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> Are you saying it would be better to just teach their customers the English words for these things? Yes. It's the same amount of teaching and learning. Actua
by skookumchuck 9y ago
> Are you saying it would be better to just teach their customers the English words for these things?
Yes. It's the same amount of teaching and learning. Actually, it's probably less of both, because:
1. A fair fraction (most?) of the customers would already know some english, whereas zero know what those icons mean.
2. Knowledge of english words is valuable to anyone and is transferable to other domains. Knowledge of McDonald's icons is useless outside of McDonald's.
3. Deciphering english is a trivial peck at an online dictionary. Whatcha gonna do about an icon?
English words are creeping in everywhere anyway.
- woobar 9y agoThey explains it in the paper. There are cultural and legal limitations. So your knowledge of English will not help when you travel to a country that requires packaging in native language. On the other hand, learning 'universal' icons will help you everywhere.
- skookumchuck 9y agoAn english word is not harder to learn than an icon. It is not harder to attach a cultural and legal explanation of the usage of a word than an icon. I do enjoy the irony of evading laws that require packaging in the native language, so McDonald's invents a new non-native language instead.