The more "ahead" a female was on Jeopardy, the more she used uptalk... to compensate for her success. This is depressing and unfortunate. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJo7T8ietaM

Jennie, if you decide to pursue a career in academia, you will encounter quite a lot of such people, due to the largely international nature of the profession. Well depends where, but in top places in the US definitely. Many great studies and lectures, but the language limitations or otherwise poor speaking skills of the presenter makes it quite hard to follow, or may kill it even if you wish.

I actually experienced this myself when I fist started grad school many years ago, just fresh out of college in my home country where I never had great opportunities to learn well and especially practice the English language. Yet I would challenge myself and went to grad school in a country where I had absolutely no knowledge of the local language (not English), and while my written English was not bad, I could hardly speak it as our working language. And I had to start giving regular presentations from the beginning. I really struggled with it for a while. I would usually put a lot of text on my slides so at least the audience could read my message. My supervisor actually told me that my strategy was very good. I picked it up pretty fast then, maybe after half a year of suffering with the worst.

So I always feel for people like the professor you mentioned... some people just don't have very good abilities to learn foreign languages and will never develop a proficiency even after years or decades. But can still be brilliant in what they do; just very hard for them to "sell" it due to these limitations. Same for writing. I know scientists who keep using a professional editor for their papers even after decades because they just can't develop the necessary English skills.

Like I said, I'm sure he was a great guy and probably a great professor. It was highly impractical, for me personally, to attend his lectures... it did nothing but frustrate me to no end... so I had to remove myself from his classes and teach myself the text. It all worked out though.

Yes, of course it's an international arena, and one that i've missed! :) I was very close to some of my professors as an undergrad. I do wonder how they're doing. I hope they're still alive and well.

I was gonna drop out, I even skipped posting the low talker from Seinfeld...

But I was just reminded of my calculus prof - PhD from India or Pakistan or somewhere along the sand belt.

I couldn't understand him for money. Plus that high pitched and uptone at the end of sentences. I recall him breaking chalk on the board trying to get his point across. If he had learned to speak English a little better it would have saved money on chalk. :)
Best part of it was he was also the advanced calc prof (nachully) - so I had him two semesters in a row.

:lmao

Yes, ideally loud should be reserved for emergency-attention-getting and it is effective. My middle daughter has a soccer coach who is this way and lotsa parents are letting him know about it. He's from my generation and reminds me of me. Many emergencies in my house if you go by my reactions. Same solution for me and coach. If I can keep 51% of my comments positive and supportive I might be more effective human-relations-wise. Loud has the potential to be celebratory. Also, in a home situation by doing it you are teaching it. My kids are loud too (shocking I know).

I just Googled Dr. Lazarte... he is indeed alive and well and still a member of the faculty where I went to school :) Yay, Dr. Lazarte! I'll bet his English has improved!

Anatta... in my case, it was reserved for dealing with a PayPal customer service rep yesterday :) They will go round and round in circles unless you put a stop to it. It's not their fault... they're taught to pacify customers rather than problem solve.

My most recent struggles with issues like these are related to a project we started about 3 years ago. Brand new field that I had no expertise in, and an extremely complex one. Lots of complicated bioinformatics and statistics. So I was supposed to learn together with collaborators. Now how do we get collaborators? Got a grant for the project, and we needed an official expert on it so asked a Chinese guy who just established his research group in our institution and was considered a top notch person in that field. Great!

So he assigned one of his new postdocs to this collaboration. Turns out he does not speak or write understandable English at all! I was supposed to learn from him these complex analyses, but no way. He did it though, so I tried to figure out the result by myself. He left the job after a year or so. Then we recruited an American guy who had superb publication record in that area and apparently great skills. Brilliant, no more communication barrier so we can progress! No easy luck. This guy turned out to have extreme social anxiety, and all kinds of other anxiety... it was simply impossible to talk with him in person, he would just freeze each time. Still works with us and we communicate almost solely via email. But he gets paranoid all the time about everything and then would not do the work... Still works with us as a collaborator.
This is sort of a cursed project, in a few ways actually :)

Sounds challenging, Haennie :)

.

Oh. Well, if it was Paypal I say, "Well done."

They are a pain. I won't even use them anymore.

okay, I have things to do, my breakfast is already digested while still sitting here..

A couple weeks ago I get a text message from verizon telling me I exceeded my data usage. I've been getting the warnings for days. I told my wife to turn off her phone and I just carried mine as I was meeting someone. When I got the exceeded you are now being charged $15 text I went nuts. After three attempts to finally speak to someone and being on HOLD for twenty minutes, I let out a tapestry of profanity that is still circling Blue Marsh Reservoir today. I was hitting walls and kicking things - I was.
Finally I hear this is **** how may I help you today. Well, I took a breath and in an even clear and low voice I said please listen to what I have to say before you speak again. I said this was third call, I was disconnected while on hold twice, one operator transferred me to a dial tone etc. I explained the situation with the data usage and that we took every precaution to not go over and that I did not expect to go over as I have not used the phone for almost 24 hours, just had it turned on blah-blah-blah. I said, I'm done speaking. She said, I'm sorry about that MrBrain, I'd be happy to refund any over charges and comp you for the month of extra data use. As she was speaking I was walking and lost the call. Two minutes later the phone rang and she was back on the line, apologized for the call interruption and told me she took care of everything while I was off the line. Thank You and have a nice day. :)
I get a call a minute later for a satisfaction survey for the rep - she got all 10's.

So even though I was pissed beyond belief, I held my cool when I spoke to the rep and I was very nice to her telling her I know it wasn't her fault etc...

I won by being a nice guy.

This is actually my first problem with them. We have an ebay store and so it's not like I can drop them. Kind of have to deal with it.

Val Speak
 

Good stuff in this Thread...

And then, there was 'Val Speak' as skewered by Frank Zappa Decades ago with his Daughter 'Moon Unit' nailing it in this hilarious, awkward Video.


'Valley Girl' ~ Frank Zappa

Early in my Career, as Tech Answer Dude, I sprung for Dual Earpiece Headsets w/Mics for several of us. Turns out the Brain Hemispheres process Speech differently. So, hearing an Accent - as we endured plenty of in the Hard Sciences - in both Ears made tough conversations easier to navigate.

I also disciplined myself to listen to the complete sentence. Then, I could rewind mentally and backfill a missing word when the context of use was completed. Otherwise, you get hung up on a word and miss the rest of the sentence. Early practice at 'Detachment'.-)

When I get 'Robert' in Delhi on some Customer Service call I've placed, I simply wish them 'Jai Ho' at the end of the convo.

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Ah, interesting stuff there, MesaMan :) Hemisphere lateralization is so intriguing, isn't it?

"Nice guys finish last" seems to be even more true for leaders. Sure Gandhi may have been soft spoken and humble but he was aiming his message at the world news media. Not something that works well with individuals.

I tried the soft approach when I first started posting here at SR and the recalcitrant crown walked right over me like a doormat. Now I run my flag up the flag pole without worrying about who I offend. My message is a bigger principle than my personality.
Thus the saying "Principles before personalities".

:usa: