Words

Our site visits to various organizations yesterday was the first time I encountered and endured a language barrier. Of course I have experienced situations where one’s native or best spoken language is different than mine, but yesterday was the first time it was ever genuinely explained to me and openly discussed.

The large, non-profit organization I met with served a great purpose in assisting the holistic development of special needs and disabled populations in Germany. While their staff was over 850 people, it was clear that most, if not all, of them speak only German most of the time. All of our presenters carried notecards with keywords they needed to translate into English, and several of them spoke less than ten English words during their whole presentation. One of my group mates, a native German, stepped in countless times to assist with translations, and saying things in ways that would be easier for the rest of the group (especially me) to understand.

As we were leaving the facility, she shared with me some of the struggles of her and her classmates, particularly with expressing and articulating themselves fully in English. She mentioned that there were times during our discussion the previous day about politics, borders, international relations, etc. that there were things she wanted to say and address, but could not do so effectively in English and ultimately said nothing. She also shared that sometimes her classmates can come off as combative or “matter of fact” when they say things, and that is also a product of the language barrier an cultural differences. Overall, this conversation brought clarity that I would not have had, and likely would have deterred me from continuing conversations with many of the other students.