Thanks, Ally! Amen to that. Although I would add that if you had needed medical care in Tibet or post an international package, all the goodwill and enthusiasm might not have been enough without a common language or an interpreter …

Thanks, Sihoon! You might be interested to hear that the ways in which adults address young children differs widely across the world’s cultures. In some cultures “baby-talk” (including speaking slowly) is very common and in others, no one even speaks to children until they’ve learned enough to be full conversation partners …

This is an interesting observation, the fact that the parents like the kid-friendly approach is interesting to me. When toddlers first begin to learn to speak, it is not advised to speak slow or pronounce words “slowly” but with kids that are learning a second language, perhaps the kid-friendly approach could enhance their ability on understanding more difficult concepts, rather than finding out the concept themselves. Thank you for your comment, it was very interesting to read.

Good translation is an art and a huge achievement. Sad that it’s so undervalued!

Thanks, Hao! I’m sure we are missing out on so much in relay translation! Do you have a specific example of a detail that gets lost from Chinese to Vietnamese if translated via English?

I sympathize with you. Some old books I’ve read don’t even translate the meaning or keep the original word but write it phonetically according to Vietnamese saying, which makes me take a few seconds to think about which word they’re mentioning. Therefore, I admire the diverse vocabulary of translators of the Harry Potter series, as they have translated this series very successfully, making it easy to understand for Vietnamese readers.

Thanks, Umair! Sorry to hear you had such an unpleasant experience.
When you say that university lecturers should accommodate international learners more, what do you have in mind? Can you expand on that point and provide some examples of changes you’d like to see?

Hi Brownie, have you seen this recommendation of BTN – maybe that’s what you are looking for?

Re your point about lots of English technical terms in Vietnamese. So, true that this makes reading so much more difficult but seems to be a trend in many languages. I’ve noticed it in German and it really annoys me, and students in “Languages and cultures in contact” recently presented about excessive English loanwords in Bangla, Korean, and other languages …

Thanks, Carla! Your sister’s experience reminds me of this documentary about Latin American women in Canada. One of the greatest fears of one of them was to place food orders because she was often misunderstood and never knew what kind of food she’d get … https://www.languageonthemove.com/life-in-a-language-you-are-still-learning/

I agree that depending on the age and level of learners, we should have different approach to teach. A few years ago, I thought that I should study as a child who was born in English speaking country. Then I watched some kid cartoon and music videos, it helped me easily learn some daily vocabularies such as fruits and animals. I believe that the parents that you mentioned had the similar feeling.

When I turned to read some kid stories without images, it was still difficult at that time because I do not have enough vocabularies to understand. So, I may assume that although the language is simple, but it can be a barrier for some adults who have low language proficiency level. For example, some migrant adults cannot use English in Australia, they cannot understand every single word on the street signs. In those cases, I think translation such as using dictionaries can be useful.