It's also worth considering the alternative of people who speak different languages working together without translation. I found this article about the intera

It's also worth considering the alternative of people who speak different languages working together without translation. I found this article about the interaction of Chinese and Mongolian workers at a fluorspar mine particularly illuminating in that regard: https://madeinchinajournal.com/2021/01/25/the-double-tongued-dilemma-translating-chinese-workers-relations-in-mongolia/ https://madeinchinajournal.com/2021/01/25/the-double-tongued... Excerpt: Xu Jun, the crushing section lead, recalled: "Once I asked my Mongolian assistant to make a slanted connector for the ore crusher. I showed him many times the angle of slant with my gestures, but he just did not get it. Do you know what he gave me in return? A straight angle and a blank look. In the end I had to make one myself to show him what I meant. He instantly understood and raised his thumb, saying ‘Sain, sain’ [‘good, good’]. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry." He blamed the incident on the Mongolian worker’s ‘inflexible brain’ rather than acknowledging a communication failure for which both were responsible. Such refusals to share responsibility were not uncommon among monolingual workers. Linguistic miscommunication without timely mediation easily perpetuates essentialist stereotypes. After the incident, Xu Jun would always ask a bilingual person to bridge the linguistic gap. Even though the translation may be imperfect as the intermediary might not know particular technical terms in Mongolian, their colloquial translation of the key actions involved could help the listeners understand.