Prepare for Landing.
We departed at Dallas and are on our way to Montreal. I had used the time on the plane to work. I had already noticed that the person sitting next to me, obviously American, watched me out of the corner of his eye from time to time. Now he takes the courage to talk to me.
“Are you Dutch?” he asks me.
“No, but close,” I answer. “I am German.”
Irritated, he turns away from me and doesn’t speak a word to me afterwards.
It is only some time later that I realize that I may have misunderstood him. His question was presumably: “Are you ‚Deutsch‘?”, perhaps proud of the fact that he was familiar with the German translation for ‚Deutsch‘. When I answered, he could think that I was making fun of him. In retrospect, I was embarrassed.
➡️ It depends on the linguistic nuances.
It was only through this incident that I realized how close the linguistic relationship between the Netherlands and Germany must have seemed to an outsider. The Dutch speak “Dutch” and the Germans speak “Deutsch” phonetically almost identically, if you don’t use the English translation “German”.
In global teams, most team members don’t speak in their native language. You should always be aware of this. It is about linguistic nuances that often lead to misunderstandings. These cannot always be avoided. But it helps to be prepared for it.
➡️ And with you? Have you experienced similar linguistic misunderstandings?
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My name is Bernd Scharbert and I accompany and advise when it comes to intercultural leadership, diversity and sustainable work in general.
