Working in a multi-national setting proved to be very advantageous to me. In my 20s when I worked abroad, most of my office mates did not have English as their mother tongue. My bosses were Swedish and most of the staff were middle-eastern -understandably because I was based in Saudi, and East Asians. Even my clients were mostly Europeans. Understand and be understood. That was all there was to it. Allow me to illustrate:
Me: 𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘔𝘳. 𝘟. 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶?
X: 𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥. 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴?
I wanted to give him a hard response but I might be misunderstood.
Me: 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘦. For as long as fine was heard, you were good.
I could have gotten by with mediocre English but I thought I was in a position of strength that I can use to my good advantage. Like when the management wanted me to transfer to another branch that I didn’t fancy much, I wrote them a letter. With words like trepidation, culpability and diarrhea, and phrases I borrowed from Shakespeare, it gave them no other recourse than to accede to my request to stay. No Google then to help them out.
Without trampling upon the birthright of others, I made very good use of what I had.
On other days, 𝘔𝘦 𝘛𝘢𝘳𝘻𝘢𝘯, 𝘥𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘤𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘦.
Cheers! #MyCafeNotes
Yes, I agree. Speaking and understanding English has so many advantages when working abroad. But you have to be familiar also with the accent and you have to understand , too, the difference between proper English and American English, otherwise you will get lost. And you're right, no google yet or if ever it existed already I dont have the gadget to browse the words and terms they use. Ie. Cot,dungeree,jumper,cardigan, hoover,...and so on. Then you are very shy to ask them because you dont want to look stupid..
ReplyDelete