Part 2 : Communication
Oh well.. I suppose that people told you so many time before that you need to communicate with your partner that it’s becoming boring. Though, how to communicate with someone who will not always understand fully what you’re saying is another problem. So how to proceed with someone having another culture and / or another native language ?
Did you understand the same thing ?
Are you SURE you and your partner understood the same thing of a situation ? Are you really sure that they managed to say what they wanted to say ? Wonky english means as well that they can fail in RP and say the exact opposite of what they wanted to say. And they won’t always be conscious about it. In the head of your partner, even if they might doubt, they will be sure to have roughly share what they had in mind. And sometimes they are wrong. So here are some tips to detect when it might be the case.
In any case, don’t take the sentence as it is. I mean.. Don’t do as if the sentence was actually what the person wanted to say. Follow the logic of the RP, the continuity of what happened before. You definitely don’t need to constantly correct the person in front of you and / or to ask them confirmation, though, if you need to do it, please follow those few rules.
Of course, the non native speaker can also have some problems to understand fully what is said or described during a scene, this is a non exhaustive list of what might cause some problem : Nuances, implies, idioms, irony, accents, second level.
Keep in mind that the person in front of you RP with the tool he has and those nuances aren’t taught in class. From the moment you will accept to RP with someone not sharing the same nationality and / or the same culture, you also accept that you will have some "imperfect RP".
How to stop a derailing train
Sometimes, you won’t catch right away that there were some communication problem. It will happen. Maybe more than once. And maybe you will notice it after a few hours or even a few days. If that misunderstanding didn’t cause too many damages, keep that in mind for the next time in case it happens again. But if the consequences are dreadful IC or OOC, it's time to courageously try and stop the derailing train.
"Nobody is judging you"
This have to be repeated over and over again until you have it printed in your brain. Nobody will judge you if you do a mistake, if you recognize it, nobody will laugh at you and if you face someone doing so and is not gently teasing you ? Leave. If someone hurt you by teasing you a bit too much ? Tell them.
Talking another language is difficult, non native speaker often have met a lot of arses before talking to you and sometimes laughing about that is difficult. It's unfortunately something you will have to deal with when you RP with non native speaker : Sometimes they are a bit sensitive. So when you will talk about something related to the language, don't forget to reassure the person in front of you, it might sound a bit dumb, but reassuring them is probably the best thing you can do and you will help to heal some old wounds at the same time !
Short time retcon acceptance :
I talked about it earlier, but when you are RPing together with a non native speaker, you have to accept that some short times retcon will sometimes be necessary. But what is exactly retconning and how to practice it smartly ?
Retroactive continuity (or Retcon) is the alteration of previously established facts in the continuity of a fictional work, says Wikipedia. On basis, it means that you will scarp what just happened between your character and the one of your partner(s). It can be useful when you just reached a dead end because of some communication problems.
Now the problem isn't the fact you will crop something out of the scene, but more how you will reconnect after. If you and your partner are comfortable replaying again a scene, it's all ok, but honestly it's not that easy to do. Retconning will ask you to go through some OOC communication to sort how the events should have gone rather than what happened. And you will need to forget all the bad stuff retconned (and it's harder than it seems).
If that ever happen, take your time to sort the problem or it will be some sort of ghost howling at you every time the RP you retconned will appear in some discussion.
Oh well.. I suppose that people told you so many time before that you need to communicate with your partner that it’s becoming boring. Though, how to communicate with someone who will not always understand fully what you’re saying is another problem. So how to proceed with someone having another culture and / or another native language ?
Did you understand the same thing ?
Are you SURE you and your partner understood the same thing of a situation ? Are you really sure that they managed to say what they wanted to say ? Wonky english means as well that they can fail in RP and say the exact opposite of what they wanted to say. And they won’t always be conscious about it. In the head of your partner, even if they might doubt, they will be sure to have roughly share what they had in mind. And sometimes they are wrong. So here are some tips to detect when it might be the case.
- Wonky english : If your partner’s english suddenly drop down, they might have wanted to share something a bit convoluted and the more a sentence is complicated, the more there are chances for them to not share properly what they have in mind.
- Continuity : If the sentence suddenly isn’t in line with the character’s behavior or nature, ask yourself if it’s logical. If it’s not, it might be an english blurp.
- Tiredness : That is something that might not really obvious for people talking only one language : Speaking another language is tiring. Really tiring. It asks the non native to be really focused and to process within differents steps (depending on the person skill, it can be : Translate your sentence > checking twice > thinking of an answer > translate the answer > fetching words in a dictionary > checking twice). If suddenly the english seems to be overall under the usual skill of your partner, they are probably tired and it’s better to stop rather than forcing it and going through some misunderstandings.
In any case, don’t take the sentence as it is. I mean.. Don’t do as if the sentence was actually what the person wanted to say. Follow the logic of the RP, the continuity of what happened before. You definitely don’t need to constantly correct the person in front of you and / or to ask them confirmation, though, if you need to do it, please follow those few rules.
- If you can correct yourself, don’t talk about it : As I said, you don’t need to ask every single time what the person wanted to say. Answer as if the person wrote the sentence properly. It doesn’t matter if the english is wonky and sometimes inaccurate as long as you can extract what the person wanted to say.
- Take it on yourself : Use “I†rather than “youâ€. Saying “I don’t understand, can you explain to me ?†will be welcomed with less stress than “Did you wanted to say this ?†. This is only some communication tip, talk about yourself when you don’t understand something, otherwise the person might right away be stressed over their english abilities.
- No lesson : Even if you’re tempted to, don’t change the discussion on to some english lesson. You’re together for RPing and there is nothing worse to break immersion than this.
- Keep it in mind : Try to remember what caused some problems before, this might happen again.
Of course, the non native speaker can also have some problems to understand fully what is said or described during a scene, this is a non exhaustive list of what might cause some problem : Nuances, implies, idioms, irony, accents, second level.
Keep in mind that the person in front of you RP with the tool he has and those nuances aren’t taught in class. From the moment you will accept to RP with someone not sharing the same nationality and / or the same culture, you also accept that you will have some "imperfect RP".
How to stop a derailing train
Sometimes, you won’t catch right away that there were some communication problem. It will happen. Maybe more than once. And maybe you will notice it after a few hours or even a few days. If that misunderstanding didn’t cause too many damages, keep that in mind for the next time in case it happens again. But if the consequences are dreadful IC or OOC, it's time to courageously try and stop the derailing train.
- Stop the discussion : Just stop it right now, don't let the things escalate and just state OOC that there might be some misunderstanding somewhere.
- It's not anybody's fault : Don't try to look and see who began to derail, it's not important at all and trying that might only lead to some more disagreements or worse. Best is to think that, in the end, when there are some problems, it's always 50/50 as the communication goes both side.
- Time to take a decision : When the consequences of some misunderstandings are problematic, you have to decide together if you want to retcon it or to just correct it. It seems obvious here that you have to decide that with the person you're rping with but here make sure that everybody understand the same thing. Talking another language is tricky and misunderstanding can happen twice.
"Nobody is judging you"
This have to be repeated over and over again until you have it printed in your brain. Nobody will judge you if you do a mistake, if you recognize it, nobody will laugh at you and if you face someone doing so and is not gently teasing you ? Leave. If someone hurt you by teasing you a bit too much ? Tell them.
Talking another language is difficult, non native speaker often have met a lot of arses before talking to you and sometimes laughing about that is difficult. It's unfortunately something you will have to deal with when you RP with non native speaker : Sometimes they are a bit sensitive. So when you will talk about something related to the language, don't forget to reassure the person in front of you, it might sound a bit dumb, but reassuring them is probably the best thing you can do and you will help to heal some old wounds at the same time !
Short time retcon acceptance :
I talked about it earlier, but when you are RPing together with a non native speaker, you have to accept that some short times retcon will sometimes be necessary. But what is exactly retconning and how to practice it smartly ?
Retroactive continuity (or Retcon) is the alteration of previously established facts in the continuity of a fictional work, says Wikipedia. On basis, it means that you will scarp what just happened between your character and the one of your partner(s). It can be useful when you just reached a dead end because of some communication problems.
Now the problem isn't the fact you will crop something out of the scene, but more how you will reconnect after. If you and your partner are comfortable replaying again a scene, it's all ok, but honestly it's not that easy to do. Retconning will ask you to go through some OOC communication to sort how the events should have gone rather than what happened. And you will need to forget all the bad stuff retconned (and it's harder than it seems).
If that ever happen, take your time to sort the problem or it will be some sort of ghost howling at you every time the RP you retconned will appear in some discussion.
![[Image: Ilweransig_zps9ea63f49.png~original]](http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/b581/Ylthin/Sprites/Topic/Ilweransig_zps9ea63f49.png~original)
