Can technology help us speak the same language?

As more nations globalize and their citizens become more mobile, it's become increasingly apparent that language plays a vital role in ensuring there's smooth communication between businesses.

Yesterday, two incidents underscored that point for me.

The first occurred over lunch with an industry contact who wasn't local, and who spoke in heavily accented English. Each time she requested for some service, the waitress would giggle, turn to me and ask in Mandarin: "What did she just say?"

My lunch companion was polite enough to overlook the shortcoming, but I thought it was a tad rude for a service staff to dismiss a customer because she couldn't understand what the customer said. Who would she turn to if I wasn't there? Does that mean any customer who doesn't speak her language, or whom she can't understand, wouldn't be able to get any proper service from her?

The second episode took place at a pet shop located in the basement of my office building. I had stopped by to pick up a couple of items and asked the counter staff about the shop's customer loyalty card. To cut a long story short, probably because of her weak understanding of English, she gave me the wrong information and I ended up having to pay for something I shouldn't have paid for.

As we argued about who was at fault, the staff asked if we could continue the conversation in Mandarin. I sighed, decided I would be the chivalrous party between the two of us and tried to restate my point in Mandarin. But I knew I'd already lost the battle--I barely managed to pass Chinese in school, so how could I be more articulate than a person whose first language is Chinese?

Unfortunately for the state of customer service here, these two incidents have become commonplace in Singapore.

First and foremost, let me state clearly that I'm proud of my Chinese roots, and I appreciate any opportunity to sharpen my Mandarin-speaking skills.

English is Singapore's administrative language and taught as a first language in local schools. Students here do take on a second language according to their mother tongue--so, Chinese was my second language, but I never really excelled in it as I did in English. It's not something I'm proud of, especially since I am Singaporean-Chinese, but it is something I'm trying to improve by speaking more Mandarin in daily conversations.

But, when I'm put in a situation where I need to be able to clearly articulate my thoughts, shouldn't I have the option--as a customer in my home country--to speak in the language I'm most comfortable in?

And since English is Singapore's language of administration, shouldn't service staff be expected to at least be able to serve using some basic English? Businesses here also need to realize that Singapore is a healthy mix of various ethnic communities, including Malay and Indian. Do retailers and other businesses keep this in mind when they hire their service staff?

Engaging foreign talent is important in any economy, including Singapore, but I also think everyone needs to be equipped with the right skills to do their job well. And for workers in the service line, language and communication skills are vital.

Is it politically incorrect for me to feel annoyed when a service personnel based in Singapore asks if I can place my order in another language other than English? Is it culturally insensitive if I declined to do so? And is it socially wrong for me to be agitated when a service staff automatically assumes I'll be able to converse in another language other than English simply because of my looks?

Those aren't easy questions to address, particularly in Singapore, because they're so closely intertwined with cultural and social issues.

And since I don't know the answers to those questions either, I wonder if technology can play a role here as mediator--perhaps a tool or application that combines translation and voice or speech recognition capabilities.

Customers can speak into a handheld device, in whatever language they're most comfortable with, and a language translation software interprets their request into a language the service staff is most fluent in. The device then plays the message back in that language, and the service staff can do likewise when they serve their customers.

This speech-to-text-to-speech recognition will also be able to meet the needs of consumers and service employees who may not be able to read well. But, the accuracy rate of such tools must be relatively high or there may be miscommunication.

Until then, I'll continue to work on my Chinese.