{"id":1811,"date":"2022-11-15T23:48:20","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T23:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1811"},"modified":"2023-01-15T22:42:21","modified_gmt":"2023-01-15T22:42:21","slug":"unhelpful-announcements-and-cis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/11\/15\/unhelpful-announcements-and-cis\/","title":{"rendered":"Unhelpful Announcements and CIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

In my Monday morning French class at Morpeth (see https:\/\/linguaforme.co.uk<\/a>), we\u2019ve been learning that to say \u201cI would like some more wine\u201d is \u201cJe veux plus de vin\u201d. On the other hand, to say I don\u2019t want any more wine is \u201cJe veux plus de vin\u201d. The difference? Well, it all depends on how that tiny word \u201cplus\u201d is pronounced.<\/p>\n

My daughter, who teaches English as a foreign language to non-native speakers, tells me it is often the little words that turn a sentence negative that a foreign language speaker will miss. Thus, after listening to LNER\u2019s lengthy announcement about all the tickets that are not valid on their trains, she points out that what someone not 100% familiar with English will hear is \u201cLumo \u2026 valid, Hull Trains \u2026 valid, super off peak \u2026 valid\u201d. The tiny word \u201cnot\u201d will often be missed. Far better, she insists, if LNER simply said nothing.<\/p>\n

But Govia Thameslink have taken this concept of failing to consider the accessibility of their information to non-native English speakers to a whole new level. I was astonished, whilst at St Pancras station this morning, to see their CIS unhelpfully displaying a list of stations at which their train is not<\/em><\/strong> calling. St Pancras of course is an international station serving arriving Eurostar passengers. A little more sensitivity to those not so familiar with the English language might have been expected. One thing our European friends clearly do better than us. But multi-lingual announcements at the UK\u2019s leading international station sadly still seems to be some years in the future.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my Monday morning French class at Morpeth (see https:\/\/linguaforme.co.uk), we\u2019ve been learning that to say \u201cI would like some…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chairmans-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1811"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1822,"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1811\/revisions\/1822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.senrug.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}