The Breakdown of Communication
It is commonly acknowledged that language problems make communication between people from different cultures difficult. Because of the language barriers, people cannot express their feelings clearly to each other.However, communication problems also exist between individuals from the same culture.Although they have the same cultural background，they sometimes cannot understand each other well. Communication between individuals breaks down because of many factors.The most significant ones include personality, age difference and competition between individuals.
Personality has a great influence on communication between people. First, the sharing of common interests is often essential for initiating communication. If two people hold completely different attitudes，it will not be easy for them to start communicating with each other.Second，the willingness to express their feelings and opinions freely is needed if meaningful communication is to be developed.Some people do not want to talk about controversial subjects, fearing that this will hurt their relationship with friends. Instead, they keep their discussion of topics at a very superficial level，which prevents them from knowing and understanding each other. The lack of understanding leads to unsuccessful communication. It is clear that personality, to some extent，affects the initiation and maintenance of communication.
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Although age difference gives rise to communication problems between two generations，competition poses an even greater problem when people are about the same age.Intense competition in the modern world creates tremendous pressure on people. In order to get ahead in a career or in school, people tend to devote most of their time to working, studying, or other activities that enhance their prospects for the future. As a consequence，they have little inclination to communicate with others. They are anxious about their achievements because those are the measures of success in life. So, keen competition also discourages people from having a good understanding of each other.
Communicating with other people involves much effort because people’s personality, the generation gap and keen competition bring about potential problems. These problems are constantly with us, and any of them may lead to a breakdown in communication between individuals.
