Ideas Up for Grabs

The Communicator

There should be a book on the problems of communicating with foreigners in a language alien to us. It often happens that one is stuck in a foreign country equipped with guide books, phrasebooks and dictionaries and one is unable to make oneself understood.

My points are: if you have to communicate with people in a language unknown to you, you can still use a strategy which would help your understanding. You need to simplify your message and use a logical structure with words found in a bilingual two-way dictionary. And there are special problems which all have their special solutions.

Communication with foreigners is difficult for several reasons. We do not know the grammar, the typical phrases, the pronunciation patterns and the rules of behaviour of the given language. How then can we manage to communicate, even on an elementary level?

Language coursebooks are systematical, but the learning process is slow, and the sample phrases are hard to find later. Phrasebooks are unsatisfactory, since they assume that foreigners are familiar with the same sets of phrases as used in these books. Also, these books must be studied thoroughly. If we only use these books to point to the foreign-language equivalent of a necessary phrase, it may take a long time to find it, and we will still have difficulty understanding the answer. Sign language only helps in acting out very elementary things: directions and actions. If we have paper and pencil on us, we can tell a whole story with drawings, but only if we have good drawing skills. Picture-dictionaries exist, and they can spare us drawing, but if we want to show a picture from them, we have to find it first.

I would like to present a general approach which I hope will be usable in most of the languages based on an alphabet. What we need is a bilingual dictionary (in both directions, such as English-Dutch and Dutch-English), a notebook and a pen.

The book I belive should be written would give the basic rules, such as:

* limit your communication to writing;

* stick to elementary phrases;

* use a general logic scheme independent of the grammar of the given foreign language;

* use the words as found in the dictionary.

Written communication is slow but reliable. Most of the time you do not need to hurry. It is not a big problem if you ask a passer-by something and ask another one, five minutes later, for more details. It is better to get reliable information in 30 minutes than to immediately get one which is incorrect or impossible to decipher.

The book should suggest a logical structure. This is the heart of this communication strategy.

I assume that elementary actions can be understood in most languages when this logical structure is used:

who - does - what - how (etc.)

I assume this in spite of the fact that extremely different word orders appear in the standard usage of individual languages. For instance the sentence "I would like to see a movie" in English has the following logical structure in German: "I - would like to - a [also indicating the number and gender] - movie - see." In Russian: "I - wanted - [sign of uncertainty] - see - movie [without article]."

In this system this is done by simply inserting into the logical structure the words found in the dictionary: "I - want - see - movie." In German: "ich - wollen - sehen - Film." In Russian: "^a - hotet' - videt' - fil'm." In Spanish: "Yo - querer - ver - film."

Note that I did not use articles, and "would like" has been replaced by the simpler "want". When politeness must be emphasized, we can add the word "politely." Since this is just a skeleton to be used in most languages, it needs to be generally usable. But because we always use this method in one foreign language at a time, nothing prohibits us from using a more specific phrase (eg. "please").

It is critical that one should try to use the simplest possible structures. When the content is more complex, one should chunk it into simple components, which can be expressed more easily.

In many cases, a simple word will do, if it is unambiguous in the context. For instance, you can write: "pretty" to refer to a painting, a landscape, or a lady in your company. "Hungry," you can write down, especially when pointing to yourself. "Hungry?" you can write while looking at your partner. "Sad," you can write as an answer to rejection. "Expensive," you can write to a price quoted.

The two-word pseudo-sentences are similar, these modify the original meaning only minimally: "Heart - ache," "You - pretty," "Money - little," "Train - come," etc. It is important that what you produce should not look like a real sentence. Hence the hyphen (or a plus sign, or listing the words in a column).

When trying to transform a statement, pay attention to the above primitive logical rules: "I - want - find - bank," "You - must - buy - ticket," "I - must - leave - quickly" etc.

There are other contents which are expressed by different languages with different, and at times rather complex, structures. These complex cases can also be treated by using some easy method.


Questions should be dealt with in a different chapter.

The simplest way of asking a question is by adding a question mark to a statement, keeping the original structure: "You - hungry?" "You -like - swim?" In German: "Sie - hungrig?" "Sie - lieben - schwimmen?" Where possible, the "Sie" form is to be preferred to "du", for in most languages it is rather difficult to call someone by the first name.

An alternative is to indicate your willingness to find out something: "I - want - know - you - leave - when." In this case the original question becomes a subordinate clause.

You can also use interrogative words if your dictionary contains them: "you - leave - when?" "time - how much?" "you - walk - to where?" Several languages have a special interrogative word order, but you do not need to know of it, the question mark will adequately indicate your intention. (Even in Spanish, where double question marks are used: one before and one after the question. This is a tradition but every Spaniard would understand the above chains of words, with a question mark only after the word in question.)

Interrogative words as adverbial phrases are useful. An advantage of interrogative words is that without the question mark they help you express a couple of other relationships; you can also use them to replace adverbial phrases which may not be found in your dictionary: "I - come - from where: Hungary - and - go - to where: Italy," "I - go - to where: theatre - with whom: wife."

In certain cases the use of categories provides even better results: "I - want - see - you - day: Wednesday - hour: 17 - minute: 30 - location: Royal Hotel."

An extreme case is the datasheet method, in which each word in a sentence is assigned a category: 'PERSON: I - ACTION: want - PERSON: you - ACTION: visit - OBJECT: I - DATE: Sunday - TIME: 18:00.' It is cumbersome, but unambigous.


There should be a chapter on plurals.

The most convenient solution to indicate plural numbers is to use singular words with "many," "much," (you do not need to know the difference between the two, "much - child" or "many - water" will still be understandable), "several," "a few," or, when known, the exact number: "365 - day." If this technique may lead to a misunderstanding, you can also put the noun first, and add the number with a colon, such as "day: 365."

In the case of serial numbers, the French structure "No. + number" seems to be the most known all over the world: "No. 7 - day." As an alternative, the word "which" is also possible to use: "day - which: 7."


Possessive nouns can offer shortcuts.

These are either included in our dictionary or they are not. If they are, your job is simple, you only have to put them in front of the noun: "my - car - old," "your - family - be - how?" (If gender is included, use the one that is listed first in your dictionary: "mein - Mutter" will be still understood.)

If possessives are not included in your dictionary, you could use the characters "/" or "-": "I/wife," "restaurant-manager" etc.

Certain types of the possessive relationship can be replaced by something else, eg.: "English - prime minister" (instead of "the Prime Minister of England"), "manager - this - shop," or "manager - here" (instead of "the manager of this shop").


Possessing is also difficult to express.

If there is an actual word in the given language to indicate possessing, it should be used: "I - possess - this - car." "You - have - brother?"

If there is none, you are in trouble. In a few languages you can indicate that one thing 'belongs' to another: "this - car - belong - I," "this - husband - belong - you?" Another possibility is to use the possessive pronoun: "mine" instead of "my," etc.: "this - car - mine"; "this - husband - yours?")


Indicating tenses

Here, too, you must use the simplest forms. The words "already," "before" or "previously" can indicate a past action, while "later," "soon" can indicate the future. Examples: "I - be - here - previously," "you - eat - already?" "I - go - theatre - later."

It is also possible to specify the actual time of the action: "you - be - day: yesterday - hour: 19.00? - where?" "I - visit - England - year: 1939." Even sentences that are real nightmares for students of English can be simplified in this way: "When you come home I will have read this book" can be transformed into: "when - you - come - to where: home - I - read - this - book - already." (See a similar suggestion in "Shadow English".)


The imperative mood is also grammar-dependent. The simplest solution is to use exclamation marks: "go!" "you - go!" "I - want - you - go!" (In German: "Sie - gehen!" In Russian: "Vy - ujti!")

Even the imperative mood directed to ourselves or to others ("let me," "let him") becomes simpler: "I - want - we - go - to where: restaurant." Combined with the interrogative mode: "you - want - I - sit - here?"


If-then structures can replace the conditional mode.

You can imitate a computer program (such as BASIC): "if - you - give - money - then - I - show - city."

The more complex relationships should be avoided, or broken down into elementary units. For example: "If I had had money yesterday, I would have bought you flowers" could be transformed into this: "I - want - buy - flower - to whom: you - when: yesterday. I - not - have - money, I - not - buy - flower."


Getting the answer is another problem.

We can train ourselves to use this simplified approach and formulate our own questions, but getting a similar answer (which can be deciphered with the use of our bilingual dictionary) may be real difficult.

I have trust in the intelligence of the foreigner partner, so when I write down the question, "Where - bank?", he or she will show me the direction, or write a similar answer, such as "Next street right" (or something similar), instead of a complicated statement: "I think you should walk some more blocks and after Clinton Street you should take a quick left, you're gonna find it alright." :))

If not, you can use the "Twenty Quesions" approach, which only needs yes or no answers: "Bank - this - direction?"

Don't worry. If you do not get the right answer from the first person, you can always ask another person. And another...

The book I have in mind would cover these problems more thoroughly and would give a lot of examples. Exercises too would be useful. And at the end it should contain the most frequently used phrases in this simplified mode, in all the languages covered.


======================= Sample phrases =======================


What did you say? I didn't understand. = Not - understand.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Tom. = I - Tom.

Can you help me? = Help!

Can I help you? = Help?

Can you tell me how I can get to the National Museum? = I - want - go - National Museum. How?

Can you show me on the map where we are now? = Show - we - where? Map!

Can you recommend us a cheap restaurant? = Cheap - restaurant?

Where can I change dollars? = Exchange - dollar - where?

Please call a doctor, I feel sick. = I - sick. Call - doctor!

Please leave us alone. = Go!

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Someone should write this book. And one Communicator for each major language.

+ + +

Appendix: A few vital phrases in pseudo-Spanish

(I plan to visit a Spanish speaking country soon, and because I don't speak the language, I've considered a few such phrases to use as a survival kit. This is an English visitor's minimum vocabulary using the above Communicator method - and an English- Spanish and Spanish-English pocket dictionary.)

Please call me a taxi cab. = Llamar - taxí!

Please take me to this address:... = Por favor. Se~nas:...

How much do I pay? = Cuánto?

Call this number for me, please. = Número. Dar - telefonazo - por favor!

May I use the toilette, please? = Toilette?

Sorry, but I can't eat this, it makes me sick. = Yo - no - comer - esto - alimento. Enfermo.
This food is really good! = Delicado!

Thank you so much! = Gracias! Gracias!

Here's my present to you. = Regalo - Usted.

I'm sorry, I'm very tired, can I go to bed? = Yo - cansado. Acostarse - Posible?


If you speak Spanish, please consider these attempts and tell me if any of these suggestions would not work with a smart local person. Or, better yet, you write the Spanish Communicator.

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