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  • #1

    Language Barriers

    Not really a suck, maybe not even a brain burp, dunno if I call it a complaint either but a bit of an annoyance.

    So we live a country that has various creeds/ethnic backgrounds/race/religous backgrounds etc. And I'm accepting of that being I myself would be consider a 'minority' (always found that word odd when describing a race of people when they're a billion of people of the same race as me)

    Anyways I had a guy come into work, obviously English is not his primary spoken language so he spoke in broken speech.

    He comes in and I greet him and he asks "do you have someone who speaka (insert native language here)?" Now I do have my AM and CW who speak the same language as this guy and it would not be a problem if either of them were working atm but they were both off their shifts. So I tell him "sorry no I don't"

    Instead of the guy trying to speak to me in English he cops an attitude and is like "So you don't have anybody who speak. . .? " That irked me and again I answered that I didn't, so the guy leaves in a bit of a huff.

    Sorry I just needed to vent a bit, the guys attitude got me like WTF!?!?!
    Last edited by Dave1982; 10-02-2010, 10:58 PM. Reason: removed fratching comment
    "This job would be great if it wasn't for the f***** customers." - Randell 'Clerks'
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  • #2
    There is no official language of the US. Unless you're in Canada, where the official language is French and English.

    You gotta know, that sometimes we immigrate to a place, and the timeframe is such where one particular incident finds us at a certain level in our quest to learn a language, but our ineptness at that particular moment still makes us targets for people who find it inconvenient, whether we're learning or not. They don't know, and we don't know how to tell them. I say this as a one-time fellow immigrant to a place where I did not speak the language, either. I'm sure I ticked off a couple of shopkeepers with my inability to be proficient at that given time, or my inability to happen to have been born into a bilingual family, where my youth would have made it fairly effortless to learn. They might have told their friends that it made them mad that I "wouldn't" learn French, when I was in the process of working at it.

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    • #3
      Language barriers are definitely frustrating.
      "We guard the souls in heaven; we don't horse-trade them!" Samandrial in Supernatural

      RIP Plaidman.

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      • #4
        Quoth Can I Help Your A$$? View Post
        There is no official language of the US. Unless you're in Canada, where the official language is French and English.
        Wait, we finally annexed Canda? O.o



        Seriously, that guy was an SC.

        Nobody should have a fit when someone fails to be able to talk to them in their native language when their native language is not the most common language in their region, no matter where you go.

        Sure, it's nice, but to leave in a huff is just stupid, especially when the guy seemed to know enough to communicate to a decent degree.

        ...

        This reminds me of the video of the Asian butcher (I think she was Chinese) who flipped out and started attacking everything around her (mostly the fixtures, but customers, too ) with a meat cleaver because she was upset about not being able to communicate with the people in the country she moved to.

        ^-.-^
        Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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        • #5
          Quoth Can I Help Your A$$? View Post
          or my inability to happen to have been born into a bilingual family, where my youth would have made it fairly effortless to learn.
          Or, worse, what happened to my and to my brother -- Our overall family (when including both parents and our extended family members who we saw no less than once a month) spoke both conversational German (parents and some extended) and fluent Cajun French (Dad and extended)....both of which were used ONLY as the dreaded Secret Languages, so they could discuss things in front of us that we could not understand... >_< As a result, no attempt to teach us either one was ever made. Ugh.
          "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
          "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
          "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
          "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
          "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
          "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
          Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
          "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

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          • #6
            Quoth EricKei View Post
            Or, worse, what happened to my and to my brother -- Our overall family (when including both parents and our extended family members who we saw no less than once a month) spoke both conversational German (parents and some extended) and fluent Cajun French (Dad and extended)....both of which were used ONLY as the dreaded Secret Languages, so they could discuss things in front of us that we could not understand... >_< As a result, no attempt to teach us either one was ever made. Ugh.
            Thats odd, I mean my parents did the same thing, used my dad's native tongue as the secret language when they didn't want me to understand them, but I picked it up quite quickly and apparently it was very embarrassing when I asked what a certain word meant when my parents were in the middle of an "intense" conversation as i'd not heard it before. My parents quickly stopped using it as a secret language and tried to teach me it instead.
            "You can only try so hard to look like you are working before actually doing your work seems easy in comparison" -My Boss

            CW: So what exactly do you do in retentions?
            Me: ummm, I ....retent stuff?

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            • #7
              My parents used to talk to my grandparents in Polish when they didn't want the kids to know what they were talking about. Most of the words I know in that language are for food
              When you start at zero, everything's progress.

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              • #8
                Quoth Darkforge View Post
                . My parents quickly stopped using it as a secret language and tried to teach me it instead.
                Well, my case was a bit differeent ^_^

                - Both had English as their native tongue

                - Both had the German from traveling before I was born

                - Dad had Cajun because of his own heritage

                - They split up when I was ten, right about when I was getting tired of the "secret language" BS and would have just ASKED them to teach me.

                By the time I was older and DID ask, each had become so rusty, they had nothing to teach x.x Such a waste.
                "For a musician, the SNES sound engine is like using Crayola Crayons. Nobuo Uematsu used Crayola Crayons to paint the Sistine Chapel." - Jeremy Jahns (re: "Dancing Mad")
                "The difference between an amateur and a master is that the master has failed way more times." - JoCat
                "Thinking is difficult, therefore let the herd pronounce judgment!" ~ Carl Jung
                "There's burning bridges, and then there's the lake just to fill it with gasoline." - Wiccy, reddit
                "Retail is a cruel master, and could very well be the most educational time of many people's lives, in its own twisted way." - me
                "Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down...tell you she's hurtin' 'fore she keens...makes her a home." - Capt. Malcolm Reynolds, "Serenity" (2005)
                Acts of Gord – Read it, Learn it, Love it!
                "Our psychic powers only work if the customer has a mind to read." - me

                Comment

                • #9
                  Quoth ravevolution View Post
                  Not really a suck, maybe not even a brain burp, dunno if I call it a complaint either but a bit of an annoyance.

                  So we live a country that has various creeds/ethnic backgrounds/race/religous backgrounds etc. And I'm accepting of that being I myself would be consider a 'minority' (always found that word odd when describing a race of people when they're a billion of people of the same race as me)

                  Anyways I had a guy come into work, obviously English is not his primary spoken language so he spoke in broken speech.

                  He comes in and I greet him and he asks "do you have someone who speaka (insert native language here)?" Now I do have my AM and CW who speak the same language as this guy and it would not be a problem if either of them were working atm but they were both off their shifts. So I tell him "sorry no I don't"

                  Instead of the guy trying to speak to me in English he cops an attitude and is like "So you don't have anybody who speak. . .? " That irked me and again I answered that I didn't, so the guy leaves in a bit of a huff.

                  Sorry I just needed to vent a bit, the guys attitude got me like WTF!?!?!
                  Sorry for the late reply, but I wonder if this guy was frustrated because someone your AM or CW had helped had told him you had someone there who spoke his language.
                  Women can do anything men can.
                  But we don't because lots of it's disgusting.
                  Maxine

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                  • #10
                    Technically, the official language of the U.S. is badly mangled and mis-spelled English

                    At least you guys don't have a language that is increasingly unpopular in favour of the language of an invading neighbour, but which is still mandatory to study in both first and second level education.
                    Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -Groucho Marx

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                    • #11
                      Quoth Syriilord View Post
                      At least you guys don't have a language that is increasingly unpopular in favour of the language of an invading neighbour, but which is still mandatory to study in both first and second level education.
                      Would that be Welsh by any chance?

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                      • #12
                        Quoth Syriilord View Post
                        At least you guys don't have a language that is increasingly unpopular in favour of the language of an invading neighbour, but which is still mandatory to study in both first and second level education.
                        Sounds like Irish, to be honest. I will not get into the should/shouldn't it be mandatory debate, but the way it is taught needs to be changed. It really should be taught as a modern language, as opposed to focusing on the history of the language etc.

                        C.
                        P.S. Is maith liom caca milis.
                        Nothing in this world will ever be truly idiot-proof as long as they keep making more effective idiots... -EricKei

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