I've been at Neuroscience, so I don't know if anyone responded to the problem
of the Japanese woman who had withdrawn. I forwarded the post to a friend in
Japan (old undergrad roommate from Hokkaido). Here's her response:
Begin forward:
About the mail from the newsgroup, I can imagine how
hard for the writer to cope with the Japanese lady and
how uncomfortable for the lady to be in the lab.
I think the problem is that she came to America without
thinking about the language obstacles. As if she would
be a student, the situation would be much better...
I think this lady is very strange from my point of view. She
should work hard to enhance her English and try to be
nice to people around her. Or at least she should talk to
people in a plain English what the problems are. If she
can't , she should write them and consult her boss or
whoever would like to be of any help for her. It might
be easy to say that she is a spoiled baby, but people
around her are to have more patience and to give her
a lend a hand.
End forward
I think the suggestion of writing down questions that are hard for her to
verbalize is a good one. I know my other languages work more easily for me in
written form, and there's no accent problem <g>.
Hope this helps.
Peg.
