February 24, 2004

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You sit in an interview. It's for a big job. It's being done by video conference. You've being interviewed by several different people from different areas, all grilling you with difficult technical questions. You need to think quickly and sound professional. You need to come up with accurate answers with little hesitation.

And it's all being done in English, which is not your first language.

One thing that constantly amazes me is how dominant English has become as a language of commerce and communication. The guy I just interviewed is Taiwanese but he was getting the third degree in English. You could see his brain ticking over as he thought about his answers and then translated them. English is not an easy language and is very different to the various Chinese dialects. The effort in doing such an interview is huge; aside from the translation and differing accents you have to cope with you are also dealing with the interview itself.

This is why I get so pissed off when native English speakers assume those who can't speak English clearly and fluently must be stupid. Speaking slowly and loudly makes you look like the idiot. I'm hopeless at languages and always admire the multi-lingual but I make sure I don't prejudice my opinions just because someone doesn't speak my language. Do you?

posted by Simon on 02.24.04 at 07:13 PM in the




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Comments:

Nope definitely don't. But my mates do. I have a friend here who speaks slowly to any foregin girl he meets. It's just awful. I had to take him aside when he was doing it to my ex Thai Doris. Look, she went to the Thai Oxbridge, then studied an MSc in England, in English, she can speak English! He just can't help it, same as my dad. I've got French cousins, well half French, half English, so they've been brought up in a bilingual household and also studied in England, my dad still talks to them like they are retards.

posted by: shaky on 02.24.04 at 08:09 PM [permalink]

Not at the start, but sometimes if it's obvious that the meaning is being lost, then I don't see a problem with slowing down as you speak. Just don't be condescending about it, and don't assume the other person is an idiot. They can speak at least one more language than I.

posted by: Ted on 02.24.04 at 08:55 PM [permalink]

After a lot of years here, I think the most helpful habit a native speaker can acquire is recognizing (and not using whenever possible) idioms, colloquialisms, and complex vocabulary and sentence patterns. This is easier said than done (see, I've just used a little cliche myself) but I've found it makes an immense difference in some situations, and you don't have to slow down your speech that much.

posted by: mr tall on 02.25.04 at 01:49 PM [permalink]

No, but my wife's English is better than my Japanese. Just yesterday she was laughing about a telephone conversation with our daughter at college. Are you losing weight? Daughter: yes, I'm working (at Pizza hut.) Wife: (Assuming she said working out) Lifting weights? Daughter: (Thinking mom said waitress?) No, I'm a cashier... Then they both started laughing once they figured out what each other really said. Cell phones and speaker phones are a deadly combination...

posted by: Mark on 03.04.04 at 05:18 AM [permalink]




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