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What if I genuinely don’t understand what they’re saying, and neither does anyone in my team? This happened many times. Is this racism or a practical inconvenie

What if I genuinely don’t understand what they’re saying, and neither does anyone in my team? This happened many times. Is this racism or a practical inconvenience? I find the sensitivity on this topic regarding racism kind of overshadowing the practical aspect of not being able to understand what the other person is saying. We offer people in our company English language training, because we’re a world wide remote company and everyone should be able to understand each other. Is this racism as well?

tsimionescu 6mo ago
Does your company offer courses to help you speak English with a more Filipino accent? If not, why not?
- stingraycharles 6mo ago
  I actually happen to be in The Philippines right now, so funny you mention that. No of course we don’t, and neither do we offer one with a more Spanish, French, Russian, Polish, Thai or German accent. This is because we decided upon American-English as the language, which is also reflected in the grammar choices on our website (despite being a French company). The courses are entirely optional. Some colleagues don’t take them, and they have problems communicating with customers, which is very frustrating. I’ve had an Indian manager of a customer complain that one of our Thai support engineers was incomprehensible, and my boss complain that this Indian manager was incomprehensible. It’s just a mess all around. I’m Dutch myself and these languages courses have benefited me a lot to remove some of my Dutch accent, which helps during business conversations. I’ve traveled the world pretty much constantly over the past 12 years, so I’m quite tolerant of many types of accents, but even just arriving in the Philippines for the first time last week required some recalibration, because they have their own way of pronouncing things.
  - tsimionescu 6mo ago
    If you are in the Phillipines, you might notice that English is an official language of the Phillipines - unlike Spain, France, Russia, Poland, Thailand, or Germany (or the Netherlands). This means that the Filipino English accent is just as much a native accent as the Scottish, Canadian, or American, Indian, Australian, etc. accents. And yet, no one is requiring people from London to change the way they speak their language, even if it's sometimes hard to understand for people from NYC.
    - junofan 6mo ago
      According to state news, 47% of Filipinos are “competent” with English [1]. They care. We all know what this is about. We’ve all had CS calls with accent friction. What’s the point of using word games to sidestep a problem and the discussion of a real-world implementation of a solution? [1]: https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1207936 https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1207936
      - tsimionescu 6mo ago
        I've had significant accent friction when I started watching British television after a long time of learning English from simply watching only American television. But I don't expect people in Britain to "fix" their accent.
        stingraycharles 6mo ago
        Good for you. Now tell everyone in all 195 countries in the world to learn all 195 different accents that exist. How much effort do you expect people to put into learning all variants of English? Do you even realize how biased your own perspective is?
- javier123454321 6mo ago
  You know that people studying a second language often study native pronunciation, right? Thats just standard curricula for language acquisition. Youre fishing for racism where theres none.
  - rexpop 6mo ago
    There's definitely racism in a global apartheid.
    - javier123454321 6mo ago
      I understand the words you are saying, but struggling to make sense of what you are trying to say. We're talking in this thread about learning a native accent in a second language. I do the same when I am learning Hungarian, as the phonemes are different than what I am used to in my native tongues.
  - tsimionescu 6mo ago
    English is one of the two official languages of the Philippines, so their English accent is native, just as much as the English accent, Scottish accent, American accent, NYC accent, etc.
    - javier123454321 6mo ago
      Sure, there's no such thing as a native accent. In the end these are all concepts and if you dig down the semantic value of the label is blurry at the edges. Language is a malleable construct of agreement which corresponds to an ever flowing ever changing loosely defined idea, and you cannot point to a proper category that transcends cultural and social norms and stratification. We can play the post-structuralist game, but you're not engaging in good faith. Language is useful insofar as it lets you communicate, and if you lack the phonemes the meaning of your words will be misinterpreted and misunderstood. Learning a more common accent is a reality that has incredible utility and is not in itself racist. At any rate, there's enough variation between the English commonly spoken by Philippinos that it's considered a dialect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_English.
Planktonne 6mo ago
> What if I genuinely don’t understand what they’re saying, and neither does anyone in my team? This sounds like a severe deficiency in your team, but it's not hard for you to learn to handle other accents. Learned helplessness is not an excuse.
- stingraycharles 6mo ago
  So everyone in the world should just be capable of speaking all different accents of English there are, just because of.. what? Fabricated outrage? Do you even realize just how special it is that English is the defacto standard language and that this happens to work? And now you’re saying it’s realistic for everyone to also learn all different accents of every country? You do realize that Filipinos have difficulty understanding Indians and vice versa? Should they both be completely comfortable with each others’ accents, rather than a single standard way to pronounce things? This is such a ridiculous take.
  - ryandrake 6mo ago
    I don't think the ability to understand the accents of the people you may interact with at work is an unreasonable baseline job requirement, at least not these days of very diverse teams. Many people have to learn an entire foreign language (English) as a job requirement! If I went to work at a German company, I might be both expected to learn German fluently and be able to understand regional accents, too.

tsimionescu 6mo ago

Does your company offer courses to help you speak English with a more Filipino accent? If not, why not?

stingraycharles 6mo ago
I actually happen to be in The Philippines right now, so funny you mention that. No of course we don’t, and neither do we offer one with a more Spanish, French, Russian, Polish, Thai or German accent. This is because we decided upon American-English as the language, which is also reflected in the grammar choices on our website (despite being a French company). The courses are entirely optional. Some colleagues don’t take them, and they have problems communicating with customers, which is very frustrating. I’ve had an Indian manager of a customer complain that one of our Thai support engineers was incomprehensible, and my boss complain that this Indian manager was incomprehensible. It’s just a mess all around. I’m Dutch myself and these languages courses have benefited me a lot to remove some of my Dutch accent, which helps during business conversations. I’ve traveled the world pretty much constantly over the past 12 years, so I’m quite tolerant of many types of accents, but even just arriving in the Philippines for the first time last week required some recalibration, because they have their own way of pronouncing things.
- tsimionescu 6mo ago
  If you are in the Phillipines, you might notice that English is an official language of the Phillipines - unlike Spain, France, Russia, Poland, Thailand, or Germany (or the Netherlands). This means that the Filipino English accent is just as much a native accent as the Scottish, Canadian, or American, Indian, Australian, etc. accents. And yet, no one is requiring people from London to change the way they speak their language, even if it's sometimes hard to understand for people from NYC.
  - junofan 6mo ago
    According to state news, 47% of Filipinos are “competent” with English [1]. They care. We all know what this is about. We’ve all had CS calls with accent friction. What’s the point of using word games to sidestep a problem and the discussion of a real-world implementation of a solution? [1]: https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1207936 https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1207936
    - tsimionescu 6mo ago
      I've had significant accent friction when I started watching British television after a long time of learning English from simply watching only American television. But I don't expect people in Britain to "fix" their accent.
      - stingraycharles 6mo ago
        Good for you. Now tell everyone in all 195 countries in the world to learn all 195 different accents that exist. How much effort do you expect people to put into learning all variants of English? Do you even realize how biased your own perspective is?
javier123454321 6mo ago
You know that people studying a second language often study native pronunciation, right? Thats just standard curricula for language acquisition. Youre fishing for racism where theres none.
- rexpop 6mo ago
  There's definitely racism in a global apartheid.
  - javier123454321 6mo ago
    I understand the words you are saying, but struggling to make sense of what you are trying to say. We're talking in this thread about learning a native accent in a second language. I do the same when I am learning Hungarian, as the phonemes are different than what I am used to in my native tongues.
- tsimionescu 6mo ago
  English is one of the two official languages of the Philippines, so their English accent is native, just as much as the English accent, Scottish accent, American accent, NYC accent, etc.
  - javier123454321 6mo ago
    Sure, there's no such thing as a native accent. In the end these are all concepts and if you dig down the semantic value of the label is blurry at the edges. Language is a malleable construct of agreement which corresponds to an ever flowing ever changing loosely defined idea, and you cannot point to a proper category that transcends cultural and social norms and stratification. We can play the post-structuralist game, but you're not engaging in good faith. Language is useful insofar as it lets you communicate, and if you lack the phonemes the meaning of your words will be misinterpreted and misunderstood. Learning a more common accent is a reality that has incredible utility and is not in itself racist. At any rate, there's enough variation between the English commonly spoken by Philippinos that it's considered a dialect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_English.

Planktonne 6mo ago

> What if I genuinely don’t understand what they’re saying, and neither does anyone in my team? This sounds like a severe deficiency in your team, but it's not hard for you to learn to handle other accents. Learned helplessness is not an excuse.

stingraycharles 6mo ago
So everyone in the world should just be capable of speaking all different accents of English there are, just because of.. what? Fabricated outrage? Do you even realize just how special it is that English is the defacto standard language and that this happens to work? And now you’re saying it’s realistic for everyone to also learn all different accents of every country? You do realize that Filipinos have difficulty understanding Indians and vice versa? Should they both be completely comfortable with each others’ accents, rather than a single standard way to pronounce things? This is such a ridiculous take.
- ryandrake 6mo ago
  I don't think the ability to understand the accents of the people you may interact with at work is an unreasonable baseline job requirement, at least not these days of very diverse teams. Many people have to learn an entire foreign language (English) as a job requirement! If I went to work at a German company, I might be both expected to learn German fluently and be able to understand regional accents, too.