Well, this story certainly got a laugh from the audience at our recent event for The #LessEffortMoreImpact Movement for Women in Business.
Around 30 years ago (!!!), I was working as a Coordinator for International Relations at Yokohama City Hall.
I’d been asked to show some important foreign visitors around the city.
When I came back to the office, my colleague asked in Japanese how it went.
I replied chirpily
“Hitori ga nakunarimashita ga, daijobu deshita” (One person died, but it was okay).
My colleague was stunned.
Actually, no one had died. It was in my early days of learning Japanese and I’d made a mistake with the verb.
I meant to say “inakunarimashita” – to explain that one person had got slightly lost, but we found him in the end and everything was okay!
After that, I never made the same mistake with my Japanese again.
If you hesitate to speak in a different language or to do new things, remember that any mistakes you make can become a great learning opportunity that you can cherish (and maybe even laugh about in the future)!