81–90 of 111 posts
The team member who has a hard time with English might just think that when everybody speaks English they feel awkward and left out. Why do you think you're special?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not just speak with them directly first?
Of course you should - in an ideal world. But in the current culture in some environments that can get you in trouble.
Not being able to have even this level of honesty doesn't bode well to any team/org. How can you get shit done if you have to spend your brain power on the pantomime, mental or political gymnastics.
Nobody likes a tattletale or Karen-type person enforcing linguistic, cultural supremacy.
2. Encourage automatic translation app usage (its not perfect but it can help a lot) on both sides. Particular by the person who is weakest in either language.
3. Be kind and simplify your own English. Don’t use slang. Repeat things using two different wordings. Speak slower. Take shared written notes as you go to help reinforce vocab.
4. Be kind and encourage people who struggle with English. Usually their reading and writing is better for than their listening and speaking due to more opportunity to practice. Be patient and tell them they don’t have to apologize if they struggle. Encourage them if they improve.
5. Only correct them if it’s important or if it’s at the right level, and then do it gently. Mandarin speakers often confuse he and she because they are the same pronunciation in Mandarin. If you know who they are talking about correcting them isn’t necessary right alway.
6. Learn some basic Mandarin and show them you are willing to sound awful and embarrass yourself. Be aware it is mentally very taxing to listen and speak in an unfamiliar language — until you get used to it. Showing them how awful you are will allow them to compare the pain of that mental tax to listening to you butcher their language.
7. Be aware half the time they are not saying anything of interest. The worst side effect I found from learning Mandarin was understanding boring gossip and advertising.
8. Allow time outs for a mandarin discussion on difficult issues so they can then switch back to English.
9. Help them polish their English — eg draft documentation or comms. Occasionally being an ally rather than complaining will encourage them to keep trying to improve, and show respect.
10. Ask the people with good English who are Mandarin speakers how you can help the situation, and how they could help too. Don’t make this a performance issue but and a chance to be more inclusive and collaborate better.
Source: It took me several years and significant effort to speak Mandarin at a business level, and run meetings in a mix of Mandarin and tech jargon.
No big deal. I don’t assume they are speaking behind my back. I assume if I needed to know, they’d tell me in English.
As long as everyone is respectful to each other I don’t see the problem. I would like them to have a personal connection with each other for a stronger team. I would like them to communicate as clearly as possible with each other, even if it’s emojis.
It's not clear whether you are in an English-speaking country. If you are, then personally I think it is really bad form for the other team members to be speaking in a foreign language when the native English speaker is present. It's rude and disrespectful and I think it's bizarre that we are in this contemporary situation where we are afraid to say that. If I was working in a foreign country where the native languag…
It depends, if it is in a meeting, they should use a common language that everyone understands (English). However, if they are just talking to each other in the office WITHOUT talking to you, they can use whatever language that is comfortable to them. You are not part of the conversation.
I think the problem here only is that why the person in a FAANG company cannot communicate in English when needed.
I would talk to the manager, explain what's happening, leaving my personal feelings aside. Co-workers speaking non-shared languages in each other faces is not useful in any way and it leads to many problems, way beyond a non-welcoming and non-inclusive environment, way beyond just HR... Moreover, and to answer some strange theories in other comments here, If you're to be excluded from a conversation, the speakers bet…
It's not clear whether you are in an English-speaking country. If you are, then personally I think it is really bad form for the other team members to be speaking in a foreign language when the native English speaker is present. It's rude and disrespectful and I think it's bizarre that we are in this contemporary situation where we are afraid to say that. If I was working in a foreign country where the native languag…
> If you are, then personally I think it is really bad form for the other team members to be speaking in a foreign language when the native English speaker is present. It depends, if it is in a meeting, they should use a common language that everyone understands (English). However, if they are just talking to each other in the office WITHOUT talking to you, they can use whatever language that is comfortable to them.…
And you can not become part of the conversation, which would not be the case if the language was the native one.
Very rude and exclusionary.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you are, then personally I think it is really bad form for the other team members to be speaking in a foreign language when the native English speaker is present. It depends, if it is in a meeting, they should use a common language that everyone understands (English). However, if they are just talking to each other in the office WITHOUT talking to you, they can use whatever language that is comfortable to them.…
You are not part of the conversation And you can not become part of the conversation, which would not be the case if the language was the native one. Very rude and exclusionary.