Ask HN: How to deal with my team speaking a different language?
I work in a FAANG office where a lot of people can speak Mandarin, but I'm not one of them. About half of my immediate team can, though.
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?
110 comments
[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 240 ms ] threadHow did they get hired?
Does this person bring to the table something that the locals can't? Then, there you have your answer too for the guy that doesn't speak English.
Like, why not? Speaking another widely used language is a really amazing experience and you have the hard parts out of the way which is an excuse to do it and people to practice with.
If it seems daunting remember that it’s something even the dumbest two year olds are able to figure out how to do, so you could probably figure it out.
Language acquisition skills are normally way better in early childhood.
> 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).
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.
By asking your team (and hearing them) they will understand and maybe come up with solutions (see e.g. parent) themselves.
At least in Western culture teams I'd do this, not sure whether Eastern culture people would really say what they think though.
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.
English isn’t my first language (I struggled to learn English as a kid) and I rather heavily disagree with this statement.
There’s nothing about the situation that’s acceptable. Communicating well is arguably the most important thing in any knowledge workers job and this is already a difficult task for some people even when they all speak the same language.
Obviously in this case it’s valuable for the team to be able to explain things for the non English speaking employee but that shouldn’t turn into a situation where Mandarin becomes the default. Additionally they are doing a massive disservice to the employee who isn’t yet comfortable with English.
It should be possible for OP to express such a view from a position of strength without coming across as an asshole (https://youtu.be/HbvYeLxMKN8) and without feeling self conscious about it as many monoglots seem to be in these sorts of situations.
I’ve worked closely with a multinational technology company based out of Germany that had a lot of Spanish, Italian, and French speakers and there was most definitely an obligation to speak English, even at the headquarters in Germany where the number of native English speakers could be counted in single digits.
I can't really fathom a FAANG tolerating such flouting of social norms tbh. It's rude and unacceptable in so many ways.
Imagine you studied Chinese for years, moved to China for a job and struggled to read all the documents at work. Then a Japanese person mentioned how at their office at a subsidiary of a Chinese company, they all just read Chinese documents.
While the rationale might be perfectly reasonable, you'd still need more time to adapt because you were crossing a much wider linguistic chasm.
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.
This is incredibly wrong.
Even in the case where a junior wouldn't be able to contribute to the discussion meaningfully (and that would be wrong too), they can learn from it.
Do you mean to say junior devs should be a part every single meeting held by senior engineers? This is utter nonsense, sorry.
And I think they should be given the option to attend all other meetings too, maybe with the exclusion of those that are more business oriented like discussing the vision for the team with management, etc. It has to stay efficient.
Otherwise, how do you want your junior developers to not be junior at some point?
I wouldn't want to work for your company.
> And I think they should be given the option to attend all other meetings too,
Surely we had numerous meetings altogether, she wasn't excluded. But if every engineer would be given the right to attend every meeting, this would pretty much degrade to everyone just holding meetings all day long.
> I wouldn't want to work for your company. Thanks for sharing! There are quite a few companies that follow your vision, I wish you good luck in your career.
How? Better. Because they understand more about the reasons why a system is a particular way.
When? The other 30 hours of the work week? My team is meetings heavy yet we all have time to do actual work.
A big part of being a senior software engineer is growing others. I'm not sure you're a senior engineer yourself, despite your belief in it.
Regardless of whether juniors attend “senior” meetings or not, seniors should be transparent with juniors by showing them exactly how they should be operating —especially around operational subjects. Using language which isn’t common to all team members (whether Russian, English or any other language) is not the way to build a healthy team of people, in my experience.
I have two policies for casual work-related discussions:
- discussions should have outcomes
- it shouldn't exclude anyone (not the same as: it should include anyone!)
...and a simple policy for non-work related discussions:
- feel free to chat about private topics however and to whomever you prefer
So:
- try to schedule meetings for important things and make anyone that could/wants to learn from it feel included
- if it's just casually pondering about architectural things and there is an outcome, you are obliged to provide a non-exlusive summary to the other team members (and should be able to give a reason on why this discussion was taking place exclusive to others like it did)
- and, if there isn't an outcome, the discussion wasn't worth its time and there shouldn't be a need to involve anybody else
You can't realistically ban people from speaking their native language to each other (nor should you try), however I can understand the feeling of exclusion it creates, not sure what the solution is.
It can be done. Irish Gaelic is not what it was.
> but may I ask you: what's wrong with you? How do you think, does your attitude have something to do with xenophobia?
Completely outa the blue based on what came before.
Not really; what came before is a story about how he'd talk with his friend in the office they shared, and then he condemns the OP for sharing the apparent American opinion that that kind of thing needs to be banned. The line from one to the other isn't exactly obscure.
It's literally a "fear of foreigners". It was possible to use the adjective ξένος to call something strange, but that's not the sense used in the word, or the most common meaning of ξένος.
Based on the dictionary entries (see https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=cenos&la=greek#... ), it does not appear to have been possible to use ξένος to describe something as unknown. There is a related sense, "ignorant [of ...]", but that would describe the person who isn't familiar with something, not the thing that is unfamiliar to a person.
For "fear of the unknown", you'd presumably want something like "agnostophobia".
If she felt like the right choice was to bring it up with management, it would seem fairly clear that she felt you were speaking Russian often enough that it would be an imposition to communicate with you, in a way that's quite common in Berlin and in Berlin startups. Though obviously not as much as German, it would be the common crossover language.
If you're senior and they're junior, part of your job is mentorship, and you should be making it as easy as possible to consult with more experienced people if necessary.
Those are the general principles I've always followed, and would do so regardless of whether they seemed incompetent or not. You need to be able to set your ego aside.
Maybe to _you_, don’t assume other people are the same way.
Along my whole career path (I’m a senior now) I’ve always been curious about the high-level technical stuff and took every opportunity to listen to knowledgeable people.
I think there’s a term for it: incidental knowledge transfer.
You might be stripping that person of the opportunity to grow, or maybe just to hear about something interesting for them to follow up on later.
As for "incidental knowledge transfer" as you call it, there's another side of it: it's called distraction.
If you're a senior, you should have been a junior at some point, so I'd put the question back to you. Do you feel like sitting next to two people speaking in a completely different language would eliminate distraction? For me, I'd still be getting the noise of you speaking, but then I'd also be wondering why two members of my team have openly excluded me from a conversation happening in my presence. It doesn't encourage me to try and do better, and it makes your duties opaque. The way you describe it also sounds rather imbued with infantilism; "don't worry what we're chatting about, just type your little code while we do important grown up stuff".
Would you have been open to her asking you to stop if she felt that was ruining her productivity? It really just seems like a barrier that isn't necessary and shouldn't be there, waving it away as though they should have different feelings about it.
Most definitely yes. But she never really shared with us what she felt. So when I heard from my boss she wasn't OK with us talking Russian I was like: WTF, how doesn't she understand she has a privilege to speak her native language at the office while most of the employees have to resort to the silly form of English they learnt at school?
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.
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.
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.
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".
- 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)?
I don't speak mandarin as such, but it's not exactly an obscure language, and I've had coworkers speak to each other in mandarin sporadically throughout my career (and I don't expect that to change), so much so that's it's not hard to pick up a few key phrases like these purely through osmosis:
* 我不知道
* 没办法
* 没有
I'd suggest making a token effort to learn a few phrases, and then adopt less of an "this is an English-speaking company, you must speak English when I am in earshot!" approach and more of a "i'm doing my best to understand/learn this mandarin, but I'm really bad and it's probably easier for you to use English..."
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.
It's English. I know that this could be enforced by my manager or HR, but would prefer to handle it in a more direct/personal manner.
> You can't manage an IRL team remotely.
We are a "hybrid" team split between multiple US offices with a few fully remote members. So, kind of IRL but also kind of remote.
Honestly though, there are a host of issues I've seen crop up across my org that I suspect are products of a weak engineering culture caused by our partially-distributed setup. I don't think we're ever going to switch to being completely co-located, but I do wonder if I would have a better experience working in either a completely IRL or completely remote team.
> If you lost your job and was replaced with another Chinese person, this would be ideal for them.
Hadn't thought of this. I think they like me? But I guess both can be true.
It probably should be. I assume you're not the only English-only person in the office, and likely not the only person feeling uncomfortable. It's really not okay that they are deliberately cutting you out of import conversations.
> Honestly though, there are a host of issues I've seen crop up across my org that I suspect are products of a weak engineering culture caused by our partially-distributed setup. I don't think we're ever going to switch to being completely co-located, but I do wonder if I would have a better experience working in either a completely IRL or completely remote team.
Some will suggest that remote work is as (or more) productive as IRL work, but you're seeing a massive push to get people back into the office after the pandemic for a good reason. For example, it's bad enough that you are being left out of engineering conversations, but if you were all remote, you wouldn't even know there was a Mandarin only group chat for these things.
I won't re-hash the point about remote management, but this situation you find yourself in should have been picked up and dealt with by an IRL manager.
> Hadn't thought of this. I think they like me? But I guess both can be true.
I mean that they would no longer have the 'inconvenience' of having to facilitate you in English at all. They would also not have to follow any English (Western) cultural norms in the office either.
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.
Not being able to have even this level of honesty doesn't bode well to any team/org. How can you get shit done if you have to spend your brain power on the pantomime, mental or political gymnastics.
It depends, if it is in a meeting, they should use a common language that everyone understands (English). However, if they are just talking to each other in the office WITHOUT talking to you, they can use whatever language that is comfortable to them. You are not part of the conversation.
I think the problem here only is that why the person in a FAANG company cannot communicate in English when needed.
And you can not become part of the conversation, which would not be the case if the language was the native one.
Very rude and exclusionary.
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 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.
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.
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.
If you are "out of range", or in another room, then by all means, go nuts. Speak Elvish or even Klingon if that's your fancy. It won't bother anybody.
But in the presence of others, respect demands to let everyone understand. Even if the conversation is completely irrelevant to them.
And if you don't even apply basic respect, when others will start assuming the worst about your conversations, than that'll be your fault. You'd have brought it on yourself. Not "them", not HR—which sooner or later is going to be brought into the conversation...
You are talking from only 1 perspective. Have you ever try to understand from the other side why they speak their own language?
I have been in both situation (people speaking a language I don't understand and I speak to other people in a language I don't understand) and almost 99.99% of the time it is not about YOU in the conversation. They speak their language mainly out of convenient. They can communicate/connect more easily with their peers speaking their mother tongue. Of course, there should be some courtesy apply here: don't speak too loud, make a lot of noise. But I guess it applies the same when you speak the common language. If they really need your input, they will switch to English and ask you to join the conversation.
> If you are "out of range", or in another room, then by all means, go nuts. Speak Elvish or even Klingon if that's your fancy.
So you are saying that speaking another language in public is forbidden? How inclusive is that of you? It is like British school in 19th and 20th centuries banning children from speaking their mother tongue in school. Does that sound good to you?
> when others will start assuming the worst about your conversations, than that'll be your fault. And you don't want other people to speak their own languages to their peers just because of your insecurity?
>not HR—which sooner or later is going to be brought into the conversation... Do you have any cases where HR involves in this? I really want to know how it goes.