I was married to a woman for 9 years who spoke fluent Spanish, and worked in a school district where it was necessary to be bilingual in order to teach her students. She was about as fair haired and light skinned as you can get, but she was fluent. So how much Spanish did I learn being married to this wonderful woman for 9 years? Poquito. If you do not write or speak Spanish that translates to "a little bit". I even tried at one point to speak nothing but Spanish in our house for a period of 2 weeks, hoping I could force myself to learn the language, but by Friday of the second week, I wanted to strangle her for not speaking to me in English. As a result, my Spanish comprehension is minimal, and to state that I "habla espanol" is kind of a joke. I understand much, but speak very little.
Which leads me to a series of luncheons which I have to give for a strictly Spanish speaking staff, in a very Latin part of Los Angeles. I am not equipped to handle this task, no matter how funny I think I am. It is true that humor can be a universal language, but that's only if you're a slapstick comedian, and not a health care rep trying to convey the advantages of your product. So starting last week, I visited 4 different clinics all dedicated to the treatment of primarily Hispanic/Latin patients. In addition, I was to assist the clinical educator on the nature of our products, what we could do for the patients, and how to order certain medical supplies through my company. And all of this presentation they wanted in Spanish because my predecessor had been bilingual, and they wanted to keep their service level "status quo".
The educator was very nice and offered to translate, but she wanted me to read the presentation in Spanish, and see how the patients and staff would respond. She felt it would bring me closer to the patients and secure more orders as a result. Consequently, I found a Spanish presentation, took it home, and practiced speaking and pronouncing the words correctly for an audience of one. I got really good at it over a the course of a few hours, and by the time I went to bed, I felt that I had practically mastered the language, or at least the sounds of the language. I think the two margaritas helped with my pronunciation, but I could not be too sure, since after two margaritas much judgment was slightly impaired.
The next day, I was set to present in front of 20 patients, along with a few doctors and a few nurses. I figured all I had to do was read and then let the educator take over if there were any preguntas/questions. I started by introducing myself:
"Mucho gusto seniores et senoritas. Me llamo es M. Si traballo es ________Healthcare."
I heard a few snickers, so I assumed my accent must have been really bad, or my diction. Yet I forged ahead, despite their laughter.
"Bueno, bueno. Hoy estoy aqui, porque tengo incontinencia. " I said and the snickering started again, and there were even a few laughs.
"Cuanto tiempo?", an older man asked in the front row. I assumed he was talking about the length of the presentation so I answered in Spanish.
"Aproximadamente una hora", which means about one hour. I remembered that from one of my old Spanish classes and at this point, I was feeling quite comfortable with my Spanish. It was all coming back to me.
"El bano es abajos" he said and everyone started laughing and I assumed he meant the bathroom, so I responded accordingly.
" Oh. Gracias, gracias, senior. Esta bien. Yo ya fuil al bano" And they were still laughing. I believed I had told him that I already knew where the bathroom was located and I didn't need to use it at the moment.
"En los pantalones?" he said and made a gesture towards my pants, and he smiled.
I thought he was referring to the style of my pants which he liked, but I didn't know how to respond so I just said, "Si, si." And when I did, the whole room started laughing, including the nurses and the educator. I was embarrassed so I tried to pull the educator aside. In the meantime the whole room was making comments in Spanish and laughing.
"Why is everyone laughing so hard?", I asked her.
"It's your Spanish. It's funny.", she answered.
" Well that's good isn't it? At least there laughing right?"
" Do you even know what you said just now?", she asked and she was chuckling to herself.
" Yeah. I said I was here to talk about incontinence and then that old man asked me how long and I said an hour, and then he asked if I'd been to the bathroom. Which I responded no. I didn't get the comment about my pants though."
She burst out laughing again, and at this point I was perplexed, so I asked, "My Spanish is not that good, so what exactly did I say?"
She said, "First of all you said 'I have incontinence', and when he asked you how long, you said about an hour. Then when he said the bathroom is downstairs and you told him you had already gone to the bathroom." and then she started laughing again and was trying to stop but couldn't hold back the laughter.
"What else?", I said, a little annoyed by the whole situation.
"In your pants. You said you went to the bathroom in your pants." , she said and laughed out loud and so did everyone else.
My faced turned red and I was thoroughly embarrassed, " I thought it sounded good."
She put her hand on my shoulder, "It did,. It did. Good speaking, but poor translation."
"Well, I might as well have peed in my pants now. Where's those diaper samples?", I said and then we all started laughing together. The older man grabbed a diaper sample and threw it at me and everyone began cracking up; myself included.
Lesson learned. Don't let your message get lost in the translation. No matter who your selling to or what language you're speaking. Have a great day selling!
-M
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