Posted By Paul Leadbetter
Al

Some HSE leaflets are available in other languages; check out http://www.hse.gov.uk/languages/index.htm

Paul

Posted By Alec Wood
Hi all, I work for Samsung, a Korean multi-national. Every department in every factory worldwide had a Korean manager alongside the local one, right up to a Korean local joint company president. For equipment build and installation, such as the fitting of new production lines, they use Korean sub-contractors KMC - Korea Machine Company. So, you can appreciate this is a big issue for me every day.

I agree with the above, your duty is no less because they speak another language. It is still to effectively inform them of the appropriate safety information. Your question focusses on checking their understanding, and I notice your available time is very short. Sorry to be harsh, but if you cannot currently check their understanding effectively then it is likely that your instruction may be equally ineffective using current methods.

I am lucky in that I have a lot of Korean managers who speak English who translate for me, but there are some trust issues there, and obviously they cannot help me with the Eastern European drivers and the like.

My suggestion is to prepare a written induction package, including assessments, then translate this into very basic English being sure to remove any technical or specialist language from it. Then use a web-based or other translation program to translate into the appropriate language, or better still a commercial translating service.

If you use computer based translation then be warned the output will read to them like the user manuals of much Far-Eastern equipment did to us in the 70's, so I insert the following sentences at the beginning of the text "Please forgive me. I do not speak your language so I have used a computer to translate. It is very important in our law that you understand this safety information." These seem to translate well. Sometimes an inductee will speak some English and assist by correcting the translation. Over the past few years I have had to deal with an increasing number of Eastern Europeans and the output of some of these translation programs has them rolling on the floor with laughter, but they seem to be effective at getting the points across nontheless.

Assessment is by multi-choice questionaire - I have never been able to think of a better way when no common language is shared.

Posted By Karen Todd
Al,

I was at a meat processing plant where there was a large number of Portuguese workers. They had their own Portuguese supervisor whose English was excellent and he was the go-between if you like. He ran his own section.

To check that the message was getting across, some of the managers had a friend who was a missionary and spoke fluent Portuguese, so they got him in to go around and chat to the workers themselves. Also, the managers and supervisors went to Portuguese classes at the tech.

A point to beware of - don't ask questions that just require a yes/no answer. I asked a bloke various questions such as, "How long have you been here?" etc. and every single question I asked, he just replied yes - he hadn't a clue.

Others I know have talked to Japanese people with regards to machine specifications, and they kept saying "yes" but then came back the following day with a list of questions spoken through an interpreter. What they meant by yes, was that they understood what was being said, although they were not able to speak well enough to ask questions themselves.

Karen

Posted By Kathleen Harrison
Al,

I was going to email you but my machine did want to co-operate. I work for CITB-ConstructionSkills and a project I am working on (early days) is the preparation of an induction package for people with limited or no knowledge of English.

Would appreciate the chance to talk you (and anyone else with experience or questions of this area).

Any comments, experience, input you want to give would all be useful.

Regards and thanks

Email: kathleen.harrison@citb.co.uk