Learn the damn language!

[Eireann]

In that case English is impossible.

Czech grammar is FAR worse than English. I'm serious. One of the few advantages is that you can formulate a sentence in ways you could never do in English, as long as you have the right noun case and verb form. I've heard that Czech ranks along with Chinese in difficulty.

[Geek King]

Czech grammar is FAR worse than English. I'm serious. One of the few advantages is that you can formulate a sentence in ways you could never do in English, as long as you have the right noun case and verb form. I've heard that Czech ranks along with Chinese in difficulty.

It gets worse when written. You can get arrested for writting bad Czech, y'know.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

It gets worse when written. You can get arrested for writting bad Czech, y'know.

Boo. Just...boo.

[Andara Bledin]

Boo. Just...boo.

What he said.

That was just terrible!

^-.-^

[protege]

You can get arrested for writting bad Czech, y'know.

Sooo the Czech isn't in the mail?

[thatcrazyredhead]

I whole-heartedly agree, AdvancedFlea! I live in Arizona and we have a lot of Spanish speaking people who are in this country illegally (no, not everyone who can't speak English is illegal, but if you've lived in Phoenix for six months, you can tell). Anyway, I learned a good deal of Spanish in high school and could speak, understand, read, and write it fairly well. I used to really enjoy speaking it, but when I moved to Phoenix to go to college I got really sick of all the people who were living in my country without bothering to learn English. So I refused to speak Spanish at work. One night, a group of four or five illegals came into the store where I worked. Only one guy in the group spoke any English, and not very well. He was trying to translate the prices, etc. He had the gall to tell me that I should learn Spanish. It was all that I could do not to tell him in perfect Spanish that no, this is America, and we speak English here. If he can't learn English he should go back to Mexico or wherever he came from! I kinda wish I had, just for the look on their faces.

[Broomjockey]

if you've lived in Phoenix for six months, you can tell).

Sounds like a useful talent, I suppose.

[Mordecai]

Sounds like a useful talent, I suppose.

Not really. I haven't used it much since I moved there in 1994.

[infinitemonkies]

I'm a big believer that everyone should learn at least a couple languages, and live in a foreign country, at least for a little while.

The ones who bother me though, are the immigrants who make absolutely no attempt to learn local languages or customs.

When I first moved to B.C. I lived in a small redneck town for awhile, and had these regular customers who had to get their young (6-ish) daughter to translate everything for them. I can't remember what language they spoke, but it was something pretty rare for this part of the world, and I very much doubt there was anyone else within 100 miles who could speak it. After a few months, I found out they'd been living there for over 20 years, and in that time hadn't picked up a single word of english.

There are also quite a few Chinese families here who have been living in Victoria and Vancouver for over a century, 5+ generations, and speak only cantonese and/or Mandarin. (This tends to be true of every city in the world large enough to have a Chinatown)

In the next few years, I intend to go live/work in the Carribean for awhile, and you bet your ass first thing I'm gonna do is dust off my french and upgrade my spanish from broken to at least conversational.

[Boozy]

I'd like us to get back on topic, please. The original post is really about the frustrating language barriers between us and some customers. Anyone who would like to discuss immigrants and language in general can meet us over at Fratching.

Thanks.

[Andara Bledin]

My company is in Sou Cali, and we get customers from all over the world.

Every so often we'll get customers who are calling who don't speak any English at all, and expect us to have someone on hand to speak with them. It's bad enough when that language is Spanish. We can sort of help them there, but when someone only speaks French and gets upset because nobody at my work does, too, we're not all that upset at not getting a sale.

I feel sorry for some of the ones that did learn to speak English, but who have accents so thick that I'm the only person in the building who can figure out what they're saying.

^-.-^

[Emrld]

I have two friends that are fluent in German. (I live in Texas) We will are be sitting and talking and all the sudden the two of them will switch to German. After a moment they realize I have become quiet - they figure out what they did.

I worked in Real Estate and I did feel bad when we would get calls about homes listed for sale and the people spoke Spanish and I couldn't help them.
I did enjoy when they would put their Children on to translate . . .sometimes I had to re- word till they understood enough to translate to their language.

[driftwolf]

I loved that boss - a rare guy. Always had your back and didn't sugar-coat the shit.

</threadjack>

B

Those kind of managers are worth walking through lava for. I had one like that. He died of stress induced heart attack sometime after I left the group.

[GuardingYourLife]

I still think the worst is customers who will chat with each other in passable English, but when they break a rule of some sort and are asked to please not inconveniece other people (ie: do NOT blow your nose in the pool; no one wants to swim in your nasal mucous) they put the confused look on and give some variant of "me english no". Language barriers happen; it's FAKE language barriers that really piss me off!

[Tito]

That was some epic pwnage with those French SC's!!!

Agreed! Am I safe in assuming you received the famous 'deer in the headlights' look from them?