Yesterday night, I met a BANGLADESHI in my house (By Lucy)

It has been a period of time since I wrote my latest blog post. I suddenly remember about this blog because of yesterday night's incident which I felt that globalization and merge of language is seriously affecting me.

Yesterday night when I arrived home, I found that there is  a BANGLADESHI maid in my house.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In case you don't know about Bangladesh (which I didn't either), here are some information:

Bangladesh (孟加拉)
--- It is the world's eighth-most populated countries, with over 160 million people
--- It was once a British Colonized City
--- Despite the rapid economic growth, about 26%of the country still lives below the international poverty line which means living on less than $1.25 per day.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I opened the door, and found my mother in a bad mood because the BANGLADESHI maid couldn't understand what she was saying.

All she could say is ''你好", "早晨" , 'Sorry' and 'Thank you'
And of course: ''yes, mom.''

I tried to introduce myself: ''My name is Lucy, what is your name?'', Guess what I got for reply: ''Thank you, Mom''

OMG!!! 

The situation is: she couldn't understand what we are talking nor could she ask anything properly so we can understand. 

Have globalization really reduced language barriers? I doubted 

And I decided to give it a go. 

I think a lot of you will think of Google Translate, and I did tried. 

I successfully translated ''Welcome to Hong Kong'' in to ''হংকং স্বাগত জানাই'' and I gave that chunk to the maid, she smiles, ''yes, mom.'' 

My mom said: ''I have tried that, but she didn't seem to understand''

I forgot to mention: the female illiteracy rate in Bangladesh is 57.8%.

Maybe you can let her record the sentence so we can understand what she is saying through google translate? 

Sorry, the recording function is not available for Bengali.

I gave up Google translate and tried a lot of methods through the Internet like translate the word to Bengali, then search for the pronunciation 

( which usually looks like this: ''Dhōẏā'' for ''wash'' and  ''Biśbabidyālaẏa''' for university) 

Obviously I have no idea about the symbols or how to say ''Dh...'', so I look for the International Phonetic System(國際音標), which is even more complicated. 

字母与读音

元音

辅音

第一行是字母，第二行是孟加拉音標，[   ] 裡的是國際音標，大約就是這樣。。。(攤手) 

In the end, It was Youtube that rescued my family 

I just typed in ''Learn Bengali'', and everything is there! Audiobook is just what I needed.  Tables showing the word in English, Bengali and pronunciation, Dialogue usage, people from all around the world can learn this remote language just by watching the clip. Thank God. 

( link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jam0-NSnXw )

Sometimes it is really difficult to do things about language in a printed or text way, Internet really helped when we need to communicate with foreign people who have a great difference in culture and language with us.
Now I really understand that language is power. It has always been easy for me to find material about learning English or online exercises, but for Bengali, I don't find much. All those functions that convenience people on the Internet are only for the major languages, the majority, and where power lies. 

Today, I am able to introduce myself in Bengali: ''Amar nam Lucy''. And she understands! 

I know I seems token and is in the most of minimal bilingualism, but at least it is a good start ;-)