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[p. 2, CD 1 Track 2]
Professor Roth:
All right, class . . . um, how was everyone’s weekend? Did anyone get together with a friend? Yes, Jessica, what did you do?
Jessica: Um, well, nothing much, really. We pretty much sat at a café and talked.
Professor Roth: Uh-huh. What about?
Jessica: Um, you know, about nothing . . . and everything! Um, let’s see, about my sister’s new baby, and about when she could go back to work, and, you know, who should take care of the baby. Things like that.
Professor Roth: OK! Now, what about the guys? Any of you get together with a friend?
George: Uh, well, a . . . a buddy – a buddy and I went to a ballgame.
Professor Roth: OK. What did you talk about?
George: Uh, the game? I mean, you know, when we’re at the game we, you know, talk about the players and what’s going on in the game and . . .
Professor Roth: Nothing else?
George: Well, not really. I mean, were we supposed to talk about something?
Professor Roth: Perfect! Do you know what just happened, class? Jessica and
George have just demonstrated for us the basic idea of today’s lecture – that friendship between women is different from friendship between men. This is an idea put forward by Deborah Tannen in her book, You
Just Don’t Understand:
Women and Men in Conversation , and that’s what I’d like to talk about today.
Now, Deborah Tannen is an author and linguist who has written about the relationships between men and women, and why they often don’t understand one another. According to Tannen, when a woman talks with a man, she’ll often feel as though he isn’t really listening or that they aren’t really having a conversation, right? And a man often doesn’t understand what the woman really wants from him. “What’s her point?” He wonders. “Where is this conversation going?” How many of you feel that this sounds familiar? OK, most of you. Well, Tannen points out that we can understand this difference in communication better when we examine how men and women view friendship.
OK, for a woman, her best friend is someone she can be close with and talk to.
They talk in detail about everyday events in their lives. They share feelings and secrets. Talking gives women a chance to better understand their world and themselves. For a man, talking is generally more straightforward. It’s about giving and getting facts. Men generally don’t base their friendships on talking, but on doing – getting together with buddies, playing sports, or going places.
Men will often put down a woman’s need to talk with her close friend about a subject in great detail. They don’t understand how women can put up with such long conversations. OK, so, who here agrees with
Tannen’s ideas?

[p. 6, CD 1 Track 4]
It’s really crazy how Kate and I became friends. I guess it was about two years ago now. I was on a plane, flying from New York to Los Angeles for work.
Anyway, the woman sitting next to me was reading the same book as me, so we started talking. She told me her name was Kate, and that she was going to her college roommate’s wedding in Monterey. We had a great conversation and talked the entire trip – seven hours. But, unfortunately, the flight had been delayed in New York by bad weather, and when we got to L.A., she found out she’d missed her connecting flight to Monterey. So, I invited her to stay with me in my hotel in L.A., but the airline had already promised to give her a room at the airport hotel, and she had to catch a really early flight the next day. We talked and talked until her hotel shuttle bus came, but as her bus drove away, I realized that I had completely forgotten to get her e-mail, telephone number, or anything! Ugh. I felt bad because I would have liked to hang out with her back in New York. We had a lot in common. Well, three months later, my roommate had a bunch of people over for a party one Thursday evening. I started talking to this woman, Samantha. She told me she had just gotten married a few months ago in Monterey. I remembered Kate said she was going to a wedding in Monterey, so I then asked her if she’d had a roommate in college named
Kate. She was very surprised and said that she had. Then I told her all about meeting Kate on the plane to L.A. So, to make a long story short, Samantha called Kate up right away, and Kate came over to the party too. It was so exciting to see her again, and we’re all good friends now.