Posted on 08/04/2017 9:14:53 PM PDT by Jyotishi
In a room full of non-native speakers, 'there isn't any chance of understanding'. It might be their language, but the message is often lost.
Editor's Note (29 December 2016): Through the end of the year, BBC Capital is bringing back some of your favourite stories from 2016.
It was just one word in one email, but it triggered huge financial losses for a multinational company.
The message, written in English, was sent by a native speaker to a colleague for whom English was a second language. Unsure of the word, the recipient found two contradictory meanings in his dictionary. He acted on the wrong one.
Months later, senior management investigated why the project had flopped, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. "It all traced back to this one word," says Chia Suan Chong, a UK-based communications skills and intercultural trainer, who didn't reveal the tricky word because it is highly industry-specific and possibly identifiable. "Things spiralled out of control because both parties were thinking the opposite."
When such misunderstandings happen, it's usually the native speakers who are to blame. Ironically, they are worse at delivering their message than people who speak English as a second or third language, according to Chong.
"A lot of native speakers are happy that English has become the world's global language. They feel they don't have to spend time learning another language," says Chong. "But... often you have a boardroom full of people from different countries communicating in English and all understanding each other and then suddenly the American or Brit walks into the room and nobody can understand them."
"Native speakers of English generally are monolingual and are not very good at tuning into language variation," professor Jennifer Jenkins says (Credit: University of Southampton)
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
The advantage to English is that everyone understands it if you speak loudly enough.
“Synergy”
Actually, English is the most descriptive language in the world, and is the standard within international aviation.
Sin embargo, me gusta español tambien.
more cultural demoralization this time from the BBC
When a friend said to a Brit: “I like your accent” the reply was: “YOU’RE the one with the accent”.
This article sounds like anti English language bias.
If you speak to a foreigner, you automatically adjust your language because you know he will not understand idioms and slang. Only a jerk would not make sure the foreigner understands.
Likewise, if you try to speak to a foreigner in his language, he will simplify it so you can understand.
English is not the only language to have quirks and odd grammatical constructions that are hard for non-native speakers to grasp.
A stupid article about a stupid person.
First, it’s not the fault of the English speaking person that the non-English speaking person has limited comprehension of the language. The BBC’s laying of blame on the English speaker makes this a stupid article.
Secondly, if non-English speaking recipient was unsure of the word, particularly after consulting a dictionary, he could have asked the sender to clarify. He didn’t. That makes him a stupid person.
The word in question was Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
didn't reveal the tricky word because it is highly industry-specific
Sounds to me like someone who was ignorant of the standard technical jargon in his field, which has more to do with training than with language.
The word was “is.” It lost its meaning in 1998.....
His company were lax in their hiring.
So they hired a fraud, he couldn't do his job and the company lost money.
This is, somehow, the fault of the English person who wrote the email.
Yep, that is the good ol' BBC.
In doing business with China and Pakistan, the habit of stating the same thing three different ways and then asking them to please confirm their understanding back to me has become so ingrained that I find myself doing it to native English speakers. This woman must be talking about academia or government-sponsored research, because in private sector business that sort of “mistake” is not long tolerated and those responsible are removed, on both sides of the equation. China isn’t as bad as it once was, their English has improved. Pakistan, I’m not even sure it’s a language barrier, they’re just going to do what they’re going to do, sort of wild that way and it always comes back to bite them.
“........ he could have asked the sender to clarify.”
First thought to hit me when I read that.
I probably would have done that before reaching for a dictionary.
Blame shifting and guilt shaming because of the English language.
This crap just never ends.
This secret word caused all this. Wrote a whole article about this secret word. Talk about a lack of communication skills. Tell us the secret word or bite your tongue. The point of this story is there is no point.
“When a friend said to a Brit: “I like your accent” the reply was: “YOU’RE the one with the accent”.”
The British didn’t start English, and now they speak a minority dialect of it.
Without the sentence or word in question, it is impossible to understand what occurred.
The English language can be difficult, we have a plethora of synonyms, homonyms, and idioms plus each regional variation of English has slang peculiarities. For example “bad” is a negative term, but in some contexts describing someone as “bad” maybe a compliment i.e. “a bad-ass.”
The sender of a message has the responsibility to ensure that the receiver understands what they transmitted. The receiver has a responsibility to ask for clarification if they are unsure as to intent.
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