We use words to try and communicate, but words tell us a lot about what we are actually trying to say. Here are roughly the top 100 frequently used words in our chat after 4 months of conversing (after removing names, articles, and filler words). I’ve also added some other cool time-based results.
Frequency of Words
I find it beautiful how so many ideas can be deduced by looking the frequency of words we use. And of course, this “analysis” is biased by my, but here are some things I see.
- ‘but’ ‘pero’ ‘vs’ ‘because’ ‘also’ ‘meant’ ‘why’ – shows conflict/decisions. Many of the conversations didn’t have clear black and white sides, and the words showed our indecision in know which side was correct.
- ‘think’ ‘feel’ ‘felt’ ‘thought’ ’emotional’ ‘thinking’ – Personally, I really appreciate that these words were in the top 100. Our culture is notorious for bottling thing inside, and these words mean that at least our generation is afraid of expressing
- ‘we’ ‘our’ ‘their’ ‘them’ ‘us’ ‘different’ ‘without’ ‘internal’ ‘personal’ – this is fascinating. Not only do we refer to “them” when we talk about generational differences, we still feel a strong connection to them (‘parents’ ‘family’ ‘home’ ‘mom’ ‘grandparents’ ‘children’). This is a strong root of our struggle: a feeling of differentiation between our cultural selves and the “new” professional selves we want to be.
- ‘for’ ‘ask’ ‘explain’ ‘worth’ ‘understand’ ‘bandwidth’ – This, unfortunately, I saw as a little sad. A feeling of wanting to understand and be understood, but feeling it not being worth the time/bandwidth. Unfortunately, “they” may never see these conversations… or perhaps, we should invite them in to the next round…
- ‘language’ ‘speaking’ ‘conversation’ ‘stories’ ‘story’ ‘share’ ‘sharing’ – This was just true of how our culture is passed down by storytellers.
- ‘could’ ‘forward’ ‘better’ ‘change’ – A little hopeful, still. I appreciate that these words still came though; rather than just complaining/venting about the struggle, some optimism spilled through =)
- ‘time’ ‘now’ ‘present’ – I like to believe this is an indication of a change/pivot/movement
And here is the top 116 words used in our chat, ordered by frequency of use:
| 99 | ‘for’ |
|---|---|
| 67 | ‘but’ |
| 63 | ‘we’ |
| 52 | ‘our’ |
| 45 | ‘feel’ |
| 44 | ‘parents’ |
| 42 | ‘when’ |
| 41 | ‘not’ |
| 40 | ‘family’ |
| 39 | ‘more’ |
| 37 | ‘because’ |
| 35 | ‘think’ |
| 29 | ‘their’ |
| 27 | ‘also’ |
| 27 | ‘time’ |
| 26 | ‘them’ |
| 22 | ‘now’ |
| 22 | ‘if’ |
| 18 | ‘work’ |
| 18 | ‘And’ |
| 16 | ‘home’ |
| 16 | ‘very’ |
| 16 | ‘us’ |
| 15 | ‘go’ |
| 15 | ‘make’ |
| 15 | ‘part’ |
| 15 | ‘could’ |
| 14 | ‘then’ |
| 14 | ‘trying’ |
| 13 | ‘new’ |
| 12 | ‘own’ |
| 12 | ‘different’ |
| 12 | ‘years’ |
| 12 | ‘love’ |
| 11 | ‘mom’ |
| 11 | ‘felt’ |
| 11 | ‘people’ |
| 10 | ‘little’ |
| 10 | ‘professional’ |
| 10 | ‘struggle’ |
| 9 | ‘thought’ |
| 9 | ‘myself’ |
| 9 | ‘culture’ |
| 9 | ‘living’ |
| 8 | ‘language’ |
| 8 | ‘speaking’ |
| 8 | ‘between’ |
| 8 | ‘social’ |
| 8 | ‘through’ |
| 8 | ‘personal’ |
| 8 | ‘lives’ |
| 8 | ‘first’ |
| 8 | ‘best’ |
| 8 | ‘experience’ |
| 7 | ‘Tribu!’ |
| 7 | ‘conversation’ |
| 7 | ‘worth’ |
| 7 | ‘sharing’ |
| 7 | ‘share’ |
| 7 | ‘explain’ |
| 7 | ‘ask’ |
| 7 | ‘everything’ |
| 6 | ‘realized’ |
| 6 | ‘mi’ |
| 6 | ‘though’ |
| 6 | ‘meant’ |
| 6 | ‘appreciate’ |
| 6 | ‘decided’ |
| 6 | ‘understand’ |
| 6 | ‘moved’ |
| 6 | ‘story’ |
| 6 | ‘help’ |
| 6 | ‘great’ |
| 6 | ‘bandwidth’ |
| 5 | ‘forward’ |
| 5 | ‘pero’ |
| 5 | ‘traditional’ |
| 5 | ‘born’ |
| 5 | ‘working’ |
| 5 | ‘rather’ |
| 5 | ‘vs’ |
| 5 | ‘friends’ |
| 5 | ‘fully’ |
| 5 | ‘stories’ |
| 5 | ‘why’ |
| 5 | ‘without’ |
| 5 | ‘important’ |
| 5 | ‘mind’ |
| 5 | ‘control’ |
| 5 | ‘idea’ |
| 5 | ‘might’ |
| 5 | ‘news’ |
| 5 | ‘better’ |
| 5 | ‘assimilation’ |
| 5 | ‘imposter’ |
| 5 | ‘stop’ |
| 5 | ’emotional’ |
| 4 | ‘children’ |
| 4 | ‘internal’ |
| 4 | ‘raised’ |
| 4 | ‘question’ |
| 4 | ‘change’ |
| 4 | ‘sense’ |
| 4 | ‘thinking’ |
| 4 | ‘present’ |
| 4 | ‘community’ |
| 4 | ‘religion’ |
| 4 | ‘grandparents’ |
| 4 | ‘sounds’ |
| 3 | ‘career’ |
| 3 | ‘sacrifice’ |
| 2 | ‘pretty’ |
| 2 | ‘beautiful’ |
| 2 | ‘status’ |
| 2 | ‘educated’ |
| 2 | ‘prepare’ |
Best Times to Talk
We also have some cool facts see from our chats, including that we heavily communicated earlier in the day, and that our thoughts/feedback came in bursts.
