SPANIARDS, THAIS AND ENGLISH

Due to a gruesome crime perpetrated by a Spaniard upon a Colombian in Thailand, the Peninsular media have been dealing with this news daily for several weeks. Hundreds of journalists have been deployed to Bangkok to report the latest information on the incident, with videos and interviews with locals, and the Thai police handling the case. The input has been chaotic, contradictory, and misleading. Why? The glitch is language, the original languages are Spanish and Thai. Few Spaniards speak Siamese and even fewer Thais speak Spanish. So, they have been communicating in English. And chaos and a Chinese fire drill have set in. Spanish journalists have a shallow smattering of basic English while the locals have a passing very basic acquaintance with it. Both claim they speak the language but reality says otherwise. And the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I have witnessed on TV how a Spanish journalist asked a Thai policeman an incomprehensible question only to hear a nonsense response. It reminds me of the Bible and its dictum that when the blind lead the blind they both fall into the ditch. It would all be so much easier if, in this case, both parties ate a bit of humble pie and took some lessons, a lot of lessons, in order to improve their English. The linguistic Chinese fire drill could thus be avoided.