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An interesting example of a language barrier

fra Miland,2008 2 29

Meldinger: 5

Språk: English

Miland (Å vise profilen) 2008 2 29 10:14:26

A British pilgrim on his way to Gandhi's birthplace only got as far as Calais because he couldn't speak French:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/7270401...

I guess if he had known E-o, he could have used Pasporta Servo. Whether that would accomplish his aim, however, I don't know.

Fajro (Å vise profilen) 2008 3 5 06:04:18

Miland:A British pilgrim on his way to Gandhi's birthplace only got as far as Calais because he couldn't speak French:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/72704...

I guess if he had known E-o, he could have used Pasporta Servo. Whether that would accomplish his aim, however, I don't know.
http://www.justfortheloveofit.org/

erinja (Å vise profilen) 2008 3 5 16:23:05

Miland:I guess if he had known E-o, he could have used Pasporta Servo. Whether that would accomplish his aim, however, I don't know.
I'm a little surprised he didn't at least bring a dictionary with him. I understand that he was trying to limit material things that he brought with him, but I would think he should have brought at least a pocket dictionary for each country he planned to pass through, plus perhaps a pre-prepared statement of his purpose, written in the languages of the countries he planned to pass through.

Frankouche (Å vise profilen) 2008 3 5 22:28:32

It's amazing ! Could not he speak with "hands", with draws, find someone who could speak english ?

I never meet such a situation like this, absolutly no "dialogue" avalaible, do you?

Becomes our Eternal France, a wild land with barbarous natives ? okulumo.gif

Senlando (Å vise profilen) 2008 3 6 01:01:36

why should they speak english? most likely there where some french people around who could speak english, but were sick of english speaking people prancing about expecting everyone else to speak "their" language. of course he could not be expected to learn every language or carry a dictionary for every country he was going through, but you can't expect people to know how to communicate with "you", when its you in "their" country. this goes to show that even though english is extremely useful, it can't help you much in areas off the tourism and business trails.

he should have at least learned the words "no money", "food", "please", "thank you" and ofcourse "bathroom" in a few languages of the countries he planned to travel through.

i would like to add though, i think this would have been a very interesting experiment if it had succeeded.

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