Say Again?
by Dirk Dusharme
Last month I was sitting in the Detroit airport waiting for a flight back to Sacramento. Sitting next to me was a Vietnamese family. About five minutes after I sat down, the family was approached by three men. One was dressed in a long black Keanu Reeves-in-The Matrix coat, only not as well-fitting; one wore an airport security uniform; and one was in plainclothes. The plainclothes officer flashed a badge, asked the three for their passports and airline tickets, and then handed them off to Keanu. For the next 30 minutes, the three were questioned about the large amount of cash ($11,000) they had in their luggage, where they were coming from, where they were going, their ages, how much money they had on their persons and so on.
Did I forget to mention that the wife spoke almost no English, the sister-in-law just a bit and the husband, while the most fluent, spoke hardly any at all?
Here’s an example of how some of the communication went:
“Whatcherdateofbirth?” asks the security guard.
Questioning look from husband.
“Whatcher date of birth?”
Pause. “ Vietnam?” Half question, half statement.
“No.” Then slowly: “What… is… your… date… of… birth?”
Or this:
“Howmuchcash yagotonya?” asks Keanu.
You can almost see the internal language processors trying to parse the part of the sentence the husband found understandable.
“Eleven thousand dollars,” he replies confidently.
“No. On you. How… much… cash… do… you… have… on… you?”
I’m sitting there gritting my teeth, wanting to jump up and say, “My God, you’re killing me! Why don’t you ask him, ‘How much money do you have in your wallet,’ or ‘When were you born,’ anything but the same question asked in the same way, which he obviously doesn’t understand, over and over and over and over!”
But then, I actually wanted to reach Sacramento that evening.
Later I found myself thinking about how I do the same thing. I’m one of two people in our office whom the others come to when there’s something happening with their software that they don’t understand. More often than I like to admit I tend to spew sentences like, “Clickonoptionsfromthetoolsdropdownmenu.”
It boils down to laziness, really. It’s easier to lay the burden on the listener to understand you, the “expert.” Why should I have to change my wording?
But not everyone speaks English… or geek.
Not taking the time to rephrase your language can produce undesirable results. Here’s two: First, it probably takes twice as long to accomplish the task at hand than it would if you just tried to communicate more simply. Next, you stand the chance of making the other person feel like an idiot. So, at the risk of looking foolish, they say they understand when, in fact, they don’t. Worse, they avoid asking questions in the future.
So the next time someone asks you for help with something so obvious, take a breath, speak slowly and rephrase your explanation if he or she doesn’t seem to understand it.
Oh yes, about our unfortunate Vietnamese family. After a half-hour, the security people decided that nothing was amiss and wandered off without even a chúcbancómôtngàyvuive.
Chúc… ban… có… môt… ngày… vui… ve.
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