A few weeks ago I shared a day in the life post where I mentioned a few meetings that I attended at work. Several of you commented on saying how impressed you were that I was able to go to meetings in Icelandic (thank you!).
It is true that I do attend meetings almost weekly that are all in Icelandic, and during these meetings I no longer feel completely frazzled and lost with the Icelandic. Every time I am following a conversation and insert in a comment or two I just want to stand up and give myself a round of applause.
But in all honesty, I am no where near easily following along with these conversations. In fact these meetings totally stress me out and I focus so much that once the meeting is over I leave feeling like I just ran a marathon. To give you a little insight into how meetings in Icelandic go for me here is a peak inside my mind during my meetings.
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Okay basic greetings in Icelandic, I totally got this. Lets do this meeting!
2 minutes in… Still talking about simple daily life things, so glad I had that extremely difficult test where I had to write about a day in my life, that vocabulary is totally coming in handy now.
Ah no, the mean lady who will never speak English to me just came in! Is she leading the meeting. Awesome, I already know I am not getting any translations now.
5 minutes in… Alright, doing good so far. Things are stating to pick up now though, I better pay close attention.
10 minutes in… This is getting a bit difficult to follow along! Great I am getting the nervous sweats, following this conversation is stressing me out and there is still 20 minutes to go!
11 minutes in… Woa woa woa, slow down turbo, one at a time now, my brain can’t comprehend several Icelandic conversations at once.
12 minutes in… Now they are talking about something that totally bores me. Since I have the gist of what they are saying I can give my brain a little break right?
14 minutes in… Hmm what should I make for dinner tonight? Gah I am so hungry already when is lunch. Wait, did they say my name, oh crap I should have been paying attention. Okay just smile and look like your fully engaged in the conversation.
15 minutes in… Bad idea, now they are asking me questions! Okay, what were they talking about, think, think, think. Were they talking about food? No, that was in my head, okay just say yes and they will continue on.
17 minutes in…Wait, did she just say I am going to handle that project? Ahh is that what I said yes to before, great, I really need to ask for a translation when I don’t understand.
20 minutes in… Okay, that question I did not understand. I will just ask the mean lady what she said and hope that she will translate it for me.
21 minutes in… Well that didn’t go as planned. Thanks for repeating it in ICELANDIC! I will just ask the nice lady at the other end of the table what they were talking about once the meeting is done.
24 minutes in… I am exhausted! How is it possible to feel so tired just from listening to a different language? This is the longest meeting ever.
28 minutes in… There it was again, my name with bla bla project. Okay interrupting now and forcing mean lady to tell me in English exactly what I am doing, this is so uncomfortable!
29 minutes in… Thank you man who I will never be able to pronounce your name for finally telling me the project I agreed to in English. And umm is it to late to say no to this project???
30 minutes in… I wonder if they all think I am actually following along and understanding? I guess my English comments have been about the right topic so we will go with yes they think I do understand.
31 minutes in… Yay meeting over and I can breathe again.
Lets get out of here before someone tries to keep talking to me, I need an Icelandic break.
Oh wait, I better find the nice lady to get a quick summary of the items I missed.
Note: this is not based off of any one meeting, just a gathering of what often goes through my mind, and the mean lady, well there tends to be one in every group.
Question of the Day?
Have you ever been in meeting where different languages are being spoken? Are you a quiet one in a meeting or the loud one?
