TGV Driver Announcement

[D6130]

Yes, but remember that the initial reference to languages in this thread was made by the OP, referring to the driver’s announcement: “in French only, of course”.

Well yes, of course. The driver’s announcement is an agreeable bit of information for railway buff customers but it has no actual relevance for their journey. It does not really matter that non-Francophone passengers could not understand it.

There is no particular reason for SNCF drivers to use English as part of their duties (apart from those seconded to Eurostar, if that is still a thing) and as such no particular reason to deplore they do not use English when they occasionally pick up the handset.

You - and others on this thread - have totally misinterpreted my post. In no way was I deploring the fact the driver made his announcement only in French. I certainly don't recall using the word 'deplore' or any such implication in my OP. I only mentioned the fact precisely because nobody would expect a French driver to use any other language....in contrast to the on-board staff, who make announcements in between two and four different languages, depending on the route and their individual linguistic knowledge. Forty years ago - when I was a guard at Brighton - I would make announcements in English, French, German and Italian on the Victoria - Newhaven boat trains....but I wouldn't dream of doing so on Brighton-Littlehampton stopper. In the event of an emergency - and my being incapacitated or dead - my driver would be shouting " Everyone aht an' don't touch the f***ing juice rail!

 

[Krokodil]

Hm, yes, interesting...
Although I normally speak German with the Newrest staff, they do regularly speak English with some other passengers. Not being able to do so will also be challenging for them I guess...

Luckily one of the Dutchmen I was sharing a compartment with spoke both German and English so was able to translate.

 

[riceuten]

I think it's reasonable to expect staff in a customer-facing role (especially on InterCity services) to have a rudimentary understanding of English. Other languages e.g
German less important unless it is an international train. I'm not expecting fluency. It's the defacto world language used by most tourists. Asking the millions of tourists per year to get our Google Translate for a basic enquiry isn't good customer service.

If I had a pound for every time I heard "English is the world language", I would be a rich man by now. As I said before, if the train had been an international train, then this could possibly be a relevant supposition, but it was not.

Of course, yes. Not every driver announcement needs to be translated. I would agree drivers don't need to know English to fulfill their role, but it is becoming increasing more desirable for customer-facing roles (e.g. guards, 'chef de train' in France) to be able to speak at least basic English.

...or German, or Dutch, or Spanish, depending on where their duties take them.

I remember a news story in Germany about their lack of ability to find bilingual French/German conductors for the TGV Est Europeean service - they'd had no problems finding the same in France (most of whom came from Alsace or Lorraine).

 

[DanielB]

I remember a news story in Germany about their lack of ability to find bilingual French/German conductors for the TGV Est Europeean service - they'd had no problems finding the same in France (most of whom came from Alsace or Lorraine).

Some similar story is the Maastricht - Liège service, which was actually combined with Liège - Hasselt not for any commercial reason but for a language reason.
NMBS had trouble finding drivers speaking sufficient Dutch in Wallonia, but locating bilingual drivers speaking Dutch and French on depots in Flanders appeared less problematic.

 

[StephenHunter]

When travelling on the Amsterdam-Vienna Nightjet, the steward neither spoke English, nor Dutch. On a train that originated in the Netherlands!

I believe they get their staff from Central and Eastern Europe. Cheaper that way. My one did speak English.

 

[riceuten]

Some similar story is the Maastricht - Liège service, which was actually combined with Liège - Hasselt not for any commercial reason but for a language reason.
NMBS had trouble finding drivers speaking sufficient Dutch in Wallonia, but locating bilingual drivers speaking Dutch and French on depots in Flanders appeared less problematic.

The practice and politics of this can be interesting (and wearisome). If you catch a SNCB/NMBS train from, say, Liege to Brussels, you pass through Wallonia, the Flanders, then Brussels. For the areas that are contained wholly within Wallonia and Flanders, you will generally only hear announcements in the language of area concerned (French or Dutch) and this will switch to bilingual announcements once inside the Brussels border. Occasionally you will get a bilingual conductor who will announce ALL of the stops in both languages. What doesn't change is the automatic LED screens, which swap over to monolingual French or Dutch depending on where you are. So you set out from Brussels heading towards Louvain/Leuven towards Liege/Luik, then it's just Leuven and Luik, and back to Liege when you leave Flanders. The Dutch speakers are far more aggressive about it, despite being in the clear majority in the country (60:39). What about the other 1%, I hear you ask? Well, that's the Belgian Germans, and their little corner of Wallonia where the area is bilingual French and German. I haven't travelled on the train from Welkenraedt to Eupen yet, but I would not be wholly surprised if the announcements and LED screens would be in German and French.

I think expecting English announcements on top of this would probably be a step too far !

 

[rvdborgt]

What about the other 1%, I hear you ask? Well, that's the Belgian Germans, and their little corner of Wallonia where the area is bilingual French and German. I haven't travelled on the train from Welkenraedt to Eupen yet, but I would not be wholly surprised if the announcements and LED screens would be in German and French.

The German-speaking region is formally not bilingual (only Brussels is), but German-speaking, with some facilities for French speakers. Announcements (if any...) are in German and French and the LED screens too.

I think expecting English announcements on top of this would probably be a step too far !

It does happen every now and then, depending on the staff, but English comes 4th then, because the 3 national languages have to be used first.

 

[Cloud Strife]

The Dutch speakers are far more aggressive about it, despite being in the clear majority in the country (60:39).

I've witnessed a very interesting situation in a Wallonia supermarket, not far away from the border with Flanders. The Flemish guys in the supermarket were buying beer, and the Wallonian cashier had some problems with their credit card. They couldn't communicate with each other, as they didn't have a common language. Eventually, as my wife and I speak a bit of French, we asked her what the problem was, and then repeated it in English to the Flemish guys. It turned out that there was some issue with the card terminal not accepting Visa for some strange reason, and that she wanted them to try a different card. I always thought that the language barrier was overestimated, but it was quite plainly obvious that neither of them spoke the other language to a level that they could communicate.

What was surreal was that the till was only in French, and they had no way of switching it to Flemish so that they could show what the issue was.

I asked the guys where they were from, and they said that they were only visiting and that they were from near the Dutch border, so they had no contact with French on a daily basis, and that as the cashier didn't speak English, they had no common language. Afterwards, I asked the cashier out of idle curiosity about Flemish, and she said the the same story, that she simply didn't have much contact with Flemish and that it wasn't taught very well in school.

 

[riceuten]

I've witnessed a very interesting situation in a Wallonia supermarket, not far away from the border with Flanders. The Flemish guys in the supermarket were buying beer, and the Wallonian cashier had some problems with their credit card. They couldn't communicate with each other, as they didn't have a common language. Eventually, as my wife and I speak a bit of French, we asked her what the problem was, and then repeated it in English to the Flemish guys. It turned out that there was some issue with the card terminal not accepting Visa for some strange reason, and that she wanted them to try a different card. I always thought that the language barrier was overestimated, but it was quite plainly obvious that neither of them spoke the other language to a level that they could communicate.

What was surreal was that the till was only in French, and they had no way of switching it to Flemish so that they could show what the issue was.

I asked the guys where they were from, and they said that they were only visiting and that they were from near the Dutch border, so they had no contact with French on a daily basis, and that as the cashier didn't speak English, they had no common language. Afterwards, I asked the cashier out of idle curiosity about Flemish, and she said the the same story, that she simply didn't have much contact with Flemish and that it wasn't taught very well in school.

It's very, very complex, and very tiresome, but there's a certain amount of pigheadedness in Belgium about this. One of the issues is that the Flemish (ironic, given the above) tend to speak better French than the Walloons speak Dutch (ir's rare to find someone in Wallonia who speaks fluent Dutch, it's NOT rare in Flanders to find fluent French speakers). This is because Flemish children start learning French at an earlier age than vice versa, and there's probably an economic aspect to it as well. If you speak French as well as Dutch, you can work in more areas. This has the unfortunate knock-on effect of when Wallonian people visit Flanders, the Flemish will not speak French to them, even though they often can. Whereas when Flemish people visit Wallonia, the few Walloons who speak Dutch will use it. if you visit a council office or tourist attraction in Wallonia, chances are that the staff will speak basic or no Dutch, but if they can do, they will, but if you visit the same in Flanders, the staff are actually told NOT to speak French. Brussels is supposed to be bilingual, but only 6% of people in the capital actually have Dutch as a first language. The Walloons do study Dutch at school, but only for 4 years and most drop it as soon as they can. This is a very simplified version of the problem...

Getting it back to railways for a second, almost all customer facing SNCB/NMBS staff are supposed to be bilingual, but the practice and implementation of this is patchy. I was reading a Luxembourgish newspaper recently about CFL (their national rail company) - staff there are supposed to be quadrilingual (Luxembourgish, French, German and English !) but they have had huge problems recruiting staff, as anyone quadrilingual is presumably unlikely to want to work on the railways (not that they need to check tickets anymore). They have taken to recruiting monolingual French speakers from the border regions and teaching them German/Luxembourgish, if they don't already know the former.

 

[Cloud Strife]

I was reading a Luxembourgish newspaper recently about CFL (their national rail company) - staff there are supposed to be quadrilingual (Luxembourgish, French, German and English !) but they have had huge problems recruiting staff, as anyone quadrilingual is presumably unlikely to want to work on the railways

Yes, I worked briefly in Luxembourg on a project, and it was quite stunning how capable the native Luxembourgers were in languages. Knowing all four of those to a professional level was the norm, and a couple of people had also learnt Dutch to a decent working standard. In comparison, the French and German team members spoke only their own language and English, with limited degrees of fluency in the 'other' language.

 

[Gag Halfrunt]

almost all customer facing SNCB/NMBS staff are supposed to be bilingual, but the practice and implementation of this is patchy

Do you know what the internal language policy is at SNCB/NMBS?

(Edit: typo)

 

[DanielB]

One of the issues is that the Flemish (ironic, given the above) tend to speak better French than the Walloons speak Dutch (ir's rare to find someone in Wallonia who speaks fluent Dutch, it's NOT rare in Flanders to find fluent French speakers). This is because Flemish children start learning French at an earlier age than vice versa, and there's probably an economic aspect to it as well. If you speak French as well as Dutch, you can work in more areas.

Probably it also plays a role that Dutch is a relatively small language, not at all spoken widely outside the Netherlands and Flanders. So it is economically more important do speak at least one foreign language.
That's also why at Dutch high schools the higher education levels start with four languages, one of which may be dropped later on. You'll certainly find less educated people only speaking Dutch, but I presume I'm certainly not unique as quadrilingual Dutch citizen. (Though my German and especially French are a lot less fluent)

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Slightly off-topic, but when travelling on Eurostar 9036, 15 31 London-Paris the day before yesterday, the Train Manager announced at Dollands Moor that we were approaching the Channel Tunnel and that transit time would be about twenty minutes. It was the first time that I had heard that announcement for many years.

Yes I’ve been on the Eurostar on two occasions in two years and didn’t hear that on the outward and homeward bound legs. I remember when I first went on it in 2000 and they made the channel tunnel announcement and the carriage went silent to listen. Was very exciting

 

[SHD]

You - and others on this thread - have totally misinterpreted my post. In no way was I deploring the fact the driver made his announcement only in French. I certainly don't recall using the word 'deplore' or any such implication in my OP. I only mentioned the fact precisely because nobody would expect a French driver to use any other language....in contrast to the on-board staff, who make announcements in between two and four different languages, depending on the route and their individual linguistic knowledge. Forty years ago - when I was a guard at Brighton - I would make announcements in English, French, German and Italian on the Victoria - Newhaven boat trains....but I wouldn't dream of doing so on Brighton-Littlehampton stopper. In the event of an emergency - and my being incapacitated or dead - my driver would be shouting " Everyone aht an' don't touch the f***ing juice rail!

Understood, my use of "deplore" was indeed unwarranted.

Do you know what the internal language policy is at SNCF/NMBS?

Assuming you mean SNCB/NMBS, as it is a Belgian public service company, the language policy that governs customer interactions is bound by the Loi sur l'emploi des langues en matière administrative (the Belgian official language law).
I do not know the details of the HR language policies, but ISTR that drivers must demonstrate a B1 proficiency level or higher in the "other" language.

 

[riceuten]

Do you know what the internal language policy is at SNCF/NMBS?

Yes

Yes, I worked briefly in Luxembourg on a project, and it was quite stunning how capable the native Luxembourgers were in languages. Knowing all four of those to a professional level was the norm, and a couple of people had also learnt Dutch to a decent working standard. In comparison, the French and German team members spoke only their own language and English, with limited degrees of fluency in the 'other' language.

It's fascinating, and a product of their education system, which has children learning German at nursery schools, and then Luxembourgish, followed by French at age 7, and transitioning to 50:50 German and French at secondary school (German for scientific stuff, French for languages and arts), as well as learning English or Spanish as an additional language (and sometimes both). There is also a class thing apparent in the country as well, with the upper classes speaking mainly French, and the working classes speaking Luxembourgish and German. It's also a geographical thing, with the capital city being 80-90% French speaking.

The "problem" is - as I have outlined partially above, is that the railways and service industries tend to struggle to attract multilingual employees. who can make lots more money working in finance, for the EU, or private companies. Quite a lot of shop work and blue collar work (including railways !) is done by "transfrontaliers" from Metz, Yutz, and Thionville. The lack of affordable housing in the country also plays a part.

CFL's working language tends to be French, and you will find most signs and announcements at stations or on trains solely in French. Unlike in Flanders, no-one is going to get upset if you speak to them in the "wrong" language, though you may just get a baffled look of incomprehension, and it's not unusual to fumble through a couple of languages until you find a common one.