Walking under an umbrella
September 30, 2009 at 11:25 am | In culture, general | Leave a CommentHave you ever wondered what it is like to speak a foreign language?
As I was cycling along a few days ago coming from a full day of speaking Dutch, an analogy sprang to mind. Speaking a foreign language is like walking along in the rain under an umbrella having a conversation with the person holding the umbrella. We’ve all done that and it is a distinctly uncomfortable experience.
The person holding the umbrella (the native speaker) holds all the cards, and you are just tagging along. They have much more control over where you go and control whether or not you remain under the umbrella or not. You, on the other hand, are desperately trying to tag along and stay under its cover, hoping not to fall out of line.
The whole thing is certainly do-able, but you end up tired after a short time, and you’ve almost definitely got one wet shoulder from where you didn’t stay close enough!
Then the sun comes out! You switch to your native tongue. Aah, the relief of it! The difference is enormous, no more walking along in a funny fashion trying to follow someone else’s lead. You can now go where you want and with no hindrances again. Wonderful.
So there you go, the joys of living and operating in a non-native language. Fortunately the umbrella gets bigger and bigger every week!
Corporate speak
April 22, 2008 at 8:01 pm | In general, personal | Leave a CommentYou can tell that I work for a large multinational company.
Today I had a department informational meeting where the personnel department (sorry, Human Resources) were explaining about ‘personal career path development plans’ and how we had a target to meet on how tidy our office is. But the clincher for me was when they were describing how another large British multinational that mine has just bought out was going to be incorporated into the organisation. Naturally, there will be redundancies as you can’t have two large R&D departments without overlap. But in this politically correct age you can’t call these redundancies ‘cost savings’ – they’re ’synergies’! Wow – well I was convinced. Maybe I’d feel so much better if they let me go because my departure would be a synergistic benefit.
After gleefully signing up for the corporate ‘code of conduct’, I escaped at the coffee break, fearing that I was in danger of an early dismissal from loud snoring…
Hello world!
March 6, 2008 at 9:03 pm | In general | Leave a CommentTags: quality, Welcome
Well, I thought that it was about time that I came into the 21st century and started my own blog, since anyone who thinks they are someone seems to have one!
So why has such a hip chap as me never written a blog until now? I guess I never really thought I had anything to say to the world. Maybe I still don’t! Therefore, this blog comes with a …
Warning – I have no idea how often I will post to this site and can already say that the quality of the content will be abominable, so don’t tell me in six month’s time that my blog is rubbish. Still, you’re going to want to keep checking it out in the hope that we may end up saying something significant here.
Please, please do post comments and let me know what you think of things, but please keep it clean – I’m sensitive like that. (Je mag wel ook in het Nederlands schrijven!)
Most of all, enjoy!
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