vestmoriawhat's your take on employers banning the use of languages other than English between coworkers at the workplace?
I work at a place where halve of the people speak dutch, the other halve come from all over the world.
It helps when everyone speaks the same language, 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 halve of the 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
Depens on if they intend to move permanently, no? Most of my non-belgian colleagues don’t intend to stay in belgium long-term. Can’t fault them for that :)
When they do intend on moving 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 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.