Eh, not bent out of shape, but interested in sparking a conversation.
I have no issue whatsoever with Spanish-only on a domestic South American flight. Frankly, it makes sense - Ecuador is surrounded completely by Spanish speaking countries, and Spanish is the second or third most spoken language in the world. Safety cards are produced either in multiple languages or with images sufficient in detail to render language unnecessary.
Americans can be egregiously insensitive to foreign language issues - something that happens frequently on domestic flights. Can't tell you how many times I've had to translate flight announcements for a neighbor on a domestic flight to Miami (which often have a large minority of monolingual Spanish speakers).
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What I don't get are the flights between two non-English speaking countries where there are announcements in English but no announcements in the language of one of the countries actually served by the flight. Example: I once flew NRT-ICN on JAL, and the announcements were only in Japanese and English -- no Korean!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ceasy
Americans can be egregiously insensitive to foreign language issues - something that happens frequently on domestic flights. Can't tell you how many times I've had to translate flight announcements for a neighbor on a domestic flight to Miami (which often have a large minority of monolingual Spanish speakers).
I know I've seen subtitled safety videos on domestic flights somewhere... (Yes, I realize not all aircraft have safety videos.)
In any case, both the official domestic language and the ICAO language are English, so I wouldn't expect Spanish on a domestic U.S. flight.
That said, in the interest of safety, it would not bother me in the slightest if Spanish announcements were done as well. Or even French, since it has a long history in international trade, travel, and diplomacy. If an airline thinks it might have a sizable audience in a given language, it should try to do something to deliver safety messages in that language if possible - even if the law doesn't require it.
The catch is that ICAO requirements are for flight crews to be proficient in English only (in addition to their airline's official language). I'm guessing that FAA requirements for U.S. domestic-only crews also only require English. So getting Spanish/French/other languages on domestic flights would end up being limited to the video-enabled types.
What I don't get are the flights between two non-English speaking countries where there are announcements in English but no announcements in the language of one of the countries actually served by the flight. Example: I once flew NRT-ICN on JAL, and the announcements were only in Japanese and English -- no Korean!
I wonder if that's a snub and if KE does the same in reverse. Or they just didn't have a Korean-speaking FA aboard. On the same route UA usually does trilingual announcements (Korean, Japanese, and English).
Most languages for safety announcements would be a good thread topic.
On Topic, I was on a KE flight SEL (Gimpo)-CJU where all the announcements were in Korean. I was pretty likely the only person aboard not fluent in Korean. I was definitely the only non-Asian.
I was on a US flight from SJU-PHL and the gringo purser must have been very proud of his Spanish because he droned on and on in Spanish while making very short announcements in English!
As they say, Ven lärnoy püki votik, vödastok plösenon fikulis.
...and getting back on topic, on flights on obscure Japanese domestic routes (say, FUK-KMQ or ISG-OGN) where I'm the only hairy barbarian around, I've been asked a few times by FAs if I understand Japanese. They always seem very relieved when I say do and thus spare them the ordeal of reciting the litany in a katakana approximation of English
As they say, Ven lärnoy püki votik, vödastok plösenon fikulis.
...and getting back on topic, on flights on obscure Japanese domestic routes (say, FUK-KMQ or ISG-OGN) where I'm the only hairy barbarian around, I've been asked a few times by FAs if I understand Japanese. They always seem very relieved when I say do and thus spare them the ordeal of reciting the litany in a katakana approximation of English
cool post!
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I remember a time I was on a flight from Finland where they had a very long announcement in Finish, and then a very brief one in English. I'm sure non-english speeking people hear this all the time, what appears to be a very long announcment in a foreign language and then a brief one in a language they understood, but it was a new experience for me.
It made me think about a Saturday Night Live skit (back in the day when they were funny) when the translator was not actually translating what was actually being said.
I'm going to one-up both camps and point out that for many people, the language is totally irrelevant because they are deaf or hard of hearing. That is why the safety demonstration is a demonstration, not just a narrative, and why the important parts of the safety information cards come in cartoon/pictographic form instead of written instructions.
I have no idea why the OP would actively want a flight without any English announcements, however, except the misguided sense that a lack of English makes a travel experience somehow more "authentic." The small portion of the world population that can afford to fly is a population for whom English is neither exotic nor particularly unusual. If you associate English with "home" too much and really want to get away from it, don't fly. Take the bus or hitchhike.
From my experiences, flying on some of the US legacies is like flying with some sort of schizophrenia. For example, I enjoyed one DL flight from CVG to AMS, where the flight crew had a fluent command of both Dutch and English, while also using Indonesian FAs. Then, I felt repulsed a few days later on another DL flight from MAD to ATL, where no Spanish was spoken and frankly the English announcements were barely in understandable English.
The airlines that I've enjoyed flying were airlines like MH, where on a flight btw KUL-TPE-LAX, the captain greets you in Arabic, the FAs make announcements in Bahasa Malaysia, English, Mandarin and Hindi. Their video safety announcements have subtitles in six languages and then use English and sign language to take care of cross language and communications impairment problems.
A cool experience that I had recently is flying with HA within Hawaii or US mainland-Hawaii. Their flight announcements are not in pidgin English, but English with a Hawaiian "local" accent. Very subtle, but noticeable.
cool post!
