About different languages being spoken at work?

[purplesnake]

To be honest, I'm scared to post this at the risk of sounding a bit racist, but I don't intend it to be taken like that at all.

I work, in London, for a company which has an incredibly diverse employee base - being British definitely makes you a minority. I'm not going to debate whether that's a good or bad thing.

Anyway, a lot of my coworkers are from mainland Europe and frequently talk amongst themselves at the desks in their native languages. I speak semi-decent French and Spanish but nowhere near good enough to understand them (I am trying to improve though!) and I find it a bit intimidating to be sat at my desk, knowing they're talking but having no idea what they're saying. I also feel like if they are talking about work, they should speak in English so that the rest of us, even if we just overhear things, can have an idea of what's going on.

Of course, if they are talking to a French speaking client on the phone, for example, then I have no issue with them speaking French. Or if they wanted to grab a coffee and chat about personal things in their own language, good for them.

AIBU to expect that in a business environment in an English speaking country, people should be speaking English?

YABU

English is the international lingua franca for business. So, of course, we all default back to English when talking to those with different mother tongues. That doesn't make it the language that everyone's most comfortable communicating in, and when a group of people who all feel more at ease with French/German/Japanese/whatever hold a conversation among themselves they're obviously free to speak in that language.

I'm an expat and, while I'm fluent in the standard version of the local language, I'm afraid the dialect spoken in the region where I am based will forever remain a mystery to me - think roughly along the lines of me speaking perfectly decent standard English but really struggling with thick Yorkshire accents. I absolutely do expect people to make an effort to tone their dialect down when speaking to me - after all, I don't speak English to them, either - but it wouldn't occur to me to demand they make sure I understand conversations in which I'm not included.

And, no, it doesn't matter at all that my situation is different in that their unintelligible dialect actually is the dominant local language whereas this would be English in London. Doing business internationally means that some people will be working in places where different languages are spoken. It's a basic prerequisite. Their employers usually place them there / hire them because, not despite, of their language skills and cultural insight. They're not being rude - they're doing exactly what makes them uniquely valuable to your firm.

If this were not the case, surely you should also be objecting to people speaking in a low voice, taking their conversation to the coffee corner or any other of myriad means they could be employing to prevent you from listening to and understanding every word they say.

I think it depends, if everyone else is speaking in English and two people insist on speaking a language that most others don't understand that's rude.

But if the working environment is genuinely multi-cultural and most people's first language is not English then I think it's acceptable

I agree with you. My friend was in a work environment where she was the only English and her colleagues were all Polish. They were fluent in English but would speak Polish amongst themselves to the point where my friend would work in silence and not say a word all day. She had no no clue what they were talking about. I don't think it's right for someone to be singled out like that.

YABU,
I currently work in an office with 5 different main languages and 32 different languages across the whole of the organization. As long as English is the main language for business communication, what people use during personal conversations is of no consequence.

Demanding that everyone speaks English all the time will just make you unpopular and a bit of an asshole.

It must be a joy to find someone who speaks your language at work if you are outside of your home country.

I'm glad I have read this thread because I work in HR and in a company that is very diverse.

I think any personal conversations that are noisy or disruptive to business should be discouraged.... whatever language is being spoken. Usually it's English and some snore about the Rugby/football/weather....

All meetings and official communications are delivered in English in my company.

If someone complains to me about people speaking a different language my first question will be to ask whether they were being spoken to directly... if not. None of their business. Get over it.

If I put myself in those shoes... when I have had to visit offices overseas I have been extremely lucky that people have conversed (in business terms) in my language, and no one has ever cared when I found a fellow brit to matter inanely about tea bags too. I would have felt pretty alone if no one had shown me a kindness to speak English to me.... or even been allowed to speak English if we shared the language.

I think too often we think it's all about us. It isn't. It's about everyone.

I think it's a vg point tbf that if we were working abroad and there happened to be an
English colleague, in a one on one conversation you would speak English to them.

Have been in that situation and spoke English I admit!

The British are definitely not the only nationality to complain about this type of thing. I've heard similar complaints when working in Greece, France and Italy.

I think it tends to manifest when people feel vulnerable for some reason, which could be anything from a wider cultural anxiety about foreign workers to a very specific work situation.

Telling people to just "learn the language" is a bit daft though. It can take years to achieve a general fluency in a type two or three language.

Shouting "English only please" when you walk past people is really rude.

I work in an international environment- the accepted rules of politeness are:

English for company communication (email etc)
Local language for office meetings unless colleagues from other countries are here in which case English
Whatever you want for one to one chit chat

The key is that if it’s a private ‘how are the kids?’ Natter over a cuppa it’s not excluding anyone. If the situation could be construed as excluding those around it’s polite to use the company language

This is how it should work. I worked for an international firm in another European country. English was mainly used and my direct managers were English so I always used English. The colleagues around me were English, French and Belgian. If I was speaking to just my English colleague, I would use English. If my two French-speaking colleagues were talking together they would use French. I spoke a mixture of French and English with them but if we were speaking as a group of 4 we used English as my colleague didn't speak much French. In the kitchen area, people of the same nationality would speak in their own languages, otherwise it was a mixture of English and French. In front of clients, we spoke whichever language they preferred.

I also think the rules for the NHS ward upthread make sense. English in front of patients and whatever language you want on a break.

YABU

I'm in France. Even in a non international company no one ever complained when I spoke English to an American colleague.

I can't believe you would actually shout "English only please" at people.

I bet they LOVE you

I work for a multinational company, the general rule is that all written communications in the UK office are in English. Meetings are in English unless all the participants have another common language and one to one conversations are in whatever suits the the participants best. The two people sitting next to me on Friday spent most of the day speaking Dutch, they were looking at one persons screen and pointing things out so I’m pretty sure they were discussing work rather than talking about me! I guess I might feel more uncomfortable if it was a looking over at me and giggling type conversation. Generally though people are very polite and most of the folks I know if you approached them and were obviously waiting to speak to them or join the conversation would immediately switch it to English so you could find the right point to join.

In meetings, in front of or in hearing of the public yes everything should be in English. Social chats in another language as long as they are not too loud seem OK to me, and are genuinely between two people and not designed to exclude.

PrimeraVez I don't think you can really complain if you have been there 7 years and you still can't speak it.

But I'm not complaining

I do make a light hearted request for them to switch back to English when we are in an official meeting, because the official working language of the company is English, and that has always been very clear from day one. Even though my particular team happens to be all Arabic speaking apart from me, the organisation as a whole is incredibly diverse.

I have taken several Arabic language courses by the way and am certainly capable of communicating at a superficial level, but when it comes to meetings that are full of technical language and jargon, I think it's only fair that we all use a language that we can all speak fluently.

I’m baffled by all of the people saying that this is rude. I work in a secondary school in Greater London. There are occasionally conversations in the staffroom in French, Spanish, Greek, Brazilian Portuguese and Italian (just off the top of my head). I’ve never once been offended by people speaking a language they share in a one-to-one conversation. A couple of months ago we went to the pub and I was the only native English speaker there. Everyone else (French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Danish) there spoke English so that I was included. They spend most of their time speaking English, why shouldn’t they be able to speak their native languages or other common languages if they are speaking to one other person who speaks the same language as them. The people who sit opposite me at work speak a mixture of Greek and English to each other and sometimes switch language mid-sentence. I find it fascinating. I also have a French friend at work who sometimes forgets that I don’t speak French. She’ll come over to my desk, ask me something in French and then has to repeat herself when she’s met with a blank stare. I think it’s fine.

YANBU.
Some of the comments on here are
I say that as someone who works in a very international environment.
Just learn the language is a ridiculous statement.
I am not realistically going to fluently learn Lithuanian, Italian, French, Romanian, Chinese, Hungarian, French, Polish, Swedish and Portuguese (this is direct reports only) not wider team.
@diddl
I am not sure what is so “fucking” surprising about expecting people to speak English when it’s about work.
I manage a team of 12 and all work related comms are in English - overhearing other peoples work is good and in some cases vital. Off the top of my head...
Other members of the team may have information they don’t,
There may already be a report they can repurpose, or they may be about to make a mistake/ send something they shouldn’t to an external party. if I can’t understand/hear them I can’t do my job as effectively.

social chatting lunch and tea point are totally fine but We had someone who would sit at her desk and talk at length with another Woman from a neighbouring team in her local language.
Several (non English!) people complained and she insisted it was work related (from nonverbal body language it was fairly obviously not).
Nothing was done.
you might wonder how I know the specifics when I don’t speak her mother tongue.

Well it continued, and everyone had to endure her bitching about them in front of them but thankfully months later a visitor (native of same country) walked through our department and heard her. She was at the unorofessionalism to the point she advised the department head at which point it was actually addressed as my boss was shamed into action.

Co-workers and supervisors use to do that in my home country of America, I found it very rude.

They would have conversations in Spanish in front of employees and members who didn't speak Spanish even though they were also fluent in English.

It didn't make for a very harmonious working environment and when done in the break room it very much felt like they were doing so to purposely exclude the non-Spanish speakers.

I think it's a vg point tbf that if we were working abroad and there happened to be an English colleague, in a one on one conversation you would speak English to them. Exactly this. I also think anyone who prefaces their comment with at the risk of sounding a bit racist is probably being exactly that.

I think this is really tricky.

When I'm chatting to one colleague at work about non-work stuff, others around us often join in when they hear something of interest. Likewise, I often pick up the thread of a surrounding conversation and join in. It really does help team building and make us feel more cohesive. So I don't think it's as simple as saying if it's non-work related, being excluded won't affect the individual or the team. I'm not a robot and I wouldn't be happy working for a company where I was expected not to care about anything but work and expected not to want to talk to my colleagues socially.

At the same time, I'm sure I wouldn't think I was being rude if I met an English-speaker abroad and spoke to them in English, even if there were people around us (not part of the conversation) who DIDN'T speak English.

I don't know. I suppose if I were making the rules, I'd say quick exchanges at the desk were fine in any language but for longer conversations, non-English conversations should be taken somewhere private so nobody feels excluded.

I work with a Bugarian and Ukranian women. The Ukranian lady constantly speaks Russian to the other who can understand but always replies in English. On a personal level it doesn't bother me, as I dont feel it's done to exclude me.

It does bother the Bulgarian lady as she feels it leaves me out..as I cant join in the conversation.

The thing with the Ukranian lady, her not speaking English in the workplace does nothing for her language skills. She is very stilted and comes across as rude and stroppy she's an arrogant so and so anyway. She's an ex teacher so thinks she is wonderful and lectures us both on the English language while not realising she comes across as rude.Other lady speach just flows naturally. Certain people in management have expressed that they dont think she should be speaking in one of her language at work...I'll book a days holiday when that conversation is had.

In my OH's workplace the insist on English on the shop floor. However on one of his shifts are a set of people who all from the same country related, live in the same house. Their language skills are so poor he has trouble making them understand. Another shift is made up of several nationalities and the supervisor always mixes the breaks up, consequently language is less of a barrier

I dont think it unreasonable to expect English to be spoken while working...in breaks do what you like.

YANBU it is rude to exclude people on any count. I lived on a small island and people naturally spoke English until I opened my mouth with an English accent and they then spoke Gaelic.Rude

YANBU it is rude to exclude people on any count

Bollocks it is. When they have excluded themselves by not learning the language, that's their tough luck. It's not all about you.

howdydoody so learn Gaelic if it bothers you that much.

primera I just find it weird that you seem to think that it makes more sense for them to speak English (which they might find it harder to communicate in) than for you to learn Arabic.