Example: several of my former coworkers are from Mexico, Peru and Argentina, meaning they share Spanish as a common language.
I used to practice Spanish with them, but my last charge (like a ward’s manager) would yell at us to stop it, use English only. She would get very angry really fast if she heard anything in a language she didn’t understand.
I find it stupid, because some of them would use Spanish to better explain to the new nurses how to do certain procedures, but maybe I’m missing something?
I work at a place where half of the people speak dutch, the other half come from all over the world.
It helps when everyone speaks the same language, English in this case, and can jump in and out of conversation whenever.
It’s illegal for them to actually ban the use of Dutch, as this is in Belgium. But it’s also just a dick move to exclude people from conversation, just because it’s convenient to some.
I also work in a very international community, with a small minority Norwegians (in Norway). While we often communicate in English, I have to admit that I find it a bit strange that people choose to move to Norway and work in Norway, but don’t learn the language well enough to participate in a conversation at the lunch table.
Sure, often we’ll swap to English if a non-Norwegian speaker comes in, but sometimes I’m just tired and don’t want to bother with the extra effort. I massively appreciate the colleagues that bother to learn Norwegian.
I find it a bit strange that people choose to move to Norway and work in Norway, but don’t learn the language
Depends on whether they intend to move permanently, no? Most of my non‑Belgian colleagues don’t intend to stay in Belgium long term. I can’t fault them for that. :)
When they do intend to move permanently, I share your point of view.
I don’t think it really makes a difference, as long as you’re staying somewhere for any significant amount of time (i.e. months) it makes sense to start learning the language.
I mean, it’s common courtesy to try to learn enough of the local language to buy stuff and ask for directions when your just on vacation.
I was in Germany for half a year during my studies. To me it was obvious that I needed to learn the language from day one, because I had no intent of going around and expecting everyone else to adjust to me not knowing the language. I have a very hard time understanding how someone could move to a country for years, and still not learn the language because “it’s not permanent”.
enough of the local language to buy stuff and ask for directions
You convinced me on that one. Perhaps they should learn enough of the language for day-to-day niceties. The particular problem with Belgium is that this means they should learn both basic French and Dutch :-p Most french speaking Belgians don’t even do that.
When you’re working you need to communicate in a lot more depth than that though. That’s exactly why they want to talk Spanish, to speed up communication or be more precise.
Social language skills are on the easier side. You can get away with a lot of mistakes.
Of course, I’ll speak English in meetings and other settings where we’re talking about work and need to minimise the language barrier for practical purposes. I’ll also speak English in a lot of social settings, because these are nice people that I enjoy talking to.
What I’m talking about is the silent expectation that a group of Norwegians talking at the lunch table should switch to English if one or more non-Norwegian speakers enter the room. I don’t like that silent expectation, and really appreciate the colleagues that learn Norwegian well enough that I can just keep the conversation going without feeling like I’m excluding them or feeling that I need to swap to English and fill them in on what we’re talking about.
The sad truth is that, regardless of your intention, it does exclude them. Even if they’ve put some effort in and learnt some basics, they’re unlikely to jump in to group of natives talking.
I don’t think there’s a good solution. I’ve been on all sides at work.
- Having fast conversations in English and realising too late that somebody is completely excluded.
- I’ve been excluded because people are speaking a language I don’t know (e.g. Danish – what the hell is that!!!)
- …and I’ve caught people talking behind my back about me because they didn’t know I could understand a bit of Dutch. To be fair I didn’t know either but my subconscious worked out enough from German.
I have recently moved to france and have been learning french for the last few years (long before moving). I still have difficulty with lunch conversation and after speaking to everyone outside of work in french I appreciate it so much that I work at an international place where everyone speaks english, even though that is also a second language for me. Imagine how tired your colleagues are at lunch after not speaking their own language anywhere but at home and appreciate that you are capable of helping them a little bit by speaking english.
This is a just a correction, but it seems fitting on a post about language and learning languages.
“Half” is the noun you are looking for. “Halve” sounds slightly different and means “to split in half.”
Thanks, I corrected it :)
my work has an english only rule when talking about work. we hire from all over the world, so making sure there is a common language is nice when i have to message someone in another country.
non-work-related talk is whatever, though.
I work somewhere that has two centers. One of them is not a place that speaks much English. The other is in the US. And then there are people scattered throughout the world.
All major official communications are done in both English and the other language. They will even redub CEO announcements that were in English for the people at the other center.
Nowadays the live AI translation is getting used a lot. Someone addressed the entire company in not-English once and we were just told to pick our preferred language in Zoom.
Depending on context it might be stupid or make sense.
At my company, which has 100% Spanish employees, we can talk among ourselves in Spanish. However, in things “for the record” such as jira tickets, git commit messages, documentation pages, they have to be in English.
It makes no god damn sense. Nobody is going to read Jira ticket #6738 in 40 years when we are a multinational. It’s a ticket about fixing a typo in page 567 of the documentation. 100% of employees speak spanish, and some have dogshit English.
I could see an argument that it creates cliques and can cause issues between coworkers, especially since they may feel safe gossiping about other coworkers or things like that.
However, I don’t agree with that. All of that can happen with everyone speaking English. I don’t think it’s an issue. I think potentially what it could be is the boss not wanting them to be able to communicate discretely. It seems like something that could be an anti-unionization move. Maybe I’m being too cynical, but that’s often what these weird rules that don’t seem logical seems to be.
Big corp and their pawns wanna listen in on every conversation to stop people from talking shit about the big corp.
Could also be xenophobia (I mean, unless its a company meeting, or some safety requirements where everyone need to know what’s happening (like inside the cockpit of a plane that has an English-only crew member, for example) otherwise its unreasonable to enforce language policies when two peoplr are just chatting.
I find it stupid, because some of them would use Spanish to better explain to the new nurses how to do certain procedures
Ahhh, so its on the job? Could be slightly problematic. I don’t know how your hospital/clinic works, but is it possible someone could miss important info form the converasations?
I think some plane crashes were attributed to communication issues between ATC and the crew, sometimes its miscommunication between crew members. Also can apply in factories, warehouses, where you can get hit by a pallet of stuff if there is miscommunication, for example.
TLDR: If its on the job, it can be reasonable depending on circumstances. If its during break/lunch, fuck no lol, speak whatever you want.
It’s weird to me. As long as the people speaking to each other understand each other that’s what should matter. We shouldn’t limit folks.
I once was in a meeting and was told they’ll speak Polish instead of English since I was the only non Polish speaker.
I no longer had to attend that daily meeting so that was nice.
Another time I was forwarded an email at work. I opened it but couldn’t understand the thread. The two people in the thread were speaking Portuguese and forgot that I didn’t.
They then happily translated and we had a good laugh about it.
The only time it’s uncomfortable for me is if people are talking about me, but like I have no reason to think they’re doing that so no problem.
I once worked somewhere that required English for written things, because you never know who might need to read them later. But spoken conversations or even meetings in another language was okay.
That sounds reasonable
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It is ridiculous of course but I do have one strange anecdote about this. I have been in a lot of retirement and assisted living homes and there can be some serious tension between racist resident and their non-white caregivers when they speak there languages around them.
One old Vietnam vet would get the fuck triggered out of him when the Filipinos would talk in Tagalog around him. They ended up making a rule that they can’t speak non-english around him. Not saying that this was right, but it was understandable.
I think in a Healthcare setting this has a lot to do with these types of rules.
Regardless of the fact that most communications in other languages will not be this, there will almost certainly be cases where a second language is used to talk about a patient or coworker in their presence. This builds an outgroup/ingroup dynamic that can undermine confidence in healthcare outcomes and cause patient distress.
Essentially, if some people hear another language being spoken in their presence, and especially if they are in a vulnerable state, they will assume they are being talked about disparagingly or conspired against. Avoiding causing undue distress to patients is a standard of care concern.
That feels like it butts it’s head against various other laws.
Triggering someone’s PTSD routinely could easily be considered an unsafe and abusive work environment.
And if the employee is aware they are triggering and then keep doing it. At that point it very well could be seen as malicious.
PTSD does not fuck around for many.
I’ve only ever worked a single job that tried to enforce that shit, and those motherfuckers were the most racist pieces of shit I’ve had to deal with in person. They thought because I was the only white guy that I was on their side. I still wonder what they did when after the 3rd day of the season, everyone just quit and walked off an hour before lunch.
This would be a non-starter where I work and employees would sue for discrimination. Rightly so.
We thrive on diversity. It’s crucial for customer service.
Stupid, petty.
dumb because other places have other languages
the responses in both threads are clearly split between those who speak one language and agree with the manager, and those who speak multiple languages and think the rule is bullshit
I speak multiple languages, live in a country that tries their god damn hardest to promote racial harmony, i still believe it would be best in most cases to keep it to 1 common language that everyone understands
I speak multiple languages, but always try to speak the language(s) that include the most people in the room. I find it very offensive when people near me speak a language that most people don’t understand, when they could have easily switched to another one, and I would never do that myself.
It’s a common mandate in high volume manufacturing here in the US. It includes all time except for breaks.
I worked at a place that manufactured avionics boxes and most of the assembly line were super sweet little old Vietnamese ladies. The line supervisor was an old bat white lady-- a total Karen.
One day during our morning standup, they reinforced that it’s an English-only workplace. About an hour later, a few of the ladies were joking around in English and Karen, in her typical patronizing fake-sweet voice, reminded them that looks this is an English-only workplace. I butted in, loudly, “Karen, they ARE speaking English, you just can’t understand them.” The entire line erupted haha. Karen had her tail between her legs after that.
The Vietnamese ladies would always brought in good ass home-cooked lunch and have a little potluck. Every. Single. Day. They invited me to eat with them after every day after that. It was awesome. I even brought in homemade American food to share, which they actually liked and appreciated. It felt good. I miss those sweet old ladies. They were so fun to be around.
Racism is expensive. Can’t wait til your former company tanks.
