes be the absolute worst foreign language student. Here is an example.

A few months ago, my local Japanese supermarket upgraded its checkout process. Instead of rows of cashiers politely and efficiently scanning items and processing payments, they switched to self-checkout kiosks. The first time I approached the machine, I thought it would be a piece of cake. Even without reading anything, I was sure I could easily figure out what to do based on the context and menu icons. They are the same wherever you go, right? There was also an English language option. However, I felt confident I could continue in Japanese. What could possibly go wrong, I thought.

What could go wrong?! The reality hit me all at once. I would have to read new Japanese words and decipher new kanji characters in unfamiliar, possibly unrecognizable, fonts. Every negative what-if scenario jumped into my head. What if I hit the wrong button? What if an error message appears? What if I incorrectly scanned an item twice? What if my credit card could not be read by the machine? What if I had to explain the problem to one of the employees? Negative scenarios just kept rushing into my head. If disaster struck, I would be standing there, holding up the line, while polite but disapproving gazes formed behind me. It was too much to chance. I felt nervous because of my low Japanese language proficiency, only JPLT N5. I felt completely unprepared for the challenge so I hit the English menu button.

Problem averted, right? I scanned my items, paid, and left quietly. I avoided disaster and was courteous to my fellow shoppers. However, I also felt like I let myself down. I ran away from a challenge and it did not feel good. To make things even worse, it seemed when you choose the English option, the machine assumes you are partly deaf and announces your transaction ten times louder than transactions conducted in Japanese. So, in addition to my sense of shame, it felt like everyone else in the store knew I avoided the challenge.

There is no way I could let that happen again, right? Wrong. For the next month or so following my first attempt, I chickened out and hit English again and again. I hate to admit it, but somehow I let a self-checkout kiosk in a grocery store become my nemesis on my path to learning Japanese. It was pretty embarrassing. Please don't tell my Japanese instructor!

I knew I needed to change my thinking going forward and be more positive. I needed to turn every negative what-if scenario I had into a so-what-if mindset. For example, so what if I press the wrong button? What's the worst that could happen? I would be exposed to new Japanese characters in a new context and in a pressure situation. It would become an opportunity to learn from the experience despite the pressure and anxiety.

It's interesting how pressure, fear, shame, and even embarrassment all seem to have a way of helping us learn from our experiences. These internal forces often help to sharpen our memory and make it unlikely we repeat past mistakes. It is usually some combination of these internal forces that help us retain knowledge and solidify our understanding of a language or other subject matter. As such, we should never shy away from challenging ourselves in unfamiliar situations. We should allow them to work in our favor.

As a Japanese-language learner, I have to constantly remember to push myself and not take the easy way out when new situations arise. About the eighth or ninth time after my first attempt at using the new check-out machines at the supermarket, I finally, nervously continued in Japanese. My first attempt did not go smoothly. I hit the wrong button a couple of times. I could not distinguish the kanji symbols for fruit and vegetables and needed assistance scanning my apples and myouga. And yes, at one point, a short line had formed behind me while I was trying to figure everything out. The entire time, I felt nervous. I almost started to sweat, but I got through it.

Today, I feel more confident in supermarket-self-checkout situations and Japan has become a bit more accessible and a little less intimidating. By the way, I also realized the check-out machine announces the prices at the same volume whether you use English or Japanese. Because I was so fearful and anxious, it only felt like the machine was yelling the prices of the items at me in English.

Have you ever shied away from a situation in which you could have used English? If you are a more advanced English learner, have you ever shied away from using more complex vocabulary or native expressions because you didn't feel confident and didn't want to make a mistake? How did you feel about it afterward? If you still have this issue, what do you plan to do in the future to overcome your apprehension?

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As always, thank you for your time.

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