My Languages

Even the most casual reader of this blog will know that languages are my passion. Learning languages, fiding out abot diffrent gradated shades of meaning in different languages, picking up some hilarious (and inappropriate) slang in a language you already know quite well (wouldn't recommend it in an unfamiliar language as things can easily go pear-shaped), punning in all sorts of languages  - and of course being able to read literature in the original - is that not a joy? I certainly love it.

And it isn't even (sadly!) as if I was an absolute language genius, one of those people who can converse fluently in almost every European language, plus of course Mandarin...

I have three languages where I'd say I feel comfortable in. But not to the same degree, and not in the same way. My languages are English, German, and Dutch. All not so dissimilar, but still totally different in the registers they offer - and sometimes of course their very similarity can be confusing. The thousands of "false friends" in Dutch and German are known to all speakers and very real pitfalls, even for near-native speakers.

Those three are my languages because I've lived in the respective countries and picked them up there. I didn't "learn" them. Saying this reminds me that I could do with adding a massive load of Dutch vocabulary  - that would certainly do me a world of good! For being able to speak a foreign language is an ongoing and never-ending process. It's much like a sporting skill where you can get ever better, refine your technique, try different approaches, and experiment. Which again is something I love doing in a foreign language.

My love of languages is definitely not limited to those three - at the moment I feel I'd like to learn Norwegian and Italian, the latter I'm alread quite familiar with but nowhere near fluent. I also suspect that Germanic languages just suit me better. Much as I like French, I've never been very good at it. There's something about the pitch and speed which I can't quite seem to master... I think everybody develops a feeling as to which languages suit them and which don't. But of course there are all sorts of fascinating languages - Hungarian being the one that always tempts me. I really really wish I was better at it - my grandmother was Hungarian, and I feel a special obligation to master it. And wouldn't it be fantastic to be able to read and speak Russian properly, rather than just treat every Cyrillic letter like a personal challenge? I wouldn't stop anywhere actually... Navajo? Icelandic? They certainly sound intriguing! And one doesn't absolutely have to master them all, sometimes you just sort of dip in - I gave up on Japanese and Irish for example, both brilliantly challenging but somehow I got completely flummoxed by them.

I think you get the idea... I will never stop being fascinated by languages.

Are British Companies Easy Prey?

They certainly seem to be when it comes to transitioning overseas. As more and more UK companies want to escape from a fairly flat home market into more attractive opportunities in the EU (notably Germany), they are in danger of becomíng victims of ruthless and low-quality service providers intent on making money.

Take translations: Very few British people outside the academic world can speak any other European languages. A British marketing manager intent on entering an EU market will be faced with the daunting task of having all the promotional literature - brochures, information material, newsletters, tags but most prominently websites - translated into a foreign language which he or she will have no clue about. It’s all gobbledygook.

And unfortunately, this is often what the translation reads like, too. If you are a German or French speaker, you can easily check yourself. Bring up any UK website and click the foreign language (flag) button. I was so shocked by one of them - Next Fashion - I actually wrote to the Marketing Manager and told them that their German website was so badly translated, it was almost incomprehensible. Fortunately, they reacted quickly and have now got a much better German website and newsletter.

A badly translated website isn't just an embarrassment. It can do serious damage to a company’s reputation - bearing in mind that it won't be as well-known as in the UK - so will be judged largely by its promotion and presentation.

Of course, the transition into another country is not just about translation. It's a step into a fairly different culture where other priorities, cultural signifiers and different tastes have to be carefully considered. Whilst not as intricate to handle as say, Japanese culture, European countries have their own sensibilities and ideas. For example, over-empasizing the money saving aspect - which is undoubtedly an important promotional tool in Britain - may come across as odd on a website designed for the continental consumer.

It's not uncommon for companies who did inadequate market observation, intelligence and research to fail. Domino's, the pizza company, just had to issue a profit warning because their German operation underperformed. A clear case of the company not having done its homework - and a costly reminder what can happen if you don't.

Here are 5 tips that companies looking to expand abroad should follow to avoid the most common pitfalls:

1. Spend time researching the market you’re looking to enter. Does it really make sense to come in as a new player who is largely unknown, when the market is already saturated?  (pizza delivery is a good case in point).

2. Talk to locals about your offering - website, products, communication collateral, before you actually do anything. Engage a transition specialist to help you negotiate this, they will be happy to improve even small details which count for a lot: Native-speaker consumers will notice anything odd

3. Invest in the highest-quality translations you can manage. This means not chosing any available translation agency but spending time finding a truly bi-lingual person - they're rare, but worth the effort.They will get the tonality, not just the wording right - so your positioning is attuned to local needs, and locals "get it" immediately. Great for business, especially when you're just starting out.

4. Start with small test markets before you go national, use them as learning grounds. Always listen and learn - engage in ongoing market research, qualitative and quantitative.

5. "Continually adjusting" is the recipe for overseas success. No one gets it right first time in foreign markets - there are too many things you might be unaware of. The trick for success is to keep listening, monitoring customer feed-back continually - and then to adjust as quickly as possible. Marks & Spencer got it horribly wrong first time in the 1990s - now they're back with better translated websites, and locally relevant ranges -all of which will translate into healthy topline growth.

Danke - a Potential Minefield for Non-Native Speakers

It is one of the first words you learn in any language "Danke - Thank you - Grazie - Merci" etc. And yet it is not quite as straightforward as those Travel Guides with an attached vocabulary section make out. Just think of how certain languages - Irish is a good example - totally go over board when it comes to thanking, and how many gradations there are. Go raibh míle míle maith agat for example, even without understanding  it exactly, sounds different from "cheers". German isn't quite so fulsome, but when it comes to saying "Thank you" in German, there are many shadings you want to be aware of.

Anglophone speakers in particular are at peril here. Firstly, they tend not to credit German (and Germans) with being capable of irony, and therefore take German words at face value. Big mistake! Secondly, English language natives are influenced by the similarity of their mother tongue, and tend to translate one to one. Thus, there is a tendency to use "Vielen Dank" (the pronunciation "vealen dank" is optional) rather inflationarily, and "Danke sehr" is also far more popular than it should be. In fact, neither is used very much in German at all. The former has a sort of non-committal, throw-away character, and the latter having definite unfortunate irony markers attached to it. (Similar to "Oh, thanks a lot." in English)

So what should you use then? Well, as so often, it's the tone that makes the difference. Whilst as a non-native speaker you'd assume that the simple "Danke" is far too plain, and might make you out not to be very proficient, it should in fact be your thanking word of choice. Except - be aware of your tone, how expressive you sound! Spoken flatly, it obviously hasn't got much resonance. With a heavy stress on the first syllable however, and a (gradated) enthusiasms marker, if will be always be appropriate. In German, it is extremely important to sound friendly and approachable. Which incidentally is another cardinal oversight on the part of Anglophone speakers. They are simply not aware that there is an "approachability marker" in the German language. As a result, their German often sounds flat, unfriendly, and near-hostile even when grammatically correct.

In written German, you obviously don't have the intonation factor, and have to convey friendliness differently. A good way of expressing a personal appreciation would therefore be "Danke dir", or adding an extra phrase like "Danke dir, das ist (aber) nett". A fashionable, but to many people slightly over the top way of thanking would be "lieben Dank".

Quite obviously, there's a lot more to say about this topic, in fact I think it might well be thesis-worthy. Here, I just wanted to draw attention to the fact, that there's a lot more to such a small word than at first meets the eye.

Translations, Translators - A Predicament

I certainly don't want to attack translators in this post. There are an awful lot of excellent translators doing excellent work out there. But so often, you will read a text, and notice immediately that it is "translated", and awkwardly at that. I just looked at the web page of quite an inovative advertising agency in Germany. Except their English version website was appalling. Tooth-grindingly awful . Here is an agency with a innovative concept, obviously keen on self-promotion and attracting new clients. So why have such an embarrassing English blurb?

The answer of course is: They don't know it's bad. They had it translated in good faith (or they did it themselves. "Sonja, du warst doch 6 Monate in London"...) "Sounds okay, they'll think when confronted with the English version. Sounds good, yeah. Put it in." And whilst this is no way of going about, there is also not much you can do about it if you're not proficient yourself.

You're in the hands of your translator who by dint of certificates and clients served past and present, you have to trust. And that is the problem. Certificates gained long ago, esp. the much admired "Vereidigter Übersetzer"-tag will be of little value when, say, you need an innovative marketing concept translated into a foreign language.

Sadly, tranlators aren't very well paid, and will therefore never turn down an assignment they don't quite feel up to. Doggedly, they will leaf through their dictionaries (equally outdated, and certainly not able to cope with today's online vocabulary!) and hope for the best, i.e. that their client will just take what ever they produce. And unquestioningly use it in their promotional material ...and make a fool of themselves.

That is the predicament - and there's not much you can do about it. Demand better pay for translators, appeal to their ethos... it won't work. The market is disparate, and anybody (with or without certificate) can do their worst.

There simply aren't enough people with excellent language abilities, specialist knowledge, and a feel for good copywriting about.

English? Na klar!

There are very few Germans who would not maintain that they speak fluent English. And indeed, English is everywhere - music, films, social media, brands, youth culture... you name it, it's in English. But when it comes to actually speaking English, Germans are - whether they like it or not - quite shockingly bad at it. Of course, if you go there as a tourist, you're probably quite happy that almost everybody has a smattering of your language, and you won't find yourself totally lost. But proper, idiomatic and proficient speaking of English is almost totally absent. I've been paying quite close attention to this phenomenon since I moved here, and have identified what are, in my mind, the most obvious weaknesses.

1. Pronunication. Only the other day I heard somebody say "Latin Lover" in typically German pronunciation . It sounded like thiss "Lett-hinn luffa". Most Germans don't make any effort to pronounce English as it should be. Annoyingly, they often also transport their own local dialect into the foreign language, so you end up with Swabian English, Berlin English etc.

2. Un-idoimatic use of language. Germans seem to be blissfully unaware of the fact that English is perhaps the most idiomatic language in the world. You simply can't go about in your own way and disregard idioms. It ends up sounding clumsy and naive, and that unfortunately, is mostly the impression created when Germans speak English.

3. Treating English as if it was German. Probably the gravest sin, and probably responsible why Germans think they can easily deal with the language: Just translate word by word and you end up with... gibberish. A good example I overheard the other day: "It is now nice since two days, so I go out." Err? There is also a total disregard for tenses (esp. Present Perfect to indicate an on-going state of affairs and Past Continuous which doesn't exist in German.)

I think there is great scope for improved English teaching at German schools and university. It should be a prerequisite that English teachers have spent a considerable amount of time in an English-speaking country. I do believe it's worth learning to speak a language properly (i..e as native speakers handle it) and not in some pidginified version.

Rich Pickings for the Interculturalist

These are heady days for anybody interested in intercultural issues – starting with BP's various gaffes, which are not just PR disasters but show a lack of cross-cultural understanding…. and then the various on-goings with the England football team that are not just a sporting issue but indicate a breakdown in inter-European discourse.

BP

Can anybody understand each other- even when they're allegedly speaking the same language? It seemed communication was almost at breaking-point when BP's Tony Hayward testified at the US congress this week. US governors from Southerrn States - well spoken and immaculately prepared - were reduced to apoplectic rage, shouting "Yes or No, Mr. Hayward???" when once again British Hayward proferred an "Oim afraid I can't tell you that" response, or tried hedging with "Oi believe that's the case". These weren't just the prevarications drilled into him by Brunswick PR. Almost every other language (certainly European) uses the words "yes" for affirmation and "No" for dissent. Not so British English - a veritable pitfall for anybody who didn't grow up with it. Say "No thank you" (which sounds polite enough to most ears) to the offer of a cup of tea, and you're classified as rude in England. "Very kind, but I think I'm alright for the moment." would be the correct response. Another example – in British English, it’s fine to say “I think so, yes” when what is meant is “yes”, whereas to many other cultures it sounds like a statement of uncertainty. Or indeed obfuscation. Americans do not share this habit or passion for circumlocution. To them, a refusal to answer yes or no smacks of obfuscation and weaselliness. Brunswick PR would have been well advised to look into this.

The England Team and Fabby-o Capello

Another intercultural hot spot is the on-going uneasiness between the England football manager Fabio Capello and his team. This is fascinating as again a linguistic culture-clash becomes a problem of national concern. Maybe it was never a good idea to employ a manager who could not speak a word of English when he started, and is only vaguely beginning to make himself understood now. It seems quite incomprehensible how he manages to convey intricate issues (well ok, we are talking football)... But that is purely a language issue and not an intercultural one. The expectations of an unrelenting, seemingly autocratic Italian used to hierarchical structures in 1970's Italian club culture sit uneasily with an oafish (and to many Brits equally incomprehensible) Rooney, say. Peevishness, resentment, frustrated blokeishness ("We always just sat in our rooms", J.Terry) form an explosive alliance which obviously does not bring out the best in everybody. As one football commentator put it "The squad thought he was different".

Rooney

Wayne Rooney is also an interesting intercultural phenomenon, although this time it's unrelated to language. In England, Rooney enjoys near-messianic cult-status amongst broad swathes of the population. The image of him draped in a St George's flag has become iconic. Foreigners however, just see him as an un-prepossessing, slightly flabby teenager who rants and grunts at fans. Rooney is so much the epitome of what English football is all about - the will to win, to crusade and conquer, pride in wearing the shirt, an unintellectual approach to the point of oafishness… that his image will never translate into any other culture. Which guarantees two things: Rooney will be "England til he dies", as no European football club would want to be saddled with him; and secondly that he will never be a marketing torch-bearer for international football, like say David Beckham.

Interculturalism has so many fascinating aspects, but it all depends on your perspective: Like an Australian friend commented the other day when told about all the undercurrents and likes and dislikes between nations. "You Europeans are funny".

I Love Languages

I can't really imagine what it's like not to speak more than language. I think everyone I know does. Maybe that's just a sign of the times. People are not so rooted in one place anymore, they go abroad to study, they have foreign friends. Increasingly, people are forced to leave their country to find jobs elsewhere, so of course they need to be able to speak the language.

For me, it wasn't really a choice. I grew up bi-lingually, and then we moved to Holland, where I went to an international school. So mono-lingualism wasn't really an option. But as far as I'm concerned, learning languages isn't really a chore. I don't think there was ever any time in my life when I wasn't busy learning a language -not always successfullly!
Languages I started and then gave up on: Japanese, Russian, Old Norse, Turkish, Norwegian, Arabic, Ancient Greek, Bahasa Indonesia.....oh dear!

Still, it was fun, and not just that. Learning languages - and this is more than a truism - helps you appreciate that cultures are really very different.

Think of the word 'Bread'
хлеб

לֶחֶם

Brot

These aren't just different WORDS arethey? They are a porthole into a different culture - how people live, eat, imagine food, what they eat with 'bread' (couldn't have a ploughmans with that cholla, could you?).



I'm quite curious to hear what your experiences are with languages? Do youl like learning them? Do you speak them when abroad? What was your first reaction when you first encountered the adventure of a foreign word? Please let me know... I'd love to hear your views!

Oxford - Et in Arcadia Ego?

After graduating, I came to England. I had got a job as lecturer at Hertford College, Oxford. The appointment ("tenure") was for 2 years. These two years turned out to be the happiest of my life - after Oxford, nothing ever really lives up to it, you just get used to things because you have to... But that's not what I'm writing about.

I was about 100 years younger than the youngest don there, so whilst officially part of the Senior Common Room (all the teaching staff of a college), my social life happened in the MCR (i.e. the graduate students). I still saw a lot of my colleagues though, mainly at the daily High Table dinner where you wear a gown, Grace is said in Latin, and you make formal conversation over not so good food.

You'd expect an Oxford college to be a hub of academic internationalism. Researchers from all over the world mingling for multinational exchanges. But this wasn't the case at all. I was the only foreigner and one of only two women. Conversation with me at High Table was laboured - Rhine cruises were remembered, and war reminscences (possibly not their own, their fathers'?) offered with the tough duck à l'orange. Narvik featured heavily. It wasn't easy to chime in, I had never been on a Rhine cruise "That must have been so lovely!" and Narvik meant nothing to me "That must have been... terrible!"

Over in the MCR, it was the polar opposite - the graduate students came from all over the world, fee-paying Americans, Japanese, Nigerians, Dutch. In fact I only remember one British national there. It was lively, fun, international - one got to know people and learnt an awful lot.

It struck me, that living in Britain, my life is still organised along those lines: The international background through family, friends, travel, and media. And on the other side there's Britain. Yes, there may be a whole multicultural aspect to it, but that SCR-Britain prevails. British reality is still mono-lingual, awkward with foreigners, still treating "abroad" with polite suspicion. It still chews on that tough duck. Proudly chewing, but inward-looking, and increasingly marginalised.

*)On the photo, the window of my room, second floor on the left hand side, is just about visible.

The Pretentious Foodie

You know the type... the one who urges you to book into El Bulli before it closes "I can put in a good word for you, and tell Ferran to give you the chicken skins as an ante-starter, they're absolutely divine..." He's been to more Michelin starred restaurants than you've had cheeseburgers and can tell you the difference between a Hollandaise and a Bearnaise with a slight sneer at your ignorance.

I would classify myself as VERY interested in food/cooking/nutrition etc. but I feel dreadfully put off by all those bores who want to tell you what's what. The best bagel in New York? Salt beef in East London? Borschtsch in Moscow? Yeah, please just go away, I prefer to find out for myself. Another most irritating characteristic of the Pretentious Foodie (PF) is his (they are mostly male, funnily enough) prediliction to call perfectly ordinary ingredients or dishes by their foreign names.

I'm not of the "Call a spade a spade"-brigade, but I bristle at people who - with a thick English accent - happily talk about "prosciutto", "petit pois", or "moules". The Pretentious Foodie does not realise he just sounds like a provincial sea-side hotel in the Fifties. I recently read about a trade union leader who rather than having sandwiches, asked for "goujons de sole" -so very genteel. But my personal favourite in the PF stakes is calling "steak and chips" steak frites - how very sophisticated. Not.

What next? Call a baked potato un pomme de terre au four? I've often wondered why food of all things attracts such a lot of pretentious types. I mean, okay - music, or literature... but food??