Jun. 28th, 2009

mattp: (Default)
It's coming up to my journal's 9th birthday (1 days after my 30th, incidentally) but I've only just got around to writing 1000 entries - this being that one. There'll be nothing introspective in this entry; I'll ave that for another time.

This entry in [livejournal.com profile] tubestories made me think about foreign languages, and in particular communicating with people without a common language. For the sake of this post, I'll paraphrase my comment on that post:

About six weeks ago I was on a Northern line platform north of Camden[1] when a guy asks me where Kings Cross station is - but I had no idea which language he was using. (I just picked out the words "Kings Cross"). I still managed, through a combination of sign language and tracing the route with my finger on a large wall map, to convey that he needed to take the second train.

What interactions have you had with people not using a shared language?
[1] Here's a map for the benefit of those not familiar with the underground system in London

October 2010

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