My greatest worry is ...

Ce qui me préoccupe le plus, c'est ...

being far away from my family and friends.

failing.

failure, not actually talented, cheat

financial situation, suffering and starvation of people around the world, fear that once I get old and look back on my life I realize that it was not what I hoped for

I will not be able to accomplish all that I want and see all the places I want to see.

I will not have enough time.

I won't succeed.

losing some of what makes me happy right now.

my health because my family has a history of a combination of cancer, blood-pressure, heart disease, and diabetes.

not fitting in, not being able to pass classes, becoming overwhelmed by life,

not knowing what to do when I wake up the next day.

that all my dreams will come true.

that I will not be successful.
that I will be unable to help my family.
that I will let my family down.

that I won't be happy.

that when I get older I won't be able to do what I want with my life.

the future

to end up homeless or not being able to support myself, being alone and not enjoying what I do with my life

to fail.

To forget who I am

to lose my family.
to have nothing to do.
not money.

to not have control over my own life, to not be able to contribute to this world, to be without friends and family

whether or not I will become the person I want to be

Ce que je vais pouvoir faire une fois mes études terminées.

d'obtenir mon diplôme d'ingénieur en 2012.

de réussir mes études.

de trouver un travail

de vite finir mon école d'ingénieur pour commencer à gagner ma vie.

la connaissance de soi.

les examens et le stage

ma copine.
les études.
de trouver un emploi.

ma famille.
la fin de mes études.
les conflits mondiaux.

ma recherche de stage pour la fin de l'année scolaire.

mon avenir et celui de ma famille.

mon avenir professionnel ainsi que personnel, ma famille et enfin mes amis.

mon avenir.

mon entrée dans la vie active, mon avenir, mon domaine d'activité, mon mariage...

pouvoir jouer de la guitare encore et encore.

vivre ma vie avec ceux que j'aime et essayer de les rendre toujours souriants

Discussion

Il est amusant de voir les différences entre les étudiants du MIT et les étudiants de l'ENSEIRB. Vous, américains, semblez beaucoup plus rêveurs, ou optimistes. Nous, français, semblons plus terre-à-terre. Effectivement, nos préoccupations portent sur des points précis : vies professionnelle, sentimentale, familliale.
Tandis que vous, ne parlez surtout que de choses vagues : "to fail", "won't succeed" "that I won't be happy". C'est peut-être à la fois plus facile à réaliser, car il y a de multiples manières d'y arriver, alors que nous, nous savons ce que nous voulons et nous avons qu'une manière d'y parvenir.
Pensez-vous qu'il y a cette différence que les américains sont moins pragmatiques que les français ? Ou plutôt moins exigeants ?

Hi,

 

I don't think that your answers (the French) are way less general than ours. I mean there are French answers that sound like "my future", "my family" or "my education". In fact, I see the word "future" at least three times in French answers which is pretty general. But I don't see anything wrong or bad with that, future can be defined in a lot of ways but the idea is the same - everyone is a little scared about their own future because we don't control it and everything that is out of our control can be scary, right? There is nothing wrong with general answers. I am interested in another thing though. How about the word family? It doesn't seem to appear that often in the Americans' answers compared to the French ones. Why is that so?

 

Yoana

Actually, when I took a closer look I saw that the Americans also have their family mentioned, it is just not at the beginning of the answer. However, I noticed something else. Some of the French students are afraid for the future in particular for the period after they graduate from the university. Is it hard for a student that graduates from your university to find a good job? Or is it just a general concern of all graduating students in France?

I thought it was interesting that the French thought more about worries that had to do with the future with education and finding a job, whereas with the Americans, the worries were more personal, for example being happy and healthy. These responses I think, had more to do with the mental consequences of being at MIT and later graduating from MIT. 

Do you have any personal worries about you life right now? 

Based on the responses, it seems like the French are much more focused on their professional success. The Americans are focused more on various aspects of life that relate to happiness. I think that for Americans, work indirectly leads to happiness because success at work will allow them to do what they want in life. Is success a direct link to happiness for the French?

It seems like the most common American response is a fear of failure. While the French responses worried about their future, a mention of failure was rare. I wonder why Americans have a greater fear of failure than French students

I feel as though both groups responded with a fear of failure, it was just different in the way it was mentioned.  The French responses indicated fears of very specific failures, while the Americans wrote a lot about failure in a general sense.  It seems to me that a lot of the same ideas are behind the two sets of answers.

What is it that makes individual events so much more important for French students than American ones?

D'après ce que j'ai constaté, les élèves de MIT et de l'ENSEIRB ont peur d'échouer dans leurs vies privée et professionelle. Et je pense que tous les humains soient Français, Americain ou autres  se ressemblent dans beaucoup de points et se diversent sur d'autres, et cela en ce qui concerne tous ce qui est côté sentiment comme la peur. A mon avis, on a tous peur de l'avenir, de perdre ce qui donne une valeur à notre vie mais la façon de l'exprimer se diffère selon la personne.  

I got a feeling that my greatest worry and ce qui me préoccupe le plus don't have the same meaning in two languages. Americans seem to talk about fears and bad things that worry them, while French seem to talk about things they have on their mind the most at this time: their education, family, future, etc. French talked more about the things they are the most concerned with, while MIT students talked about fears.

So, do you think these phrases have different meanings in two languages? I get a different vibe from two sides, don't you?

I agree with you, Amina. However, I think that the differencies come from the fact that people are afraid to lose what is important in their lives but for different people these important things are not the same. For me, for instance, to lose my job will not be that scary as to be alone or away form the people I love. Do you think that the values that the Americans appreciate the most in life are different than the values the French appreciate the most?

I think there was also a wide variety of interpreting the question. Some interpretted my greatest worry as their greatest fear, while others interpretted it as their greatest issue that they had to deal with at the moment. I feel like the French tended to be the latter of the two while the Americans were the ones who interpretted the question as to what was their greatest fear. Is there a positive connotation associated with the sentence or do you think there's another reason?

 

I think also that fear and worrying are synonymous. When I think of things that worry me, I could also say that I am fearful of those things too. I agree with Jovana too that worry and préoccuper are two different meanings. préoccuper means "to have concern". I think between the two words, that worry is a more intense word than concern, so that could be why the American responses were more personal. 

@Yoana

  Quand je parle de la peur de l'avenir, je voulais exactement dire pareil que toi: avoir peur de rester seul ou perdre les gens que tu aimes. C'est vrai que si jamais tu perds ton travail, tu peux trouver un autre, donc ce n'est pas la fin du monde. Je pense alors que les valeurs humaines ont une importance dans la vie des gens en France tout comme chez vous.

Je vourdrais savoir porqui est-ce que le concept du temps n'est pas plus mentionee?

L'avenir est une preocupation plus importante pour les francais?

@Andres

Je pense que l'avenir est une préoccupation importante pour tous pas que pour les Français. Mais peut être que l'on a l'impression que les Français accordenr plus d'importance à leur avenir. Je pense que le Français en règle général veut  que son avenir et celui de ses enfants soient meilleur ainsi il se bat pour, défit les autorités, grèves, boudent un peu: c'est tout à fait normal.