FAA clamping down on English?

JoeSelch said:
LOL. Wouldn't have been TOO bad, if they'd have said which leg of the pattern they were on instead of guessing(?) :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You could tell what they were saying?

All I heard was "Would you like a slurpee?" on that CTAF.
 
Ghery said:
Listen to the controllers in Japan some time. Yikes!
Click to expand...
Worst problem I ever had with understanding a controller was in Japan, and I've done pretty much everywhere from the Eastern Mediterranean to the South China Sea. Finally, the US Navy liaison controller had to come on the mic and tell me the name of the intersection we were supposed to go to. Good thing the Navy had that arrangement for coming out of NAS Atsugi.
 
Ron Levy said:
Worst problem I ever had with understanding a controller was in Japan, and I've done pretty much everywhere from the Eastern Mediterranean to the South China Sea. Finally, the US Navy liaison controller had to come on the mic and tell me the name of the intersection we were supposed to go to. Good thing the Navy had that arrangement for coming out of NAS Atsugi.
Click to expand...


Have the same problem with chinese drive thru
 
The gutteral dude who works the east side of Italy is no treat either. Saudi controllers just ignore you until they are through eating, drinking or taking a break (or whatever else they do) while watching the traffic along single airway across the north border.

Ghery said:
Listen to the controllers in Japan some time. Yikes!
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Does this count for ATC as well?
Without mentioning a specific tower, I've had great difficulty in understanding the instructions disseminated by the tower controller because of his strong accent. :dunno:

Audio recording attached.
 

Attachments

  • ATC Communications.wav
    4.3 MB · Views: 32
flav8r said:
Does this count for ATC as well?
Without mentioning a specific tower, I've had great difficulty in understanding the instructions disseminated by the tower controller because of his strong accent. :dunno:

Audio recording attached.
Click to expand...
To be honest, that didn't sound all that bad! :dunno:
 
flav8r said:
Does this count for ATC as well?
Without mentioning a specific tower, I've had great difficulty in understanding the instructions disseminated by the tower controller because of his strong accent. :dunno:
Click to expand...
No problemo, Señor. But I watched a lot of John Wayne movies with Pedro Gonzalez-Gonzalez in a supporting role (Rio Bravo, The High and the Mighty, etc). And then there was the time we were on a bus tour through Morocco, where the law requires having a local guide in addition to the main Moroccan guide.


The tour was organized by a British travel company, and most of the group were British, except for about a dozen of us USAF typesl. When we got to Rabat, the very nice young Moroccan lady who had been our primary guide warned the group that the Rabat guide spoke English with an unusual accent which was difficult to understand. So, on comes this middle-aged Moroccan guide in local garb. He picks up the mike and says, "G'd mornin', y'all, Ah'm your guide to Ra-baht, and ah'll be tellin' y'all 'bout the sahts in this city." We Yanks burst out laughing, and the Brits were all looking at each other saying, "I say, do any of you chaps understand a word this chap is saying?" Seems back in WWII he was the local liaison guy on the US air base there in Morocco, and was attached to the MP company on the base -- a company of Georgia National Guardsmen, who taught him English -- Georgia-style.

So, it's all context and experience -- y'all.
 
Last edited:
Ghery said:
Listen to the controllers in Japan some time. Yikes!
Click to expand...
Wow no kidding. Even though the words they are using are English they are spoken in such a mechanical (and rapid) way that you need to listen really closely.
 
Everskyward said:
Wow no kidding. Even though the words they are using are English they are spoken in such a mechanical (and rapid) way that you need to listen really closely.
Click to expand...

Do you speak any Japanese?

If GA were allowed in Taiwan, I would just speak Chinese to the controllers there.
 
spiderweb said:
Do you speak any Japanese?
Click to expand...
Only baby phrases. Certainly not anything that could be used in Air Traffic Control! :eek:

I do know that "hikoki" means "airplane" though. :D

One thing I noticed in Japan that was different than in other countries is that ATC seemed to be speaking English to everyone, even the Japanese pilots. This differs from other foreign countries I've flown in where they seem to use the native language with native pilots. For example, in Mexico they speak Spanish if the pilot starts out in Spanish. It is the same in Quebec and in Russia. I haven't had much international experience but that is what I have observed in my small exposure.
 
Last edited:
wabower said:
Saudi controllers just ignore you until they are through eating, drinking or taking a break (or whatever else they do) while watching the traffic along single airway across the north border.
Click to expand...
Can you say Insha'Allah....





Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Everskyward said:
Only baby phrases. Certainly not anything that could be used in Air Traffic Control! :eek:

I do know that "hikoki" means "airplane" though. :D

One thing I noticed in Japan that was different than in other countries is that ATC seemed to be speaking English to everyone, even the Japanese pilots. This differs from other foreign countries I've flown in where they seem to use the native language with native pilots. For example, in Mexico they speak Spanish if the pilot starts out in Spanish. It is the same in Quebec and in Russia. I haven't had much international experience but that is what I have observed in my small exposure.
Click to expand...

That's interesting. Maybe Japan has more international service, and has just decided it is easier to use English.
 
flav8r said:
Does this count for ATC as well?
Without mentioning a specific tower, I've had great difficulty in understanding the instructions disseminated by the tower controller because of his strong accent. :dunno:

Audio recording attached.
Click to expand...

Where in Mexico was that :confused:
 
Everskyward said:
Only baby phrases. Certainly not anything that could be used in Air Traffic Control! :eek:

I do know that "hikoki" means "airplane" though. :D

One thing I noticed in Japan that was different than in other countries is that ATC seemed to be speaking English to everyone, even the Japanese pilots. This differs from other foreign countries I've flown in where they seem to use the native language with native pilots. For example, in Mexico they speak Spanish if the pilot starts out in Spanish. It is the same in Quebec and in Russia. I haven't had much international experience but that is what I have observed in my small exposure.
Click to expand...

That would seem to put the international flights at a real disadvantage, not having the situational awareness of where the native-speaking flights were and what they were doing.
 
LDJones said:
That would seem to put the international flights at a real disadvantage, not having the situational awareness of where the native-speaking flights were and what they were doing.
Click to expand...
Much the same in France, and even in Quebec, where Canadian controllers and pilots usually speak French to each other. It's a problem for pilots, and requires them to rely on the controllers not to make a mistake. It's part of international flying, and I doubt you'll get the ICAO member nations to agree to not use their native language as well as English for ATC in their own country.
 
LDJones said:
That would seem to put the international flights at a real disadvantage, not having the situational awareness of where the native-speaking flights were and what they were doing.
Click to expand...
That's just the way it is. I've landed at an uncontrolled airport in Quebec where pilots were making their position reports in French. AFAIK, pilots in some (most?) other countries don't need to speak English unless they fly outside their country. That's where the English test comes into play.
 
Ron Levy said:
You think that's bad, try listening to Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, a native Glaswegian. Took me four years in the UK before I understood a bloody word he said.

BTW, having spent six years living in England, I am bilingual -- I'm fluent in both the Queen's English and ours.
Click to expand...

We had a tour guide in London a few years ago, she was bi-lingual, she spoke "English" and "American" :D
 
LDJones said:
She understands everything, never asks for things to be repeated and articulately asks intelligent questions, but with a heavy accent.

Does the FAA want me to report her?? :dunno: :yikes:
Click to expand...

My experience with Chinese immigrants is that when speaking, what causes them the most trouble is not pronunciation, but grammar and phrase selection. That's probably in their favor when talking to ATC, because it doesn't matter much for the things you say to ATC if you never use past tense, you omit all articles like "the", you confuse "he" with "she", and all the other typical grammar errors made by Chinese. Better those errors than pronouncing things badly, when talking to ATC.
 
N747JB said:
We had a tour guide in London a few years ago, she was bi-lingual, she spoke "English" and "American" :D
Click to expand...

How good was her American accent?

I haven't been exposed to British tour guides, but with British actors, I've heard some of them do really bad American accents, and I've heard some of them do really good American accents, to the point that I was surprised to find out that they weren't American.
 
Ron Levy said:
It's a problem for pilots, and requires them to rely on the controllers not to make a mistake.
Click to expand...

Nope - See-and-avoid still works. I've had to use it with US controllers...
 
Palmpilot said:
I haven't been exposed to British tour guides, but with British actors, I've heard some of them do really bad American accents, and I've heard some of them do really good American accents, to the point that I was surprised to find out that they weren't American.
Click to expand...
Like Hugh Laurie? After he auditioned for the part of House, MD, the casting folks said, "Isn't it wonderful to find a great American actor for a part like this." Only problem -- Laurie is English, and in his natural state, sounds it very much. Go find some reruns of Black Adder to hear that. His Australian accent is also pretty much impeccable as demonstrated in the remake of Flight of the Phoenix.
 
Ron Levy said:
Like Hugh Laurie? After he auditioned for the part of House, MD, the casting folks said, "Isn't it wonderful to find a great American actor for a part like this." Only problem -- Laurie is English, and in his natural state, sounds it very much. Go find some reruns of Black Adder to hear that. His Australian accent is also pretty much impeccable as demonstrated in the remake of Flight of the Phoenix.
Click to expand...

I don't think I've seen anything he's been in. The one I was thinking of was the guy who played Dick Winters in Band of Brothers. After I saw him in that, I noticed him in an episode of Poirot, and thought, "Wow, is that the same guy?" So I looked up the names of the cast members and found out it was.

Many Poirot episodes have actors who do a bad American accent. I can tell that they're playing Americans, but it sounds forced. I imagine the same thing must be true for the British when they hear someone doing a bad British accent.
 
Palmpilot said:
I don't think I've seen anything he's been in. The one I was thinking of was the guy who played Dick Winters in Band of Brothers. After I saw him in that, I noticed him in an episode of Poirot, and thought, "Wow, is that the same guy?" So I looked up the names of the cast members and found out it was.

Many Poirot episodes have actors who do a bad American accent. I can tell that they're playing Americans, but it sounds forced. I imagine the same thing must be true for the British when they hear someone doing a bad British accent.
Click to expand...

Laurie is amazing, in everything he does. His accent is perfect.
 
Palmpilot said:
I don't think I've seen anything he's been in. The one I was thinking of was the guy who played Dick Winters in Band of Brothers. After I saw him in that, I noticed him in an episode of Poirot, and thought, "Wow, is that the same guy?" So I looked up the names of the cast members and found out it was.

Many Poirot episodes have actors who do a bad American accent. I can tell that they're playing Americans, but it sounds forced. I imagine the same thing must be true for the British when they hear someone doing a bad British accent.
Click to expand...

Or Dominic West in The Wire. There was an episode where he was supposed to do a bad English accent as an undercover American detective and of course he's an English actor ;) He played it as an idiotic version of an Aussie accent :rofl:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top