Details do matter

Poor language skills can have fatal consequences. As you may remember, the bungee-jumping accident that occurred in Cabezón de la Sal in the summer of 2015 proves that a good command of English is sometimes necessary to avoid dangerous misunderstandings. The Spanish instructor who was in charge of securing the jumpers spoke what can charitably be described as not very good English. According to the ruling of the appeals court that handled the case, the aforementioned instructor turned to the victim ( a 17-year-old Dutch girl) and said “no jump, it’s very important, no jump” which, of course, is not an order. When you say “no problem” you're not asking your interlocutor to do anything. Apparently, the girl understood “now jump!” and subsequently plunged to her death.

A Spanish speaker of English, even a bad one, is unlikely to mix up no and now but it is not outside the realm of possibility that someone with really poor speaking skills should make that mistake. As is usually the case, an unfortunate combination of factors explains the tragedy. The instructor must have mispronounced an already incorrect phrase (he should have said “don’t jump!”). The Dutch teenager may have misheard the words. At any rate it is obvious that she should have been perfectly secured during that verbal exchange but I’m afraid I’m not going to discuss safety protocols. I guess, I’m simply trying to make a rather simple point: we often downplay the importance of clear communication.

In the early stages of the learning process many students take for granted lots of elements and rely heavily on the context. Unfortunately sometimes there is no context whatsoever just like, when you’re on the phone, there is no body language you can use to get the message across. In such cases, the meaning of whatever you say depends on the words you utter: you just have to express yourself accurately. It turns out, not every speaker can do that.

An independent report published last year in the United Kingdom concluded that poor spoken English skills can lead to air disasters. It’s no joke. Many calamities are the results of miscommunication. Sometimes questionable speaking skills cause an embarrassing situation. Notoriously U.S. president Jimmy Carter’s interpreter in his 1977 visit to Poland expressed the American president’s sexual desire for the whole country. Mr. Carter had only said he wanted to learn about the Polish people’s “desires for the future”. An accidental death and a diplomatic incident are certainly not the usual consequences of poor language skills. Nevertheless wherever languages are used avoidable mistakes do take place.

At our level it is the mental pictures that matter. If I say "the street had been evacuated" you get an instant image, which is quite different from the one you get when you hear "the street was completely deserted". None of that happens if you go and say "the street was empty".

I’m only trying to encourage you to be as accurate and eloquent as possible. Watch the video below to see what happens when you fail to mention only one tiny little detail.