I'm Fine. How are you?

By Clay

I've been teaching English for about four years now.  I've taught all ages during that time, from the cutest of preschoolers to the oldest of old men and women--funny thing is, in terms of hair, teeth and verbal ability, the extreme ages of the human species are pretty similar, but I digress. The one thing they all had in common was a certain phrase.  A phrase I have, to be frank, kind of come to hate at times: "I'm fine. How are you?"

On the surface, what's not to like?  Someone asks you how you are, you confirm the normal working order of your organs, emotions, and mental facilities and politely inquire in kind. Perfunctorily, it meets all the basic requirements of human interaction. But the thing about human interactions is that they shouldn't be done in a robotic manner. From the first time I had a class of students say it in unison at me back when I first started teaching, I've found it a bit off-putting. Some students put a little garnish on it with a thanks: "I'm fine, thank you. How are you?" It's a nice try, but I'm still not feeling the love. Both variations have the same origin and means of preservation within Japan: a very systematic and stiff tradition of teaching English.

I'd like to find out who wrote a school book I theorize exists.  This book, which I think may have been titled something like Diligent Children Memorize their English, probably had the "How are you?" conversation on it's first page (the second page would most likely have been adorned with the famous "This is a pen" phrase that mystifies me with its ubiquity in Japan), and the members of school boards across the country, not wanting to shake things up, diligently put it in their textbooks too. What I'm getting at is that you can not and should not try to make a language like English into a plug-in-the-memorized phrases type of formula, and even if you do, you should at least update the formula every once in a while; English has moved on since the 40s.

Just as English has a lot of variation in it's greetings, so too can Japanese, but thanks to the the complications of social strata, you are a lot more likely to hear set phrases in the latter. The English greetings such as "Was'up?" "How's it hanging?" "Everyt'ing be cook and curry, wit' you, mon?" and "Duuuude" of English certainly have their counterparts in Japanese, but casual, variant language doesn't have much room in the Japanese classroom or boardroom (the two places where English use is most prevalent in Japan). So it seems there is a tenancy to think that English is limited to a few set phrases.  The student feels the need to say his set phrase and not think beyond it, or even what it really means. This is why I want to avoid the phrase "I'm fine;" it's the death of creativity on one hand, and the erection of formal barriers on the other.

Beyond that, I suspect the phrase is all but dying out in use, going the way of such phrases as "How do you do?" or "Have you a comely wench?" from bygone days. Whenever a native speaker tells me that they are "Fine, thank you." I know that they are not fine, especially if they are my girlfriend and we are at a wedding.  In this case, "I'm fine." becomes a very serious warning that I will either have to commit soon or get kicked out of bed in favor of Alfonso. Stupid Alfonso, with his head of full hair, and his ability to avoid abstract jokes...

So every once in a while I try to get my students (currently I teach only adults) to change from the formula. They seem pretty shocked when I apologetically tell them that I don't think it's a very good response these days and why I think so. I even explain that it sounds a lot better if you make just a small variation like, "I'm feeling fine, thanks!" My meddling teacher ways get the students to switch to more dynamic greetings for a while, but ultimately, they go back to being fine. Just fine. After all, they've been "fine" their whole life, why change now?