For some context, my (self observed) fluency of the language is around CEFR C1 level. No issue at all in every day conversation.
Listening / reading for the most part was not a problem i.e. I'm able to understanding and critically thinking about what people are saying in real time.
Speaking was more challenging for me. It took me about three years until the first time I felt I was close to expressing myself without major pause-and looking-for-words. Now it's a lot better, I can and frequently speak in meetings with or without preparation, but my level of expression is still limited, compare to my colleagues.
I feel like speaking for business is similar to children learning any language: I listen to what other adults are saying in what context to what opponent, and I try to mimic that. After several years I got enough vocabulary to get by in day to day tasks, including meetings, writing docs, discuss code designs, etc.
The customer was often Indonesian and would write bug reports in the language. The non-Indo speakers would just run them through Google translate and comment what they understood and those who were native speakers would correct them if they were mistaken. Especially when there's sarcasm or some cultural context.
There were a few who only spoke the Chinese dialects, and we'd use an intermediary in meetings, and AI/Google translate on text and code. This was also a good use of AI - it was fluent in whatever language, Java or Mandarin and could piece them together well.
Anyway, yeah, it's workable. Nobody knows all the languages. In engineering, there's more empathy for this, especially from the multilinguals.
For example, at one of the orgs I worked my team lead was based in (and native to) a country in the south of Africa. While hammering out a big feature req he told us, based in Europe, through Teams text chat he wouldn't be around for a few hours because he wanted to take a afternoon nap.
We thought he was just joking around, and we needed his opinions a little while later because of something we ran into so we tried to dial him in: no response. Chat: no response. Turns out the guy was really off taking an afternoon nap.
Luckily we could solve things without his help, but to us in Europe that was really weird. Later we did some research and discovered that people in that part of the world really like to take afternoon naps, even though they should be at work...
Though in this case, I'm certain the nap was the better choice
1- Speak slowly. Don't rush it
2- Its fine to formulate what you want to say in your mind before saying it. take your time.
3- Use a phone and record yourself speaking about different subject. Practice, practice and practice.
4- Some audiences are harder than others. French people for example tend to nitpick and want you to be really fluent. While most english speakers are fine with your speaking, but it depends on the audience and who you are speaking to.
5- You obviously need to immerse yourself in the language you want to speak. Tv-shows, Movies, News and even tabloid. The latter is actuallt good to understand jokes, innuendos and other subtle conversations.
One thing I also noted, is that if you follow/watch people who are not native speakers, they actually tend to explain things/concepts better. Because they are limited in words and have limited scope compared to native speaker. Anyone remarked this?
I suppose a lot of that time taking is what feels awkward but you're right it's better to be understood and clear.
Love the idea of non-natives explaining better in some ways but that doesn't feel like me right now.
It shows up a lot in engineering discussions if you have french colleagues too.
I’ve learned to modulate my southern accent and speak slower over the years as I’ve worked in more customer facing roles and even more now that a large part of our company is Latin America and Brazil.
As far as idioms, I did introduce my former CTO who was Indian to the term “sausage making”. Any time he would get into his “geek mode” and want to know the technical details I told him he really didn’t want to know how the sausage was made.
My native language is PHP, which, as everyone knows, is the demonically fluent tongue of the Ninth Circle. Down there, variables appear from the void, arrays shift shape without warning, and error messages read like ancient curses. Beautiful stuff.
Recently I tried picking up Rust, which people kept hyping as some kind of angelic, higher-order language… but after using it, I’m convinced it’s just the void teaching itself self-esteem. Every compiler message sounds like: “I’m perfect. You’re the problem.”
So yeah — working in a non-native language is tough. But if I can survive switching between demon-speak and cosmic-void-whispering, you’ll be fine too.
1. I set up my phone to be on this language, I also try to consume as much as content possible in said language, so anytime you watch something on NF or YT try seeing if the same content is available in the 2nd language you'll use at work
2. I never, ever, plan or brainstorm anything using my native tongue, even outside of work. If I need to design or plan something I make sure to do it entirely in my 2nd language -- basically the gist is to get your brain used to _think_ in this language, the less you translate the more likely you'll be successful imo. Of course there's exceptions to this rule, are you writing a shopping list that needs to be shared with a family member? If so there's no point in doing that in a language they won't understand
3. Following up on #2, never translate words. If you stumble upon a word you haven't seen before try looking up its meaning using a dictionary in the 2nd language you're practicing instead of using google translate. You want to build the habit of understanding new concepts/meanings in your 2nd tongue as much as possible, because this is what will happen on your day-to-day at work, no one will translate alien/new concepts for you at work
4. I used to record myself and compare my pronunciation against native speakers reading the same content I just read, I don't do this anymore but it helped a lot in the past. You can use free books like the ones from the Gutenberg project for this, there's plenty of people narrating them on YT
5. If you don't have friends/people to practice your 2nd language try looking for a Discord server with voice channels in said tongue. I'm a book-case definition of an introvert/asocial person, but if I had not pushed myself to speak with strangers during my learning period I don't think I'd be successful in working with my 2nd language today.
6. Relax! My coworkers know that I'm not a native speaker, and when I'm struggling with something they often slow down their pace or try using simpler words/terms. Humans can be an ass sometimes, but ime in most occasions people will take the opportunity to help others when they can (esp. if there's nothing for them to lose). As I write this I recognize that I spend a good amount of my time volunteering and doing charity, maybe we are hard-wired in the brain to contribute back to others/society in any way we can?
> Anyone lived through this? How?
I think the "How?" can be answered by my tips above, as for some anecdotes once you get past your first few months of working in a 2nd language most of the stress/anxiety wanes down, if you're planning for accepting an opportunity where you'd have to speak another language I'd recommend you trying to talk to strangers as much as possible first.
The reasoning behind that advice is simple: if you can't hold conversations when there's nothing at stake then you need to practice more. Once you're in high stake situations you'll feel a slight hit to your speaking skills, it might be better to practice as much as possible first in a relaxed environment to see if you could handle having deep conversations in another tongue.
Unfortunately, the advice to talk to strangers is one of these things that are easier said than done, you'll need to build the skills to understand when a pen-pal or conversation is going to be productive or not. You want to prioritize having conversations with people who can stimulate growth in your 2nd tongue, e.g are their answers too short, or just basic yes/no? do they ask questions back to you? in your conversation are you exploring new topic/ideas? etc.
If you don't feel confident that a conversation is helping you with your long term goals then I'd advise stopping it and try looking for someone else to train with. The goal is not to make friends in this process but to create an environment where you can reserve about 1~2 hours of your day to extensively practice your 2nd tongue. For example the first time I played a TTRPG was over discord with random strangers in my 2nd tongue, I never played anything of the like before and it was an interesting experience to learn both the game and to have myself navigate in so many random scenarios using another language