(EsPCEx - 2020)
Native English speakers are the world's worst communicators
It was just one word in one email, but it caused huge financial losses for a multinational company. The message, written in English, was sent by a native speaker to a colleague for whom English was a second language. Unsure of the word, the recipient found two contradictory meanings in his dictionary. He acted on the wrong one.
Months later, senior management investigated why the project had failed, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. "It all traced back to this one word", says Chia Suan Chong, a UK-based communications skills and intercultural trainer, who didn't reveal the tricky word because it is highly industry-specific and possibly identifiable. "Things spiralled out of control because both parties were thinking the opposite."
When such misunderstandings happen, it's usually the native speakers who are to blame. Ironically, they are worse at delivering their message than people who speak English as a second or third language, according to Chong. "A lot of native speakers are happy that English has become the world's global language. They feel they don't have to spend time learning another language."
The non-native speakers, it turns out, speak more purposefully and carefully, trying to communicate efficiently with limited, simple language, typical of someone speaking a second or third language. Anglophones, on the other hand, often talk too fast for other to follow, and use jokes, slang, abbreviations and references to their own culture, says Chong. "The native English speaker is the only one who might not feel the need to adapt to the others", she adds.
Adapted from http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161028-native-english-speakers-are-the-worlds-worst-communicators
Choose the alternative that correctly substitutes SPIRALLED OUT OF CONTROL in the sentence "Things spiralled out of control because both parties were thinking the opposite." (paragraph 2).
quickly got worse in an unmanageable way
got better after a phone call about the word
were intentionally unprofessionally handled
went on the way everybody wanted them to go
started to reach a common sense for them
Gabarito:
quickly got worse in an unmanageable way
A) CORRECT: A expressão “spiralled out of control” indica que, devido à incompreensão da palavra, as coisas saíram do controle, gerando um grande e irreversível prejuízo, com o qual não foi possível lidar. Essa ideia está presente em A “quickly got worse in an unmanageble way”, que significa piorar rapidamente de uma forma incontrolável.
B) INCORRECT: a expressão "got better after a phone call about the word" significa que algo melhorou depois de um telefonema sobre o assunto, o que não está de acordo com a espressão em negrito.
C) INCORRECT: a expressão "were intentionally unprofessionally handled" significa que algo foi tratado intencionalmente de forma não profissional, o que também não representa a mesma ideia daquela expressa no enunciado.
D) INCORRECT: "went on the way everybody wanted them to go" significa que foi no caminho que todos queriam que eles fossem, representando uma ideia diferente do que foi pedido no enunciado.
E) INCORRECT: "started to reach a common sense for them" tem como significado começar a chegar em um bom senso para eles, o que representa uma ideia diferente da expressão em negrito no enunciado