One of my team members has a hard time with English, and started talking in Mandarin with my team members who understand it. And recently, my other team members started using Mandarin between themselves even when the one who struggles with English isn't around.
Sometimes, certain words clue me in that they're talking about our project, and it makes me feel excluded. Isn't one of the benefits of coming into the office is being able to overhear project conversations and be able to join in?
My manager is remote and has no idea any of this is happening. I don't want to be the asshole to ask people to speak in English, or make my manager be that guy either.
Is there a tactful way for me to handle the situation?
What is the official language of the company? If it's English, there are grounds to enforce it. The company should _not_ be hiring people on teams who cannot communicate in the common language - that is their failing.
> My manager is remote and has no idea any of this is happening. I don't want to be the asshole to ask people to speak in English, or make my manager be that guy either.
There are several problems here:
1. You can't manage an IRL team remotely. You can manage a remote team remotely, but not an IRL team. Important conversations are happening all the time and managers at least need to be aware they are happening.
This manager should either come into the office or be moved aside for somebody who can.
2. The manager needs to be aware of problems as they happen. They cannot manage what they are not aware of.
3. You are not being an asshole for wanting to communicate with your colleagues. It is _them_ who are deliberately excluding you.
4. (Speaking carefully) Chinese culture specifically can be quite nationalist and diversity of thought and people is not an ideology that is typically shared. If you lost your job and was replaced with another Chinese person, this would be ideal for them.
Speaking as a non-native English speaker, working in a FAANG office where nearly everyone speaks a certain language that's not English, when visitors or others who don't speak the language are present, we use English exclusively. Anything else is (correctly) considered rude - there are few things less welcoming than someone speaking above your head in a language they know you don't understand.
Just as an example, a colleague from a Ukrainian office is temporary working from ours, while his office and home are unavailable. In a 90-person all-hands meeting, he was the only person who doesn't speak the local language. The meeting was held in English.
I've worked in a multi-language business for many years where I did not speak all the languages, and there are two points I think you need to take to heart
1. No one can guess what you're feeling/thinking, you need to tell them
2. Don't take it personally if people are doing what comes naturally to them
Your comment on benefit of the office is understood, but misguided; your colleagues don't have an obligation to speak a specific language to you and make you feel better, that's not their job. I am not trying to be harsh, but you need to understand that your personal desire and comfort is not their responsibility. If they aren't being hostile to you or any other workplace violation, they're not doing anything wrong.
My guess is you feel left out because you _don't know_ whether you're left out or not. Even if they talk about your project in Mandarin, can you be 100% sure it's something relevant to you? Or even really about the project? Can you be certain that one of your colleagues wasn't just talking about how stressed they are about something and just wanted to vent? I'm not sure you can know this unless you ask them or learn the language, and in fact, both will help you feel a bit more included.
Overall, just talk with the colleagues in a private way and just mention your feelings and how you really want to join the conversations with them on the project but cannot if they converse in Mandarin; after that it's up to them.
For yourself, understand that you don't need to be part of every conversation and your colleagues don't have an obligation to you or the company to hold every conversation in English. The steps you can take are to just calmly tell that you want to join the conversations about the project (or others), and also learn some Mandarin. It's honestly not _that_ hard to pick up languages at least at a rudimentary level. Probably you will sound funny at first, but everyone does with a new language. Use it as an icebreaker to get in and just own it, and soon you will all find a middlepoinn that works for you.
As long as you think you're being an asshole by asking that, then you will be, because belief becomes reality. I'll leave the philosophy there, but that's obviously a heavy sentence.
More practically speaking, ask yourself to think about it logically. Is it an unreasonable request? Personally I think asking people to stick to business lingua franca when in the office — which happens to be international English — isn't. If you ever come to that opinion too, you'll also be comfortable with it, and _then_ I'd say you should just ask them to speak English in the office.
If it looks like you won't come to that opinion in the near future, then you have a few choices, as others have pointed out:
* Learn Mandarin
* Change team / jobs
* Be okay with being uncomfortable at potentially being left out, and with all the potential disadvantages that brings
I understand the logic is easier to come to than to action, but there it is.
It's an interesting problem, because it mirrors the remote work dilemma organisations are facing.
If they are not built for remote work from the ground up, then the people who are remote will suffer, and the organisation will suffer. If remote work is an option, there needs to be a decision made that _all_ processes are built around the notion of remote work, whether you're in the office or not.
Co-workers speaking non-shared languages in each other faces is not useful in any way and it leads to many problems, way beyond a non-welcoming and non-inclusive environment, way beyond just HR...
Moreover, and to answer some strange theories in other comments here, If you're to be excluded from a conversation, the speakers better get a room, where they can speak freely and leave you alone. Just staying around and speaking a language you don't understand is plain rude, a nuisance, and will distract you anyway. (and probably become annoying, in the long term)
Having said that, I would also learn some Mandarin. If not enough to enter the conversation, at least enough to say "Would you, please, be so kind as to speak English for me? I'm learning Mandarin, but I can't understand you well enough, yet."
This worked wonders for me, in more than a few occasions.
Well what do you want?
Mandarin lessons for yourself?
English lessons offered to your colleague?
To be moved to another team?
Or do you just want a way to make everyone speak English without people thinking you are “an asshole”?
You can talk to your manager about your feelings and what you want to happen, they will do something — maybe it’ll even be what you want, but they also might try to convince you this isn’t worth worrying about because you can’t be included in everything anyway.
Having some ideas of what you want to happen as opposed to simply the final state of things can prepare you to think about your actions and reactions affect others.
If you are, then personally I think it is really bad form for the other team members to be speaking in a foreign language when the native English speaker is present.
It's rude and disrespectful and I think it's bizarre that we are in this contemporary situation where we are afraid to say that.
If I was working in a foreign country where the native language was - as you would imagine - that spoken in the office, I would damn well learn it and feel embarrassed at co-English speakers excluding somebody on the team who couldn't speak English.
I can't offer a "tactful" answer beyond having an informal chat with somebody you trust with influence, and even that might be risky in the wrong environment.
I always imagine how taxing (and frankly, unfair) it would be for me to have to be constantly running a background thread to decode English and periodically another foreground thread to see if I could express my next thought in English well enough, etc. However capable I am, I would appear slightly less capable in some situations because of this mental tax.
As a result, I'm firm that documentation, official communications, etc. do have to be in English, but live conversations among international teams are mostly, but not exclusively, in English.
On the other hand, when I worked at a small German startup our CEO would constantly remind our team to 'speak English for nc!' -- but usually only when he wanted to make sure I was aware, bolster their own skills to continue to expand internationally or when he thought I might be able to contribute. I appreciated that it did also make me feel awkward when I could tell that speaking English made it more challenging for them to convey ideas effectively.
I recommend Pimsleur language classes to get started and meet them in the middle.
In my experience in multilingual situations, people tend to shift to their first language just because it’s easier and feels more natural; it can also feel awkward to begin a conversation in one language and continue it in another. People rarely use their first language to intentionally exclude others from the conversation, but they often forget that others might justifiably feel excluded.
A nonconfrontational discussion might provide a sufficient reminder to the Mandarin speakers to use English when you are around. You might also find out whether the Mandarin speakers on your team have any issues with English use in your team that you might not be aware of, such as the native English speakers talking too quickly, using slang they don’t understand, etc.
And, as an individual (especially if your office is in China?) you might want to consider how much Mandarin you're able to learn, even if only for goodwill but years from being able to follow engineering conversations.
Related thoughts...
A friend mentioned getting into an elevator in the US, where two people were speaking German, and they switched to English as soon as they noticed him, even though they were strangers and not talking with him.
As someone who's worked at multinational companies (one Chinese, one Japanese) while based in the US, I've felt humbled by colleagues' impressive efforts with English.
One place, there were times I was in a meeting of team leads and the director, and I was the only person who was a native English speaker, and everyone else shared a different native language, yet everyone was speaking English, though some not fluent. (Defaulting to English was by convention, not only because I was there.)
Although admiring colleagues' language abilities (and the progress of some over time prompted the thought that one day that engineering lead might be running an international company), I sometimes felt a little bad that some of them had additional language burden atop technical engineering work. A consolation I imagined was that maybe some of them wanted to practice English.
At one multinational, I encouraged specific uses of written English engineering and product management communication. Which, in addition to the usual benefits, helped by it being easier to read&write across language frictions, than to hear&speak. And some meetings were converted to be country-specific, in whatever language people communicated most efficiently and comfortably, so long as we could stay in sync (asynchronously) via effective documentation.
My suggestion is not being upset and said:"Hey, I don't understand Mandarin, so please, if there is something that I should know or that is important to me, please switch to English".
How did they get hired?
No big deal. I don’t assume they are speaking behind my back. I assume if I needed to know, they’d tell me in English.
As long as everyone is respectful to each other I don’t see the problem. I would like them to have a personal connection with each other for a stronger team. I would like them to communicate as clearly as possible with each other, even if it’s emojis.
> I don't want to be the asshole to ask people to speak in English
What's the office policy?
> or make my manager be that guy either.
It's their job. Yours is to communicate an issue to them, theirs is to see how to resolve it (if at all).
The language part isn’t the problem, it’s the feeling excluded part (which can occur in English too)
You can also keep it light hearted by being curious about Chinese language and helping their English.
Don’t resent it, if you were in China with a bunch of English speakers you wouldn’t be struggling through Chinese to communicate with them.
I don't understand all the other commentators suggesting going directly to your manager or even HR without first talking to them, though.
I think it'd be a bad idea to let this fester to that point without giving them the courtesy of a simple conversation. I wouldn't make it a big deal. One specific time you think they're probably talking about the project come over and say hi in English. If they don't switch language, ask them if they mind switching to English. Keep doing that and maybe eventually they'll realize the problem.
If that fails, directly ask them to speak English when talking about work as a group because you need to be able to participate. If that fails only then do you escalate to your manager.
You're in a huge company in a corporate environment, therefore there is no tactful way that is guaranteed to not backfire, there is only the corporate way:
1. Document all instances where it happens. Don't name names.
2. Go talk to your manager about it (even without the list of events, that's ok).
3. If nothing is being done, raise an HR complaint with your list of evidence, insisting on the fact that YOU feel discriminated against and that you are in a hostile work environment.
If your coworkers already aren't speaking in English when you're around, they won't start just because you ask, at least not long term.
Note the goal here is not to blame others, it's to get what you want.
2. Encourage automatic translation app usage (its not perfect but it can help a lot) on both sides. Particular by the person who is weakest in either language.
3. Be kind and simplify your own English. Don’t use slang. Repeat things using two different wordings. Speak slower. Take shared written notes as you go to help reinforce vocab.
4. Be kind and encourage people who struggle with English. Usually their reading and writing is better for than their listening and speaking due to more opportunity to practice. Be patient and tell them they don’t have to apologize if they struggle. Encourage them if they improve.
5. Only correct them if it’s important or if it’s at the right level, and then do it gently. Mandarin speakers often confuse he and she because they are the same pronunciation in Mandarin. If you know who they are talking about correcting them isn’t necessary right alway.
6. Learn some basic Mandarin and show them you are willing to sound awful and embarrass yourself. Be aware it is mentally very taxing to listen and speak in an unfamiliar language — until you get used to it. Showing them how awful you are will allow them to compare the pain of that mental tax to listening to you butcher their language.
7. Be aware half the time they are not saying anything of interest. The worst side effect I found from learning Mandarin was understanding boring gossip and advertising.
8. Allow time outs for a mandarin discussion on difficult issues so they can then switch back to English.
9. Help them polish their English — eg draft documentation or comms. Occasionally being an ally rather than complaining will encourage them to keep trying to improve, and show respect.
10. Ask the people with good English who are Mandarin speakers how you can help the situation, and how they could help too. Don’t make this a performance issue but and a chance to be more inclusive and collaborate better.
Source: It took me several years and significant effort to speak Mandarin at a business level, and run meetings in a mix of Mandarin and tech jargon.
If the common language is English and there was no requirements to speak Mandarin, then get the managers to change that. Otherwise quit and don't work at a Chinese sweatshop.
No point working there if you can't understand anyone. I reckon, if that keeps going on, some tasks and requirements you were needed to do would be lost in translation. Then you're on the hook for that.
People WILL always use the language their most comfortable in.
Letting them know that you are uncomfortable when they constantly speak a language you don't understand and/or sharing the concern of missing out on project related talks or simply learning opportunities that might be sprinkled on all that yadda yadda in the office - is a good way to approach this. Nobody can know what and how you really feel unless you tell them.
In my experience one could actually very well do without hearing all that constant office chatter, actually many people would wear headphones cause they want to avoid hearing it and/or being distracted by it.
Also, if you believe they might be speaking about you - that is most probably not true, it is how we are wired to believe but most people will have their own things to worry and talk about.
Just bring it up while grabbing lunch: "hey you guys, I hear a lot of Chinese and I feel left out, and others might too". If they're half decent people they will remember this next time and stick to English.
I’d talk to your manager about it, but focus on your feelings of exclusion rather than proposing any specific solutions. It’s certainly natural to feel what you’re feeling.
But I’d also recognize that an “English only” policy is also going to have downsides for your team. At the very least the member who’s struggling in English will be put into a similar position to you, but it might also lead to the other Mandarin members just talking less altogether.
There are also things you can do to help foster communication. Even if you’re a fluent speaker of a language, group discussions can be challenging - often by the time you’ve formulated your thoughts it’s already moved on. One on one communication is much easier, so you could go out of your way to make opportunities for it. Pair programming, for instance, can work even when your pair isn’t a fluent speaker.
- i dont understand.
- in english please?
- what's that about?
- are you talking about (insert random mandarin word here that will make them laugh, eg cheeseburgers)?
Nobody likes a tattletale or Karen-type person enforcing linguistic, cultural supremacy.
I am assuming this is either Apple or Netflix in Seoul? Because Google, Amazon and Facebook dont have much of an office in SK.
If you want to force yourself in a conversation where you weren't part of then why dont you learn mandarin? Just like they learnt English.
Either put in the efforts to learn a language or stop feeling the need to be part of every conversation. If they want you to be part of some conversation then they will speak English like you say they have been doing.
God, what a nightmare, that’s absolutely not your problem, tell your manager
>I don't want to be the asshole to ask people to speak in English, or make my manager be that guy either.
Uhh is this really what wokeism has done to us? Your teams performance is at stake, this isn’t you being racist or “uncool”.