To say something about language spoken at work

[Babbleoff]

Im in an english speaking country. I have started working in an office where the majority of other employees are from another country. They speak their own language all of the time. I mean, ALL of the time!! Whether its office banter or actual work issues, all in their language.

I am very experienced, have been employed for my specialist skills and am relatively senior, altho its a small company with a fairly flat structure.

I am feeling very excluded and struggling to fit in due to the fact that i dont speak the other language. I find it rude that in a small and close working environment no consideration is given to english speakers. The other couple of english speakers are much more junior than me and i don't think they'd say anything.

I make an effort to talk to people. On occasions a conversation i have started gets picked up by someone else and they take over and continue in their language. At lunch they speak their language even if im sitting with them.

AIBU to raise this with my boss? I feel like a dick suggesting people dont speak their own language, but ive been upset almost to the point of tears about this. I can go all day without being included in any conversations unless i start them myself. I feel so stupid even about that because ive been working for yrs and have very thick skin (bit of a cutthroat industry).

i should also point out that speaking their language is not necessary for the job and was not a requirement or mentioned during hiring process.

Thanks, good advice.

For real!? The OP hasn't joined a company to learn a new language. She joined to do her job and everyone speaking in a different language is clearly a barrier to that.

DD had this, albeit in a warehouse environment. The majority of the employees were Polish. The team leaders were also polish but did try to insist that the daily huddle be in English but the other employees would not stick to that so very often DD didn’t know what was going on. They had to work in teams which made it all very difficult. I sympathise.

I lived and worked in another European country and spoke that language.

I would definitely speak to your boss about it. All work related conversations should be in English.

Are they speaking the other language while working or do they tend to speak it on breaks etc?

As a linguist I would love the opportunity to learn another language that this presents but I appreciate that may not be your bag. They should really speak English in your presence.

Is it a difficult language, like Polish? If not, I'd take the opportunity to learn it.

I'm foreign-born and work on project where I have been employed for (amongst other things) my language skills. A sizeable proportion of the team speaks my language, but the remainder of the team does not. I (and my foreign colleagues) would never dream of behaving the way you describe. We usually only speak our language amongst ourselves when there are mo English-speaking colleagues around. If we speak our language around an English-speaker, we always translate what was said. It's extremely rude otherwise.

I would definitely raise this as an issue.

No answers for the OP, but I’m in England and I love to hear Welsh spoken. I wouldn’t mind learning another language if it was frequently spoken in my workplace.

I thought it would be Indian languages but you mention European so french or Germanic?
They absolutely should stop either way when you're there.

No 🫥

Very rude. I work internationally, and as soon as someone who doesn’t speak the language joins, everyone reverts to English.
if that language wasn’t a requirement of the job then people should be sufficiently polite to speak the common language. Tell your boss that you feel excluded and cannot deliver your best as half the time you don’t know what is going on.

Why is it a problem now that it’s not Welsh? The effect on the OP is the same either way

It’s very rude. It’s a form of bullying as they are well aware that they are ignoring you and purposely choosing not to share work related information with you. Speak to your Manager.

Not necessarily, they may be just doing it out of habit rather than maliciously and they haven't realised just how excused the OP is.

I used to live in Spain as an ESL teacher, I worked in a school where all of the other teachers spoke Spanish (obviously) as did I whenever I was outside the classroom. A couple of years in we got an "English Language Assistant" via a Ministry of Education programme - this program allows graduates to come to Spain and essentially be paid to work as an English TA with zero admin or prep responsibilities. Crucially they do not have to have a teaching qualification nor do they need to speak Spanish.

The first year we had an ELA they really struggled in the first term and didn't really settle in. I eventually sat down with them and asked if there was anything they wanted to talk about and they basically explained they were in the same situation as the OP - everyone spoke Spanish and they were really struggling to understand things as, even though 90% of the staff spoke English, unless the ELA initiated a conversation with someone people would often just ignore her and continue their conversation around her.

I was guilty of it myself, I'd often come into our departmental office and if the ELA was already there I might say hello and ask her how her day was however if I was talking to another teacher from the English department about some admin or other we would default to speaking in Spanish out of habit, or if the ELA came in when we were talking we would often continue in Spanish rather than switching to English which we hadn't even realised was totally excluding the ELA as we would forget that she didn't speak any Spanish at all and our default was to speak Spanish, even though it wasn't my native language.

Once she told me this it was like a lightbulb went off. I passed the info to my HoD who then instigated an "English speaking only" policy when in the English Department office to ensure everyone was included. Nobody was mad we were asked to speak in the common language 100% of the department spoke, as opposed the the other language only 90% of the department spoke, as it was never done intentionally or maliciously to actively exclude them, it just didn't occur to us how exclusionary it was until it was brought to our attention as none of us were in the ELAs situation of not understanding any of the other language.

Its rude and ignorant.

We can't continue with the current obsession of being woke and treading on eggshells.

I had this at work and it was entirely disrespectful and created divides within the team.

I had this at a job once. Colleagues speaking Chinese (job in London). Never knew if they were talking about me or what. Awful.

When your boss asks you a question, that could be a good time to raise it, repeatedly if necessary. Just explain that you're unable to answer as you have absolutely no fucking idea what's going on/were unable to participate in the relevant discussions. (Choose whichever option you think will get the message across without you being fired!)

Do they do this in proper sit down meetings or is this general office chat that get derailed?

Huh? Are those the only two languages spoken in Europe? 😂

Anyway, as I have already mentioned, I am the foreign-speaker in a UK office with a proportion of the team speaking my language. I would never behave the way OP's colleagues behave. It's extremely rude and clearly excludes the English-speaker. My foreign colleagues and I always speak English around English-speakers.

So you're working in England but almost everyone in your office bar a couple of junior staff speak a European language practically the whole day?

I've worked in many international companies with offices in cities and regions and whilst there were sections/groups of people who spoke the same language I've never come across like 99% of the office speaking e.g. Spanish in the London office. It's an odd set up.

It sounds like they are excluding you and making it hard for you to do your job. Which is enough to speak to your boss.

And them excluding you from conversations could be considered work place bullying.

Because in Wales people have a legal right to speak Welsh. So if the OP had been in Wales and had insisted that colleagues spoke English, that’d be against the law, and therefore unreasonable. European languages don’t have the same level of protection.

OP I think it’s odd that your colleagues are constantly chatting in a different language in front of you. I say that as someone whose first language isn’t English. I could sort of understand it if it were just general chit chat (although I wouldn’t do that in my native language either) but anything business related I’d expect to be done in English.

YANBU

I was employed - thrilled to be as part of the accounting staff for building company in my town (UK).
I knew the owner who interviewed me was from Moldova. Not a problem. I was a shown around, got a little wave from the other 4 members of the team.

Started work the following Monday. The rest of the team where from Moldova. Nobody made an effort to speak to me, they chatted away. Teams messages were in Moldovan too.

I lasted a week. It upset me and I knew it wasn't going anywhere.

I have Hungarian family, I'm used to visiting Budapest for family gatherings and sitting around the table not understanding, but usually can get the general gist (or I just make it up in my head!) That has never really left me feeling isolated,
but this job felt awful.

They are rude . I would totally hate that . Don’t know what you can do though .

You are being excluded, but not necessarily on purpose.

No way will they switch to English if it's not their mother tongue.

You either suck it up or you quit

Shitty situation

YANBU.
My very multicultural workplace has this as a rule- English only.