One of the great challenges to short-term missions is known as “the language barrier.” I have found that many times, however, the fact that volunteers and nationals don’t speak the same language is really more like “the language bridge” as the creative, unusual, endearing, and sometimes down-right hilarious efforts made by both parties to communicate serves to form special bonds. It’s similar to the phenomenon of people becoming fast and forever friends after going through a survival situation together.
Part of the communication effort takes on the form of gestures and sign language, something your average person is not very good at unless he plays a lot of charades.
Take, for example, the American (we’ll call him, Bubba) in a Brazilian restaurant that wanted some black pepper for his eggs. Simple, right? What does he do? Of course, he goes for the first word, “black”. The waiter has on black pants, so Bubba points at the pants and says “black” in English. Oh, the waitress has on a black apron. Point. There goes a black cat. Point. The restaurant staff is clueless. They know he wants something, but what? Do Americanos eat cats for breakfast? Does he want the waitress to press his pants?
No results. Impatient, Bubba moves on to the next word, pepper. Pepper makes you sneeze. He mimics inhaling pepper and a big sneeze. Is this guy on drugs? Does he need a fix? Is he going through withdrawal? No, no, no, Bubba shakes his head. Can’t these people understand anything?
If only Bubba knew that Black Pepper in Portuguese is “Pepper of the Kingdom” maybe that would help. Well, probably not.
Another intriguing side of this communication comedy is when words that happen to sound like a word in the other language mean something totally different. Here are a few examples from Portuguese and English:
- A Brazilian was trying to tell an American about a Muslim (in Portuguese, Muçulmano) which happens to sound something like “muscle man.” So the whole time the American is picturing this buff religious guy.
- Or take the young lady who asked a Brazilian how to say “frog” in Portuguese, which is, (of course) “Rã” – pronounced like someone asking, “huh?” in English. It was a “who’s on first” ordeal for about five minutes. How do you say frog?” – “Rã” – I SAID, how do you say frog in Portuguese? – “Rã!” – What are you, deaf? HOW DO YOU SAY FROG IN PORTUGUESE?!!!!?? “RÃ!”
- Once I noticed this volunteer looking rather nervous and when I asked her what was wrong she said she was worried about the mice. “What mice?” The Brazilians keep talking about mice, she insisted, when in reality they were only saying the Portuguese word for “more,” which sounds like “mice”.
- One volunteer asked me why the Brazilians kept saying, “pot of beans”. They were actually saying “parabens“, or “congratulations.”
- Another volunteer kept mispronouncing a Brazilian’s name, Marconi, and in the process was inadvertently calling the poor guy “marijuana” all week.
- When someone asked a lady volunteer, who had arrived in Brazil on VARIG AIRLINES, which airlines she had flown to Brazil her response was, “VIAGRA Airlines”. Yes, Brazilians have that down there too.
- Then there’s the volunteer that thought she had learned how to say “good morning” in Portuguese and proudly repeated it to everyone who passed through the reception line after the church service. “Little Rear-End” would be a nice translation of what she called everyone.
- One more. Who can ever forget the American missionary who was so excited that a volunteer had brought her a whole box of her favorite candy bar, “PAYDAY,” that she went running through the airport screaming, “Pay-day! Pay-day!” – loosely translated: “I had gas! I had gas”. Everyone heeded her warning and got as far away as they could.
Yes, don’t worry about the language thing! It’s not a barrier, it’s a bridge to wonderful memories that your host nationals will never forget you for!
