When Words Fail and Laughter Wins (The Art of Getting Everything Wrong)
Sometimes the best conversations happen when you speak like a four-year-old, Gran. And the deepest learning comes from being willing to sound ridiculous.
Dear Gran,
The morning sun is casting long shadows across our land as I watch three workers swing their 'sabit' - small scythes with wooden handles - clearing weeds from the bottom corner of our plot. We're preparing to fence the entire 100m x 50m area, and every Indonesian farmer owns these tools the way British gardeners own secateurs.
I want to help. I stride over with my best confident voice and announce to the workers: ‘Hari ini kita harus cabut rambut saya!’ English translation: ‘Today we must pull out my hair!’)
Complete confusion. They stop mid-swing, looking from me to each other to the grass at their feet. One worker runs to find my partner, convinced there's been some terrible misunderstanding. They thought they were here to clear weeds, but the foreign woman is asking them to rip out her hair.
My partner arrives, listens to their concerned explanation, then bursts into laughter. ‘Sayang,’ (English translation: ‘Darling’), he says gently, ‘it's “rumput” - grass. Not “rambut” - hair.’
After nine years in Indonesia, Gran I still can't tell the difference between asking someone to cut the grass or cut my hair. The workers now understand this is just Caroline being Caroline, mixing up words that sound almost identical to my stubborn British ears.
The University of Getting Everything Wrong
You'd be laughing at this daily comedy, wouldn't you, Gran? Remember how you'd come back from your travels, teaching us phrases in Spanish or French? We thought you were fluent in every language, amazed by your linguistic adventures. Only later did I realise you'd simply memorised how to order wine and ask for directions, the essentials of any good holiday.
You were fearless with words, even when you got them wrong. I inherited that fearlessness, though it took me forty-nine years to find it.
In my corporate days, being corrected about anything made me defensive. I couldn't bear appearing incompetent, especially not in front of colleagues. Everything had to be perfect when you're sitting at the highest level of the office. There was no room for poking fun at myself, no space for linguistic fumbling.
Now I introduce myself to new people by saying, ‘I'm super clever in English, but in Indonesian, I speak like a four-year-old child still trying to learn words and pronounce them’. And everyone laughs, not at me, but with me, because honesty about our limitations becomes endearing rather than embarrassing.
When Charades Becomes Family Sport
The struggle with Indonesian pronunciation runs deeper than vocabulary mix-ups. The 'ng' sound that comes from the nose defeats me completely. I tell everyone, ‘You don't open your mouths when you speak, it's just sounds coming out of your nose! In English, we open our mouths wide.’
This leads to me over-pronouncing every Indonesian word, my British mouth working overtime to create sounds it was never designed for. My partner mimics my exaggerated pronunciation, and I often wonder what my English-accent-speaking Indonesian sounds like to them. Probably like their Indonesian accent, speaking English sounds to me charming but unmistakably foreign.
When words fail entirely, charades becomes our backup language. I point frantically at objects, air-draw concepts, and resort to saying English words with Indonesian pronunciation, which sounds utterly ridiculous. But here's the beautiful thing: everyone joins in. The entire family gathers around my linguistic disasters, trying to guess what I'm attempting to communicate.
Sometimes I have to go completely around the houses in Indonesian to explain the one English word I can't translate, describing a simple concept with elaborate circumlocution until someone finally shouts the word I was searching for.
The Night I Scared Away the Moon
Last week provided my latest linguistic disaster. I stayed up until 2 am to watch the blood moon eclipse, while my partner went to bed too tired to join me. At midnight, just as the eclipse began, thick clouds covered the entire sky.
I came storming into the bedroom, furious, and announced in Indonesian: "Saya sangat marah, awan menutupi langit dan saya tidak bisa lihat binatang atau bulan!" (I'm so angry, the clouds covered the sky and I can't see any animals or the moon!)
My partner was in hysterics. He repeated my sentence five times before I realised my mistake. The word for stars is 'bintang,' and for animals is 'binatang.' I'd been angrily complaining that clouds prevented me from seeing animals in the sky.
He told everyone the next day, and I just laughed along. The woman who once couldn't bear being corrected now creates family entertainment with her linguistic blunders.
When "Oh Damn" Becomes Something Much Worse
My most mortifying mistake happened in my first year here. I learned what I thought was a mild expression, equivalent to "oh damn" when something went wrong. I used it liberally around my partner's parents and grandparents, pleased with myself for picking up local colloquialisms.
No one said anything at the time. They just looked at me in horror, exchanging glances I couldn't decode. When we left, my partner gently explained that I'd been using an extremely strong swear word, the kind that would make you wash my mouth out with soap.
I was mortified, Gran. But even that embarrassment became a learning moment about cultural sensitivity and the importance of checking sources before adopting new vocabulary.
From Perfectionist to Pupil
This willingness to sound ridiculous has transformed more than my language skills. London Caroline, who wouldn't leave the house without makeup, now arrives in the UK winter wearing aeroplane socks and four t-shirts layered together because I didn't pack warm clothes. I don't care anymore about being judged for mismatched outfits or imperfect appearance.
My partner won't let me use a 'parang' - the large knife every Indonesian farmer carries - because he knows I've never used one and would probably cut my fingers off. London, Caroline would have bristled: ‘Don't be ridiculous, give it here. Don't tell me I can't do something.’
Indonesian Caroline lets it go, understanding he wants to protect me. I accept guidance willingly now, something that would have been impossible in my fiercely independent corporate days.
The irony isn't lost on me that school Caroline failed spectacularly at French and German, convinced I'd never speak another language. I dropped foreign languages as soon as possible, writing myself off as linguistically hopeless. Now I live in a place where I rarely use English, navigating daily life in my fourth-choice language with the vocabulary of a determined toddler.
Corporate Caroline would be amazed, not just that I learned another language, but that I conquered the challenge by embracing imperfection rather than demanding immediate competence.
The Courage Hidden in Comedy
You always said laughter was the same in any language, Gran, and you were absolutely right. When I mix up grass and hair for the thousandth time, when I complain about missing sky animals during an eclipse, when I accidentally swear at grandparents, these moments create connection rather than division.
Being willing to look foolish in Indonesian has made me braver everywhere else. I ask for help without shame now. I admit ignorance without defensiveness. I let others guide me without feeling diminished.
The workers with their 'sabit' and 'parang' have become my teachers, patient with my linguistic disasters, including me in their laughter rather than excluding me from their competence. They understand that my request to pull out my hair was simply Caroline being Caroline, the ‘bule’ (Western) woman who speaks like a child but shows up with genuine effort.
Some days I communicate more through gesture than grammar, more through willingness than accuracy. But I'm understood, Gran. Not despite my mistakes, but because of my willingness to make them publicly, repeatedly, and with increasing humour.
You'd love the daily comedy of it all. The way my Indonesian family has learned to translate not just my words, but my intentions. How they've made space for someone who will probably never master their nasal sounds but will never stop trying.
In learning to laugh at my linguistic disasters, I've discovered something you always knew: the courage to sound ridiculous is the beginning of genuine connection. And sometimes the most important conversations happen when you're brave enough to speak like a four-year-old.
From the quiet of the mountains, where every day brings new words to mispronounce.
