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How Making an Effort to Do Something Positive for Someone can have Surprising Results

Guest post by: Mike Morgan

Article Overview: How the simple act of learning a few words in another language can open up many opportunities to learn about another culture and to see the kindness and generosity most people give when they sense you are really interested. This is my story of what happened to me this week when I greeted a woman in Amharic.

How Making an Effort to Do Something Positive for Someone can have Surprising Results

I have found it very interesting when I am out and about to make an effort to greet people from other cultures in their own language. Almost without fail this is met with a large smile and a conversation about where I learnt the simple words I have used. So I have made it an aim to find out where people are from and in a cosmopolitan city like Auckland the opportunities to do this are plentiful. Then if I can I spend a couple of minutes asking how to say a couple of simple phrases and write them out phonetically. Making a small effort to communicate in this way is very rewarding so whenever I can I try to do this.

Yesterday I visited a woman who had arrived as a refugee from Ethiopia 8 years ago. I greeted her in Amharic. Serlum is my phonetic version of hello in this language. As is usual she replied with a huge smile and also said serlum. This led to a really interesting conversation about Ethiopia and it's many languages and what it was like to live in New Zealand as a refugee from Africa. While we were talking she stirred a pot of an amazingly fragrant chicken dish. I asked what the spices were and apart from chillies she was unable to say in English what the many different flavourings were. To my surprise she dished up a platter with flat Ethiopian bread and scooped some of the spicy chicken onto it and asked if I would like to try it. I was very honoured to be asked and I thoroughly enjoyed the fiery dish. It was almost like a harissa and the bread was like a lighter version of a pancake. It was great!

This is amazing. By greeting someone in Amharic this is what I learned.

There are more than 80 languages in Ethiopia.

More than 17 million people speak Amharic.

The Ethiopian new year was on 11^th September.

Ethiopian cuisine is highly spiced and aromatic.

Thank you in Amharic is pronounced "Amasunginalo".

Goodbye in Amharic is pronounced "Chow". (Yes, really)

Chicken is "Dooro".

And most importantly I confirmed that by making a small effort to learn something of another culture this will open up a whole lot of opportunities to learn more.

My business is in the internet marketing world and it is interesting to look at the attitudes of the leaders of the company I work with. There is a real focus on doing something really positive to help others every day. It is all about giving value to others and doing things because it will benefit the recipient. I think this culture is refreshing and one of the reasons that the company is going through an incredible level of growth. Working with such a motivated, positive and caring group of entrepreneurs is a wonderful gift.

Try this out. Go out of your way to do something to make someone's day a bit better and make a habit of doing this every day. It is a very satisfying thing to do.

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Article Tags: 8 years, aim, chicken dish, chillies, chow, cosmopolitan city, couple of minutes, cultures, ethiopian cuisine, ethiopian new year, flavourings, fragrant chicken, harissa, nbsp, new year, pancake, phrases, refugee, spices, spicy chicken
Referred by: http://jaykubassek.com



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