Pod Insights TED Radio Hour Getting what you want: A guide to negotiating About this episode Negotiations are a part of life, but too often they end up in an ugly confrontation or stalemate. This hour, TED speakers share ideas on navigating conflicts with more clarity and less fear. Guests include mediator and law professor Alex Carter and linguist Magdalena Hoeller.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Manoush Zomorodi? This episode's sponsor is HubSpot, which offers the following message: What if instead of updating your CRM, your CRM updated you? HubSpot's self-updating CRM keeps your customer context current so you can win more deals. Learn more at hubspot.com. This is the TED Radio Hour. Each week, groundbreaking TED Talks. Our job now is to dream big. Delivered at TED conferences. To bring about the future we want to see. Around the world. To understand who we are. From those talks, we bring you speakers and ideas that will surprise you.
0:37 Speaker 01 You just don't know what you're gonna find.
0:39 Manoush Zomorodi? Challenge you.
0:40 Speaker 01 We truly have to ask ourselves, like, why is it noteworthy?
0:42 Manoush Zomorodi? And even change you. I literally feel like I'm a different person. Yes. Do you feel that way? Ideas worth spreading. From TED and NPR, I'm Manoush Zomorodi. On the show today, the skills we need to resolve our conflicts.
1:03 Speaker 02 You know, when you think of a honeymoon, you think relaxation, you think scenery.
1:08 Manoush Zomorodi? This is Alex Carter. She's a professor at Columbia Law School. 20 years ago, she was a newlywed and fresh out of law school herself.
1:19 Speaker 02 You know, I married another lawyer. We're both litigators. We were looking to get away from the grind. So we booked a trip to Hawaii, and we found ourselves in Kauai on this beautiful kayak tour of the Wailua River.
1:34 Manoush Zomorodi? Sounds lovely.
1:35 Speaker 02 Manoush, have you ever been in a kayak with another person?
1:39 Manoush Zomorodi? No, I've only done the single kind.
1:41 Speaker 02 In theory, the larger of the two people is in the back, and that's the person who's supposed to "drive," quote unquote, right? And you drive by paddling the kayak left and right in a particular way. Well, We're in the kayak. I'm now legally bound to this person. And halfway through the tour, I'm kind of dissatisfied with the way he's paddling the kayak.
2:04 Manoush Zomorodi? Her new husband, who was relentless in the courtroom, was content to be a little more relaxed while kayaking.
2:11 Speaker 02 We were at the back of the pack, getting passed by people who were chain-smoking cigarettes. And we seemed kind of rudderless. I'm not sure where we're headed. So I decide I've got some better ideas.
2:24 Manoush Zomorodi? So Alex took matters into her own hands.
2:27 Speaker 02 Literally. And say, I'm going to start driving this thing.
2:30 Manoush Zomorodi? At that exact moment...
2:33 Speaker 02 We capsize. We capsize a total of three times. And the third time, in fact, I'm swept downriver and have to crawl back to our starting position and get back in the kayak. So I'm now back in this kayak, dripping wet. And our guide up ahead, this surfer guide, turns back and says, "All right, folks, let's negotiate these things to the left because we're going to hit that beach up ahead." And in that moment, I actually forgot that I was mad at my husband. I was struck because I'd never heard anybody use the word "negotiate" that way before.
3:16 Manoush Zomorodi? This was when Alex realized she had not failed at kayaking. She'd failed to negotiate with her partner.
3:23 Speaker 02 I came out of that honeymoon realizing I had learned totally the wrong idea about negotiation. I was, first of all, a lawyer who'd been primed to think that negotiating meant competing, full stop. So you're out to win, and maybe even more than that, you're out for somebody else to lose. And that's the point.
3:47 Manoush Zomorodi? In trying to force the outcome she wanted, Alex flipped the kayak. And she said that many of us make a similar mistake when we try to negotiate, whether it's for a new contract, a new salary.
4:01 Speaker 02 People assume you have to go in and you have to compromise something, accept less than you thought you were worth. Or maybe you have to compromise something worse, like your values. Either way, people associate it with money, but really, they associate it with loss. And that's part of the reason why we just don't like to do it that often. And when we do, we default to being really competitive because we think that's the only way we're getting out alive.
4:34 Manoush Zomorodi? And what is it that we should be thinking about? Because you've spent, ever since that kayak trip, what, 20 years now, thinking about better ways to go about negotiation. And also, you use the word mediation a lot because you are actually a mediator.
4:50 Speaker 02 Yes, so about 20 years ago, I made a move from being a full-time litigator, somebody who was helping people through the adversarial system in court, to a mediator who helps people try to negotiate their way out of really challenging situations. And the first thing I want people to know is negotiation is just steering. It's about steering the relationships in your life, building those relationships. So when you get to the place where you do need to negotiate something difficult, you're in a much better place to have successful outcomes.
5:31 Manoush Zomorodi? May I just ask, did that mean that you stopped tipping over in the kayak with your new husband?
5:36 Speaker 02 We did not tip over again. Is this the place where I should mention that we're going to celebrate 20 years in June?
5:43 Manoush Zomorodi? Oh, that's so nice.
5:44 Speaker 02 Yes, thank you. So successful, we just don't kayak together.
5:49 Manoush Zomorodi? Negotiations are part of life, but too often they end up in confrontation, stalemate, or just total avoidance. So this hour, better negotiating. Two TED speakers who can help us navigate conflict with more clarity and less fear. Later, we'll hear about negotiating in romantic relationships. But for now, back to Alex Carter. Today, she and her students at Columbia Law are the people that get called when a negotiation is not going well.
6:22 Speaker 02 A mediator is never anybody's Plan A for a negotiation. We get called in when people are already in court, relationships have frayed, maybe even businesses are on the rocks, and people are trying to salvage what they can out of the mess.
6:41 Manoush Zomorodi? I'm picturing a tennis match where you're the umpire, or are you inserting yourself and really more like a couples counselor? Tell me what's going on through your mind as you're mediating in these tense situations between two groups.
6:57 Speaker 02 So I'm not a potted plant in the room. Born in Brooklyn, I can't shut up even if I try. But I like to say that mediation is where psychology meets the law. When we're in a room with people, we're often a translator. I help each one of those folks hear each other better because what they need is information. And over and over again, helping people negotiate all kinds of disputes, you know, from high-dollar commercial cases to going into the courts of New York City and dealing with neighbors or local businesses, or even love triangles. I found that there was one tool that
7:39 Speaker 02 people weren't using, but when they did, it paved the way for them to resolve their issue. Asking open-ended questions. Questions that uncovered the other person's needs, concerns, and goals. And most of us aren't great at that.
8:01 Manoush Zomorodi? Alex Carter continues from the TED stage.
8:04 Speaker 02 When I teach people about asking questions, I say, OK, I've just taken a trip. What can you ask me to get some good information?
8:14 Speaker 02 Top two questions they ask? I bet you could guess. Number one, where did you go? Reno. Did you have a good time? Yeah. Two closed questions, two one-word answers. So, what's the best question? Well, it's a little bit of a trick because technically, the best question of all doesn't end with a question mark. It's "tell me all about your vacation." "Tell me" is the biggest question you can ask, and it is the most powerful first question
8:59 Speaker 02 in any negotiation, at work or at home. With the hiring manager, "tell me how the company sees the salary range for this position." With your teenager, "tell me what's making you ask for a $50 a week allowance." "Tell me" gets you the most information, but it also builds trust, so it creates the best deals.
9:27 Manoush Zomorodi? Okay, I like this one. As an interviewer, I really try hard to do that. Also, as a parent, because if you say, "How was your day?", you get the answer, "Fine."
9:36 Speaker 02 Yes, because "how was your day?" or "how are you?" is not a real question. It's a social script. It's the thing we do before we get down to the actual topic that we're there to discuss. And kids and teenagers, more than anyone else, can smell a fake question and they won't answer it. No joke, Manoush, I realized at a certain point that as the question expert, I was coming home and asking my daughter, "How was your day?", and getting some monosyllabic grunt in response, right? And when you change to "tell me all about your day", right? Or, you know, "what went well today?", or "what was difficult today?", all of a sudden,
10:18 Speaker 02 you're opening the conversation up and opening up the relationship, too.
10:23 Manoush Zomorodi? So how does that work? You're going into these, you know, these are not teenagers. These are business people who want to get in and out. They're probably spending a lot of money on their lawyers. How do you get them to sort of take a beat and have curiosity about each other? What does that look like?
10:42 Speaker 02 So what it looks like in a mediation is that initially I'm asking the questions. We walk in and we ask each person, tell us what's brought you here today. We don't ask, how much money do you want? What are your legal claims? What are your defenses? We ask them to tell us what's brought them there. And that means they could talk about a business problem, a relationship problem, or a legal problem. People are hungry for someone to listen. And it often just pours out of people.
11:13 Manoush Zomorodi? There's an example in your book, an employment discrimination case. You were brought in. And how did you deploy this tactic to sort of make it work?
11:24 Speaker 02 Yes. So this time, it's a woman who's suing a government agency. She alleges discrimination. She is incensed at the treatment she's received. And she's sitting across from a lawyer she's never met before and has no relationship with, which just makes her angrier. So the women are arguing back and forth. I'm asking open-ended questions. I'm working really hard to de-escalate things. My students are right by my side, doing the same thing. We're going nowhere. And finally, I look at the woman who's suing the agency, and I notice that she's been wearing this necklace the entire time. And the necklace is a gold dog.
12:06 Speaker 02 And so I pause for a second, and I say, I just have to ask, can you tell me about your necklace? It's beautiful. I've been looking at it all day. She brightens up immediately and says, oh, this? This is my show dog, Commander. Proceeds to tell us all about Commander and her, you know, alter ego as a dog handler. You can't make this up. The lawyer across the table says, no kidding. I have a show dog too. Manoush, we went from yelling to settled.
12:35 Manoush Zomorodi? Dogs, man.
12:36 Speaker 02 In 15 minutes. They wanted to hate each other. The show dog connection was just too strong. They settled. They shook hands. They walked out of there. You know, that showed me two things. Number one, the power of an open question. Number two, there's no such thing as small talk.
12:54 Manoush Zomorodi? Ah.
12:55 Speaker 02 The relationship is often central to what kind of deal you're going to get on the other side.
13:02 Manoush Zomorodi? When we come back, more tips from Alex Carter, including how to figure out what you want before you even negotiate for it. On the show today, difficult negotiations. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. Stay with us.
13:30 Speaker 03 Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.
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14:04 Manoush Zomorodi? This episode's sponsor is HubSpot, which offers the following message. What if instead of updating your CRM, your CRM updated you? No catching up on manual edits, no more guesswork. HubSpot's self-updating CRM keeps your customer context current and helps you understand what to do next. So, marketing builds more demand, sales wins more deals, and customers keep coming back. Learn more at hubspot.com.
14:35 Manoush Zomorodi? It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. On the show today, we are talking about managing difficult negotiations. We were talking to Alex Carter, a law professor and professional mediator, who has developed an approach for everyday negotiations, based on 20 years of experience. So her first rule, which we heard, is to ask open-ended questions. But she also says that before you even start negotiations, you need to ask yourself, what do I need?
15:10 Speaker 02 Most people don't know that every negotiation actually comes in two parts. The second part, we all know about. That's where we're sitting down with someone else. But that first part, that's what I call the mirror. Because we have to negotiate with ourselves first, before we negotiate with anyone else. And it's the most critical part of the negotiation, too. Because if we don't get this right, the negotiation stops there. We don't ask. We get confused about our priorities.
15:54 Speaker 02 We shut ourselves down before we give anybody else the chance.
16:01 Manoush Zomorodi? If someone asks you, what do you need? You need to know, right? And sometimes I feel like really asking yourself that question can be hard. And I think a lot of people don't do it. What do I really want? They go into battle and think, well, I just want to win. But win what and at what price, I suppose?
16:20 Speaker 02 Yes, and this comes out of, once again, my work as a mediator, where I would ask people individually, what do you need? And even experienced, credentialed, brilliant people didn't know how to answer that question. So, Manoush, I like people to ask themselves that question in two buckets: tangibles and intangibles.
16:42 Manoush Zomorodi? Okay.
16:43 Speaker 02 For a job search, the tangibles are the things you can touch, see, or count. So, the job title, the salary, all of the compensation buckets, maybe the resources that you're going to have. But the intangibles are the things that make you want to get up every day and go to that job. I want autonomy. I want challenge. I want good communication. And making that list really helps you, because even for the intangibles, I like then for people to follow up with themselves and say, what would that look like? So what would good communication look like for me in this job? Or challenge, what would that look like? This way, when you come in, I coach lots of people through job negotiations, they're
17:25 Speaker 02 not just thinking about, yes, here's my salary, or here's my bonus, or here's my vacation time, but they're thinking about, what kinds of meetings will I be invited to? What kind of support will I get from my managers? You know, what kind of training will I receive? And it all goes back to you and what you need.
17:46 Manoush Zomorodi? Okay, so I walk in with a sense of what I need, but then you say, flip the script. Ask the person on the other side of the table, what is it that you need? Does that... I wonder if people think like, oh, well, that's acquiescing. That's giving in if I'm asking, what do you need?
18:04 Speaker 02 Not at all. Asking what do you need is one of the most powerful strategic moves you can make for yourself in a negotiation. We assume all the time that we know what's important to people or what they need. And study after study has shown for decades now that one of the most important things you can do is figure out what the other person needs and then pitch what you're looking for in a way that meets that.
18:37 Speaker 02 You know, if you're asking an employer, right? So what do you need most from this role? You know, tell me about other people who have had this role. Tell me about the last superstar you hired and what made them so fantastic. That gives you a great sense then of how to pitch yourself so that you're the person to get the job done.
18:59 Manoush Zomorodi? Mm-hmm.
19:01 Manoush Zomorodi? So let's say you've asked yourself these hard questions and you've come to some conclusions about what you want out of this job or this next, let's say you're signing a contract, this next phase of your job. And you've also asked a lot of questions about what the employer needs out of filling this position. Then there's like, then it gets down to brass tacks, right? People coming in and looking at each other or having a phone call and expressing themselves to each other to really get down into the details. And where have you seen things go right and where have you seen things go wrong?
19:40 Speaker 02 So when you're getting down to brass tacks, right? This is the monetary part. Sometimes shutting up is exactly the thing you need to do to break a negotiation wide open.
19:55 Speaker 02 I worked with a brilliant sales executive who sometimes would lose deals because he talked too much.
20:04 Speaker 02 He'd ask a great question and then he would get scared of the silence, so he would eat it up with his words. What do you need to get this done here today? Well, I know our price point might be a little bit higher than that of our competitors, but I think if you go ahead and look at our customer reviews.
20:25 Speaker 02 Want to know the secret to great deals?
20:29 Speaker 02 Shut up.
20:31 Speaker 02 Recent research found that leaving a period of silence in negotiation not only made it more likely that the other person would give you a high-value move, but it also came across as collaborative. So, how much silence?
20:55 Speaker 02 I just did it. Three and a half seconds. See? You were nervous, but we all survived. That's what I call landing the plane. Ask your question, make your proposal, and then zip it.
21:14 Manoush Zomorodi? I hear, though, from a lot of people these days that, you know, the job market is really tough. The economy is volatile. They don't necessarily feel that they're in any position to negotiate. And that's what some employers are saying. You're lucky to have a job.
21:30 Speaker 02 I heard this before. I've heard this during the pandemic. 2020, you know, the pandemic is raging across the US. Job market's really tough. Lot of folks told me, I just don't feel I can negotiate. Those are the signals I'm getting. On the other side, I heard from many, many hiring managers that they had room. They had at least 10%, sometimes 20% or more, but people weren't asking. Bottom line, companies expect you to negotiate. When you negotiate for yourself, you're often teaching them what kind of a negotiator you'll be for them.
22:13 Speaker 02 And very often, there is room in the budget. What I would say, Manoush, is if you negotiate and you're coming from a place of solid information and the company acts shocked and appalled that you advocated, that, to me, is a red flag that indicates might not be a great job for the long term.
22:35 Manoush Zomorodi? I feel like, and maybe this is, I've watched too many movies, but maybe like, you know, don't show any emotion. Dress for the part that you, you know, want them, for the image you want them to perceive when you go into a negotiation. Don't show your cards, you know, like that there's a sort of, like you're playing poker, essentially.
22:57 Speaker 02 Yes.
22:57 Manoush Zomorodi? But is that inaccurate?
23:00 Speaker 02 It's not accurate anymore. My students and I do a lot of work at the United Nations. We train diplomats in conflict resolution.
23:09 Speaker 02 And one of the diplomats we helped told me that he'd been brought up in a system where you were supposed to exactly play poker, hold your cards close, and then spring a surprise on your adversary. Ha ha, ha ha, here it is, the reveal. And he said, "That doesn't work anymore for at least two reasons. Number one, information. So much more information is out there now that in many cases, it's only a matter of time until somebody figures out your surprise. The second thing is, is that a lot of industries, or sectors, or organizations get really small the longer you've been there. You see the same people over and over again.
23:54 Speaker 02 And most of life, most careers are a relationship sport. And so tricking someone once might get you short-term gains, but in the long run, both research and all of my experience show me that you're going to get further by prioritizing the relationship and using that to achieve an outcome that works for both parties."
24:22 Speaker 02 It's 3 a.m. And you have five hours to go before the entire world is expecting you and several other countries to announce a peace deal. But right now, you have a problem because one of the other country's diplomats has left the building and is down in the parking lot threatening to drive away because he feels disrespected. This was the situation that one of the diplomats I work with faced. But a lot of us face things like this in our everyday negotiations. So much of the popular wisdom talks about our adversary, our opponent.
25:07 Speaker 02 Well, in most everyday negotiations, that adversary at the bargaining table becomes our partner once that deal is done. The boss who holds the keys to your raise, once you get it, you're working together.
25:28 Speaker 02 Or that home contractor you're negotiating with over your kitchen. Once you settle on a price, you're trusting her to build a room you're gonna love for years to come. And even when your spouse might feel like an opponent, well, you're still sleeping in the same bed at the end of the day. That diplomat I worked with, he walked out of the building, down to the parking lot, and he approached the man who had left. He said to him, "We are on the same side." He listened.
26:12 Speaker 02 Eventually, the two men walked together back into that building, and later, they announced that peace deal. My negotiation motto is this: I never request, I recruit. I don't want to talk to someone across the table. I want to pull them around with questions to my side of the table, so that we are now co-conspirators, working toward the same goal.
26:50 Manoush Zomorodi? Am I wrong in sort of taking away from your strategies that if you want a negotiation to go smoothly and quickly, you actually need to put in a heck of a lot more time upfront? Whether that's maintaining the relationship all along, before you even negotiate anything? Whether that's spending time asking yourself, "What do you really want out of this?" And whether that's asking the questions, getting the background information that you need to determine how you can reach an agreement? You can't just swat in there and think things are gonna wham-bam, get figured out.
27:27 Speaker 02 You're gonna spend time, one way or the other. You're either gonna spend it upfront, or you can spend the time on damage control later on. When I do all-day mediations and the first couple of hours in the morning, I'm asking people background on themselves and their companies and maybe going way back to the history of the conflict. Inevitably, somebody says, you know, Professor Carter, I'm sure you know what you're doing and we're really so glad you're here, but you know, could we, could we just get to it? Could we just like solve the problem? And I said, okay, great. What's the problem we're solving?
28:07 Manoush Zomorodi? Mm-hmm.
28:08 Speaker 02 That's what we're figuring out right now. And I tell people, I am spending time to save time. I'm spending time this morning so that this afternoon, when we actually get to what you might consider the bargaining, it's going to go much more smoothly and much more effectively for you.
28:28 Manoush Zomorodi? Hmm.
28:29 Speaker 02 We're trying to figure out what is that problem we're solving? What is that sweet spot? What's the zone of agreement? And then lining up the shot to hit it. Otherwise, we're coming in and we're just shooting arrows in the dark and praying for the best.
28:48 Manoush Zomorodi? Have you ever, Alex, gone through all of these steps, thought that things were actually going to proceed and then it just hasn't worked out and negotiation has gone south?
29:01 Speaker 02 Yes. Yes. There are always things you can't control. And yes, I have helped people in negotiations where I thought I brought my very best as a mediator and the parties have been there and we were so close, I could smell it. And then it, all of a sudden, came crashing down.
29:35 Speaker 02 In this one case, this was, you know, once again, a federal government case, but it was about health and safety. And somebody was alleging that he had blown the whistle and then been fired. And he got what I thought was a really good offer. And he turned it down. He just had a vision of, in his head, of what a good offer was. And this wasn't it. And he felt really, really tied to that goal. And so he said, no. And I knew this was a really meaningful amount of money. And the man was living in like a temporary trailer.
30:19 Speaker 02 And I was really worried about his safety for the long term. And he turned it down. And I had trouble sleeping. I thought to myself, you know, maybe I should have pushed harder, even though it's not my role. And then I got a call from somebody close to him that his trailer had burned down.
30:39 Manoush Zomorodi? Oh, no.
30:40 Speaker 02 And he was in the hospital. He was in the hospital for close to 60 days. And I knew he had gotten out when he called me. And he said, you know, I've been thinking, Professor, about that offer. And I'd like to take it. And I held my breath and called the other side. I said, on my knees, I am asking you, is this offer still on the table? And they said, it is. And we signed. I think about that often because it's, I slept better.
31:21 Manoush Zomorodi? Yeah.
31:22 Speaker 02 But it's not my role. And it's not within my capability to make every negotiation go right. I've also counseled people through job negotiations where everything seemed so promising. And then they made a very reasonable counteroffer, and the company freaked out. Not many, but I know a few situations like that. It's jarring. It makes you second guess yourself if you're the person negotiating. It makes you wonder. For me as a coach, sometimes I think about, could we have done anything more?
31:58 Manoush Zomorodi? Mm-hmm.
31:59 Speaker 02 The bottom line is, you can't control what other people do. You can't control the wind and the waves, but you can control your paddle. And at the end of the day, even if you're taken off course temporarily by some wind or there's an unhelpful rock, if you keep pushing and steering every day, steering those relationships, controlling what you can control, you're going to get to where you need to be.
32:32 Manoush Zomorodi? That was Alex Carter. She's a mediator and professor at Columbia Law School. She's also the author of Ask for More: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything. You can see her full talk at ted.com. On the show today, difficult negotiations. I'm Manoush Zamirodi, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR. We'll be right back.
33:08 Speaker 03 Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.
33:12 Speaker 04 This message comes from Prolon. With their five-day fasting-mimicking diet, a clinically-developed nutrition program with the goal of promoting fat loss while protecting lean body mass. Learn more at prolonlife.com/NPR.
33:25 Speaker 03 This message comes from TED Talks Daily, the podcast that brings you a new idea every day. Learn what's transforming humanity. From balancing AI in your critical thinking to surpassing discoveries about the adolescent brain. Find TED Talks Daily wherever you listen.
33:41 Manoush Zomorodi? This episode's sponsor is HubSpot, which offers the following message. What if instead of updating your CRM, your CRM updated you? No catching up on manual edits, no more guesswork. HubSpot's self-updating CRM keeps your customer context current and helps you understand what to do next. So, marketing builds more demand, sales wins more deals, and customers keep coming back. Learn more at hubspot.com.
34:14 Manoush Zomorodi? It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Manoush Zomorodi. On the show today, difficult negotiations. And so far, we've talked mostly about strategies for negotiating higher salaries or business deals, which is all well and good. But as Alex Carter learned back in her kayak, much of the negotiating we do happens with our romantic partners. And the couples who might do the most negotiating are those from different cultures and countries. How do they deal with each other? And what can they teach the rest of us? Linguist Magdalena Hoeller shares her story and insights from the TED stage.
34:56 Speaker 05 On a cold, but sunny autumn afternoon, I was riding on the back of my husband's motorcycle, just cruising along one of our favorite routes around Newcastle. It was a pretty fresh day, so we were all rugged up in our protective gear. At a set of red lights, my husband lifted his visor, and he said to me, "Hey, come feel my handles." So naturally, I reached for his hips and gave them a playful squeeze and said, "These handles are perfect, baby."
35:30 Speaker 05 What he, of course, meant was his heated motorcycle handles? Not his love handles. Yeah. A classic and genuine misunderstanding. And luckily, we both have good humour. Otherwise, this could have ended in an argument. But interactions like these happen every day in intercultural relationships. This is not unique to us, of course. In fact, one-third of Australian marriages are intercultural these days, according to the ABS, which means we've never been more intimately connected across the globe than we are right now. What I didn't tell you so far is that I'm from Austria, so my first language is Austrian German, and my husband is from Australia, so he speaks English.
36:15 Speaker 05 So these kinds of conversations, misunderstandings, long explanations of jokes and words, shape our relationship. Now, in my research with intercultural couples, I found many beautiful aspects of having two different languages amongst partners, but also quite a few challenges that monolingual couples don't necessarily have to face. Let me ask you this. If you cannot flawlessly communicate with the person you want to be closest to in this world, how does that affect your relationship? This is what I'm going to answer for you today. I speak six languages, and I focused my studies in linguistics.
36:59 Speaker 05 And I worked with intercultural couples to uncover their language behaviour and their dynamic. So let me take you on a journey today through the science behind all of these love handles stories out there. I'm going to let you in on three specific challenges that intercultural partners have to face on a daily basis, but sometimes don't even know that they're facing them. Some of these are very, very hidden.
37:25 Speaker 05 Now, I'm focusing mostly on romantic relationships here, but you can apply this equally to intercultural friends or even workplace encounters.
37:36 Speaker 05 The first challenge I'd like to share with you today is how different languages carry different emotional weights for people.
37:45 Speaker 05 What does that mean? It basically means that when I say "I love you" in English, it doesn't feel the same as saying "Ich liebe dich", for me as a German speaker. That's because language isn't just a tool for communication. It shapes our emotional experience. And our first language usually evokes the strongest one. That's why a declaration of love, which is such an emotionally charged statement, usually holds more weight for someone in their first language than in any language learned later in life. Now, I grew up with the words "Ich liebe dich" from my parents, so over the years of my life, these have gained an emotional weight
38:29 Speaker 05 beyond what any other language can achieve for me. So what does that mean for intercultural partners now? Imagine a Japanese-French couple, and they speak English together.
38:43 Speaker 05 Are they unable to communicate the true strength of their feelings because of this language distance? Now, my husband and I, we mostly speak English together. Does that mean when I say "I love you" in English, it means less because I'm emotionally detached from it?
39:03 Speaker 05 We can observe this also with other emotions. For example, something that comes up in relationships: anger, frustration. With anger, it's very often a totally different experience in English. It's very often the impact that matters more instead of the words. It's the classic "Honey, it's not what you said, it's how you said it." Let me give you an example. Early on in my relationship, during an argument, I dropped a certain C-word. I'm not gonna say what it is, you all know. Now, at that time in my relationship, I had no grasp how offensive that word is in English.
39:46 Speaker 05 To me, it was just four letters stringed together, just something I heard around the street here in Australia. I had...
39:55 Speaker 05 I had no emotional connection to it. But my husband, he was shocked, and rightly so. I've never used it since in any context.
40:08 Speaker 05 But that's the thing, when intercultural partners fight, we have to think of many things here. Is the word choice right? Mine clearly wasn't. How does that word land on the other person? So what's the impact? Mine was clearly horrible and misdirected. And thirdly, what is the delivery of it all? So what's the intonation? Is it too strong, too weak? And that's where intercultural partners, they bring their language background, they bring their cultural background to one table and have to negotiate this in a heated moment. At the same time, there's too much happening.
40:47 Speaker 05 Now, fighting is already difficult with monolingual partners, but adding all of these elements, that requires a lot of communication. But let's be honest, who actually sits down to determine the terms of a fight before a fight? Right? Doesn't happen.
41:07 Speaker 05 The second challenge I'd like to share with you today is humor. Making each other laugh is a big part of relationships, but humor often doesn't translate very well. Sometimes a joke is funny in one language, but it falls flat in another, or it could be quite offensive. Now, linguistically, we can break this down into two parts, into receiving humor and producing humor. From a receiving side, a partner might feel unsure if they grasp the true meaning of a joke or just a superficial facet thereof. There's also the cultural aspect, of course. Partners with different language backgrounds
41:52 Speaker 05 naturally grew up in different in-groups of a joke. So the people that understand a joke and the people that don't.
42:01 Speaker 05 I never understood why the Aussie phrase "shrimp on a Barbie" isn't actually funny to Australians, it actually quite annoys them. My husband doesn't understand why the super cringey nostalgic 90s TV show "Liebesgeschichten und Heiratszahlen" is so hilarious to me. Different in groups. That means that intercultural partners have limited common ground to work with here. And if one partner doesn't understand the joke, the other is stuck trying to explain it to them. And that conversation is never funny. From a producing side, we all know that producing humour in a second language
42:46 Speaker 05 is an incredibly difficult skill to master. The subtext of a joke, the punchline, the context, the delivery, all while making sure that it's appropriate and, well, funny, right? Now, in my research with intercultural couples, they all confirmed that they feel less funny when joking in a second language with their partners. Can you imagine what that does to your self-esteem and to your couple dynamic? In one particular interview, one of the male participants said about his wife, "I don't think she's ever made me laugh in English. She's a German speaker."
43:29 Speaker 05 Now, these sentiments aren't uncommon, even I can attest to that. I always felt that I was effortlessly hilarious in Austrian German, but I couldn't bring that same energy to English. And I was so disheartened that my husband would never know the true comedic genius his wife actually is. Such a tragedy. But that's the problem here. Humour, or the lack thereof, can create distance between partners. It can stop us from truly knowing each other.
44:04 Speaker 05 I've left the last challenge for you, which I find the most interesting one, and it is also the most hidden one. It is something couples deal with, and it is so subtle, they very often don't even notice. And it is the hidden power dynamics between intercultural partners.
44:25 Speaker 05 From a pure language perspective, and we're only talking language here, there is always a partner who is linguistically superior and someone who is inferior. You might think now, "Well, it's the one who speaks the language better, right?"
44:42 Speaker 05 That can be one aspect, but it's not quite that simple. There's many more layers and facets to it. You are correct, though. One aspect is language proficiency. Now, even though my English skills are really good and high, my husband is a native speaker. He will always be more proficient in English than I am. And that puts him at an advantage in a lot of situations. He's the one who manages all of our contracts. He's the one who explains vocabulary to me during movies when I don't understand. All of this isn't a big deal, of course, but in some ways, it flows into the dynamic of our relationship because I am linguistically dependent on him.
45:28 Speaker 05 And that is something we never notice on a daily basis.
45:33 Speaker 05 It's extremely apparent, though, when we have an argument. We're having all these heated discussions in English, my second language, his first language.
45:44 Speaker 05 After a day of processing life and work and emotions and conversations in English, it takes me double the energy to find the right words in these heated moments. His responses are immediate, but I would very often just like to say, "Thank you for your response. I will get back to you in three to five business days."
46:08 Speaker 05 So you see, the partner with the higher language proficiency does have the upper hand here. But like I said, there's other factors too. There's also the global status of the language in use amongst partners. Now, global player languages like English, Spanish, Mandarin, they're viewed as superior in comparison to lesser spoken languages, so couples naturally gravitate towards them. The dominant global status of English will always take preference, and that flows into the dynamic of our relationship because we're not speaking my language as much as I'd like to. But one factor we cannot forget is the linguistic environment where a couple chooses to live,
46:53 Speaker 05 or the country. Now, in Australia, a native speaker like my husband is in his linguistic comfort zone. But if you remove that safe environment, the power dynamics can very much change. As soon as we travel to Austria, suddenly I'm the one ordering food at restaurants, I'm the one translating at family events. The roles reverse. So the power dynamics are not just defined by the couple itself, but also by their surroundings. I've presented you with a range of hidden language challenges now that intercultural
47:33 Speaker 05 partners face on a daily basis, and I think it's pretty apparent, dealing with two different languages here is tricky. You might be asking yourself right now, "So, what's the solution? What can we do?" The bad news is that these things never really go away, no matter how long your relationship lasts. My husband and I, we've been together for nine years now, and we still struggle with most of these things.
48:03 Speaker 05 The good news is that I can give you two very simple recommendations today.
48:09 Speaker 05 The first one is awareness. Be aware that your emotions can be guided by your language: love, anger, and everything in between. Be aware that your humour is rooted in your cultural background, and it sometimes doesn't translate in another language. And be aware that your language skills and your surroundings can raise or lower your linguistic power over your partner. Because if you're conscious that these things are happening for you behind the scenes, you'll realise that these things are also happening for your partner. And only then you can work on my second recommendation together.
48:51 Speaker 05 And that is actively build your microculture. Your microculture is your perfect blend of both your cultures, your habits, your traditions, and your languages. So build your love language, invent new words that don't exist, switch between your languages as much as possible. Define your own humour, get your own insider jokes, define your own comedic language. That's the humour that counts.
49:21 Speaker 05 And work towards an equal power dynamic. Give each other chances to grow in each other's languages and countries.
49:31 Speaker 05 What I want you to take away today is that all these challenges are tricky, but they're also an opportunity to evolve. No matter if it's with an intercultural friend, or at work, or in a romantic relationship. Love is hard in a second language, but it's definitely worth it. I'm sure you'll all handle it too. Thank you.
49:59 Manoush Zomorodi? That was Magdalena Hurler. She is a linguist and teaching director at Kaplan, an education company. You can see her full talk at ted.com. Thank you so much for listening to our show this week. If you enjoyed it, please rate us on Apple or leave us a comment on Spotify. We read every message and we love hearing from you. Also, I just want to shout out real quick to one listener who sent us a very lovely voice memo that lifted us all up. Here is Joe Thompson from Suffolk, England.
50:31 Speaker 06 So I just wanted to say I couldn't live without TED Radio Hour in some ways. And that might sound dramatic, but it is that when you're stuck in your job and when you're stuck in life, perhaps that feeling that we're not all alone, or can be, is something that really helps people. So I wanted to say thank you because that certainly has helped me in the past. Certainly when I was doing jobs I didn't feel fulfilled by. And I think in a world where you talk about AI and you talk about the homogenization of content, I do look towards those that hold very high standards of creativity and of
51:15 Speaker 06 ideas. And I definitely hold you in that regard. So Manoush and your team, thank you so much for what you do.
51:26 Manoush Zomorodi? Thank you so much, Joe, and to all of you for listening. This episode was produced by Matthew Cloutier and James Delahoussaye. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkhanpour, Katie Monteleone, and me, with a special thanks to Alison McAdam. Our production staff at NPR also includes Fiona Guerin, Phoebe Lett, Rachel Faulkner White, and Hersha Nahada. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Our audio engineer was Stacey Abbott. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Helen Walters, Roxane Hylash, and Daniela Balorazo. I'm Manoush Zamirodi, and you have been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.
52:02 Speaker 04 Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Cornerpiece, a podcast from TED. If you've ever stayed up at 2 a.m. wondering why some friendships last while others fall apart, or whether unconditional love actually exists, this show is for you. Check out Cornerpiece wherever you listen.
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