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[quote=”Scott”][quote=”costaricafinca”]Hey…some folk don’t understand what I say, as a Scot![/quote]
I took my gal (who’s from Guatemala) and her youngest son back home to visit my parents in Scotland a few years ago.
As we were sitting in the train there was a young Glaswegian man (a person from Glasgow in Scotland – who speak English but with a Glasgow accent – for our non-Scottish VIP Members..,) opposite us speaking to someone on his telephone…
Mayra asked me, what language is he speaking?
Ha!
Most English speaking people have trouble understanding a thick Glaswegian accent, a woman from Guatemala? Nada!
Scott
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That is much worse than a New Englander having a conversation from someone from the south of the States.
Great article, Scott. When I first saw the news item about HP moving many of its English-speaking jobs here to India, my first reaction was , uhh, oh….the exodus is starting. Goodbye call center jobs.
Too bad Costa Rica government officials can’t read English because by the time La Nacion gets around to reporting on the issue, it will be too late to do anything about it. Let’s face it, global competitiveness is not exactly top of mind, much less something to aspire to, in Ticolandia.
That’s unfortunate, because, for example, there are several families in our neighborhood whose 20-something kids have decent-paying call center jobs with a big US-based credit card issuer.
In fact, the local colegio tecnico up the street prides itself on its “call center English” program, and many parents send their kids there for that very reason; they’ll learn enough English to get a call center job when they graduate high school.
So basically what you have is a public education system training students for jobs that won’t exist here five years from now.
After all, how many countries can compete with India or China for low-wage English-speaking jobs?
The labor supply in those countries is just so huge. Yet, at the same time, many employers here, domestic as well as international, can’t find qualified Costa Ricans having the professional or technical skills required for the job.
Sad, because it won’t be long until the government and agricultural sectors will be the only major sources of jobs in this country.
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