Saturday, September 04, 2010
Speaking the language .
Language is a wonderful living thing, that changes and can be quite local. It is so easy to forget that for people speaking English as a second language, some of our euphemisms can be bewildering. Imagine you are in a hospital and you tell the nurse that you want to spend a penny. Your bladder is full and where does the nurse take you? The foreign nurse thinks about what you have asked for and takes you to the hospital shop. It makes complete sense to the immigrant nurse, you want to spend a penny, therefore you need a shop! There are other misunderstandings for you to smile at if you click the link. Thankfully a training course has been set up at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn NHS trust to help their Portuguese staff understand the Norfolk locals.
Language is a wonderful living thing, that changes and can be quite local. It is so easy to forget that for people speaking English as a second language, some of our euphemisms can be bewildering. Imagine you are in a hospital and you tell the nurse that you want to spend a penny. Your bladder is full and where does the nurse take you? The foreign nurse thinks about what you have asked for and takes you to the hospital shop. It makes complete sense to the immigrant nurse, you want to spend a penny, therefore you need a shop! There are other misunderstandings for you to smile at if you click the link. Thankfully a training course has been set up at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn NHS trust to help their Portuguese staff understand the Norfolk locals.
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