All Speaking English, But Not All the Same Language

This last week, I sat down in a meeting with a woman who was visiting Bahrain and is originally from New Zealand. With us was another man from India who's lived in Bahrain for the last two years or so. As we started getting down to business, it wasn't long before I realized that, while we were all speaking English, these two people didn't really understand - at all - what the other was saying.

It wasn't that one was using vocabulary that the other didn't understand, or that someone's accent was too strong and therefore unintelligible (for the most part). Quite often, they understood the words coming out of their mouths. However, they didn't at all understand what each was meaning!

In fact, it became such an issue that eventually I became the translator. At first, I was just putting in a few words to help clarify, but it became evident that doing this was the best method of communicating what the other meant. After a little bit, they would both look to me for translation. One would say something and ask a question and they would both turn their heads to me so that I could translate. Then the other would respond - after which they would both look at me so I could translate!

Who would've known that such things are possible!