report if signs are in langauges other than Spanish, Chines Haitian Creole or English

I had to laugh when I saw the directions for this shop at a popular money transfer agent...Now, I would be able to tell if a sign is in Spanish or Haitian Creole, as I'm familiar with those languages from having studied those languages, and seeing them in print often enough in from when I lived in Boston and NY. chinese I can't tell from Japanese, though at tleast in my area, it would be highly unlikely to see either. Still, just have to laugh, how are people supposed to tell if signs are in some other foreign language if they're not familiar with the look of Spanish/Haitian Creole/Chinese?

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

More About Reports

If you see Spanish, Haitian, English, and some thing that could be Chinese or Japanese -- figure it's Chinese. If you see any other signs, say Yes. Unless they ask you what other languages are there, it may not be all that hard to figure out. And you can always ask someone, "I see you do business in Spanish and Haitian, but what other language(s) do I see on your signs?"

Time to build a bigger bridge.

I guess you could only report signs in other languages besides those specified if you knew for certain that was the case.

@dspeaks, what I meant was, I could tell if something was Spanish or Haitian Creole, so I would know if there were signs posted in languages not belonging to those groups, but there are shoppers who might not know, especially 'regarding the Haitian Creole

I travel to Japan and China frequently. Japan uses three different "alphabets" including the Chinese alphabet. The other two alphabets look quite different, but I would be unable to say unequivocaly whether a sign using the Chinese alphabet was in Chinese or Japanese. In the US, if I was in an area with a lot of Chinese restaurants or businesses, I would go with the sign being in Chinese. I see signs in Chinese in Philadephia and San Francisco and a lot of other cities if I am in the right part of town. Haitian Creole would have elements of French in it. I can recognize the Cyrillic alphabet, but I would be unable to tell if it was Russian, or Ukranian, or any of another languages.

I have done the same shop, and last Spring I got into trouble for translating a Spanish sign into English (which I was able to do), so the next time I left it in Spanish, and got into trouble with MSC for doing that. I guess it depends upon the editor.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

Well, that comment would be meant for you, for others, if all they recognized was Spanish, they could still ask, "So what are these other languages on these posters?"

Time to build a bigger bridge.

Haitian Creole looks extremely different from French, almost spelled phonetically. For ex, the french "quois" is spelled "kwa". Most people would not know it. All I'm saying is, if you dont have familiarity with the written form of a language, how would a shopper know its not one of the approved languages? And that would be a really weird question to ask at a money wiring/check cashing place. Would definitely identify one as a mystery shopper

Ebit - thanks for the information about how Haitian Creole is spelled. I have only heard it on the news occasionally, and made an incorrect assumption. I agree that making the decision about the language of a sign assumes knowledge that shoppers do not usually have, and I doubt if any of us is familiar with all of the approved languages, let alone all the unapproved languages. So far, I have only encountered Spanish and what I decided was Chinese. Korean also has a very distinctive alphabet, but not an approved language for signs.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

I wonder why they limit their languages for signs. You'd think they'd want to reach the most customers!

Could have something to do with the language the forms are printed in and language customer service is available in.

Chinese tends to have more lines in the characters than Japanese, and few if any circles in the characters the way Korean does. That's how I'd tell them apart.

ebit123 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Haitian Creole looks extremely different from
> French, almost spelled phonetically. For ex, the
> french "quois" is spelled "kwa". Most people would
> not know it. All I'm saying is, if you dont have
> familiarity with the written form of a language,
> how would a shopper know its not one of the
> approved languages? And that would be a really
> weird question to ask at a money wiring/check
> cashing place. Would definitely identify one as a
> mystery shopper

Hmm, it's a question that I, or the people I know, would be very apt to ask. Maybe you're saying that people who ask that sort of question aren't the sort of people who use money wiring/check cashing places?

No not at all, just would be weird for anyone to ask that, especially at these money wiring places where the person is behind glass (last time I did one, I guess I wasn't discreet enough taking the picture, and the guy came running out yelling at me - drove away real fast!). Anyway, could be regional. I'm in New England; we are not known for getting into conversations with people we don't know.

Anyway, I should say I am pretty good at identifying languages in print because of my "real job" - ESL Teacher in a diverse school - I end up knowing a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but nothing fluently. However, I do know other ESL teachers who can't really tell the difference between Spanish and Portuguese (basically, Portuguese has tons of accent marks and more vowel pairs). There is a good chance in my area that signs could be in Portuguese, though, and someone not familiar with Portuguese might assume it's Spanish because a lot of similar words.

I did this shop tonight and didn't see any other languages. That was the easy part. The hard part was that the answer to my "problem" was "I don't know". They didn't even have the form they were supposed to give me. I love it when I shop goes sideways because what is supposed to happens doesn't. You are left to scramble and figure out where to go. Needless to say it did not go well.

I did this shop yesterday and my scenario was to send money to Mexico (and then cancel at the last second.) The problem was, they had no idea how to send money to Mexico and suggested I go somewhere else.

He who laughs last thinks slowest.

Silver Certified

Maybe the msc should provide short examples of each language in their guidelines so a shopper would have an idea of what they look like.

*********************
I'm "Sandi" in the Middle!

I imagine many of us have some familiarity with some of those languages, but all of them? They really expect a lot of us don't they?

Happily shopping Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts and Connecticut

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

report if signs are in langauges other than Spanish, Chines Haitian Creole or English

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine