Learning to Ask Better Questions
By Paul Cannon
The lunch hour at Carnicería El Torito was steady but not chaotic. Customers moved in and out. Orders were called behind the counter. The rhythm felt familiar — the kind of place that feeds a neighborhood without much noise.
I walked in with a goal: conduct a short interview in Spanish about how this year has been for restaurant workers.
I walked out with two minutes of audio — and a lesson.
The woman I spoke with was polite. She stayed. She didn’t walk away. But her answers were short.
“Un poco,” she said at one point. A little.
When I asked how long she had worked there, there was a pause.
“Estoy pensando…” — I’m thinking.
There were hesitations. Careful phrasing. Long silences between simple questions.
Listening back to the recording later, I noticed something else: my own voice.
I mixed English and Spanish. I filled space with “um” and “like.” I over-explained questions that should have been simple. I could hear myself thinking in real time.
Language slows you down when you’re still learning it. And when you slow down, the person across from you feels it.
Her answers weren’t long. They weren’t detailed. They weren’t emotional.
But they were real.
And they were cautious.
That caution is worth noticing.
For someone working an hourly job, answering questions from a stranger with a phone recorder can carry weight. Even neutral questions — How has the year been? Has it been difficult? — can feel risky.
Restaurants run on thin margins. Workers depend on steady hours. Speaking publicly about work conditions, even vaguely, might feel unsafe. Add a language barrier, and the stakes rise.
Trust does not begin with a microphone.
It begins with familiarity.
What I realized listening to the tape wasn’t that I had failed to get a strong soundbite. It was that I had rushed the relationship. I came in seeking answers before building comfort.
Journalism often looks smooth in its final form — polished quotes, confident exchanges, clear narratives. But the process is rarely smooth. It’s halting. It’s awkward. It’s human.
My first instinct was to wish the interview had gone better.
My second instinct was more important: understand why it didn’t.
Next time, I’ll ask shorter questions. I’ll speak only Spanish instead of switching back and forth. I’ll explain anonymity clearly. I’ll visit more than once. I’ll build rapport before pressing record.
Because sometimes what you capture isn’t a powerful quote.
It’s a moment of hesitation.
And sometimes hesitation tells you more about a system — about vulnerability, about caution, about economic pressure — than a long answer ever could.
Two minutes of tape might not sound like much.
But growth rarely announces itself loudly.
Sometimes it’s quiet.
Sometimes it says, “Un poco.”
And that’s enough to begin again.