Reply to What is the etiquitte around this?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Are they sharing information that you are required to know for business purposes? If not, MYOB. If they are, ask that they speak English. Done.[/quote]

Wrong. They are on the business's premises, and the language of the business is the shared language, in this case, English.

OP, I used to work in a large international organization. We had people from dozens of countries in and out of the office all the time. No one would ever dream of speaking their native language in the office, even if they were speaking to another person from the same country. It would be considered the height of bad manners. If it HAD to be done, it was done with apologies all around, and very briefly. I once saw a Tanzanian gentleman gently correct an intern who tried to practice her Swahili with him, saying he would love to talk with her, but it would be inappropriate to speak Swahili in the company of so many colleagues whose foreign language skills (and we all have them) didn't include it. [/quote]

I worked at a large international organization too, and people would speak native languages at the office but switch to English if a non-native speaker came in the room. There never seemed to be any conflict around this. Conversely, I worked very hard to learn Spanish when I was there and people bent over backwards to help me. I am still grateful to my former colleagues for their kindness.[/quote]

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