Lost in Translation
Posted by Primer on September 23, 2008
I had perhaps the most frustrating phone conversation at work the other day.
Recently, I’ve started spending a lot of time at work talking to people from different parts of the world. I work for a company that sells replacement parts for a variety of different machines, mostly multispindle machines, and I just got moved to the international department.
I have never gotten out and traveled much outside of Europe, where just about everybody has learned to cope with each others shortcomings in the accent department, regardless of the language. And living in England where there is a significant population of Chinese, Pakistani, and Indian, I just assumed that my accent was understandable to all because I never seemed have any problems.
A few days ago, though, I took my first call from China. It started out simple with the normal pleasantries, but once we started to get down to conversation, it was all down hill. Apparently, this was the first time he’d had to deal with a Brit and could not come to terms with the way I pronounce, or drop as some say, my R’s-never mind, of course, the fact that I have to decipher his L’s that sound like R’s.
Anyway, here is the worst part. He was having trouble with a couple of his older screw machines and I asked him about “turned parts.” I had to repeat myself several times, but he eventually understood me. I guess I never realized how troublesome the language barrier could be in my profession.
