RE: Learn a new language

["GeneK" <gene -at- genek -dot- com>]

I spent five years in a US-Japanese joint venture in the
90's, and the company provided a lunchtime course in
"conversational Japanese" (they provided lunches).  I
don't think any of us ever became sufficiently fluent to
actually use it "conversationally," but it provided our
Japanese colleagues with some good laughs as they listened
to us, and with the aid of some reference materials, it
did help somewhat with email communications with the folks
overseas.  It wasn't so much the extent to which anyone
actually learned the language that helped as much as the
fact that we were making a reciprocal effort to that of the
Japanese who had learned English.  That never hurts.

Gene Kim-Eng


------- Original Message -------
On
Thu, 12 Jun 2003 13:05:14 -0400 John Posada?wrote:


Please...let's not turn this into something ugly...it's a communication
issue and I think we can have a civil conversation on this.

I was just getting a cup of coffee and there was a set of three SME talking
to each other in Chinese (what dialect, I don't know). Last week, I've
regularly overheard my manager and some of his developers discussing
something in Russian. Hey! This is NY, the Big City, I'm OK with all of
this.

My question...has anyone ever made the effort to learn even a rudimentary
level of language used by your peers and if so, what was the effect on them
toward you?

Now, I'm not talking about where you come in already being multilingual and
joining right in...I'm referring to a situation where it is obvious that you
don't know the language and showing that you are making an effort to learn
how to communicate with them.

Just wondering if it helped improve the overall communication situation?


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