Language Barrier

PR has always been fun for me. I maybe took 3 weeks to understand what PR was, but once I understood, it became more fun day by day. I am sure that some students, reading this post, are saying to themselves that there is still hope. Since I am doing an Australian degree, all my units are in English. Learning everything in English? No problem, I have been doing that since 3 years old. I never thought this could be an issue for me since here in Mauritius we speak both English and French. When I left college, I was more fluent in French (written and spoken) than in English. I remember in my first year, I was replying to lecturers in French and I was constantly being told to talk in English. Now that I am used to English, it has become harder for me to speak and write in French. However, I told myself, it would not be an issue since I was doing an Australian degree. I was once again completely wrong!

By Marcus Koljonen under Creative Commons License

My mistake was that I did not think about the future. Being a Mauritian, I thought it would never be a problem for me to work in a Mauritian PR organisation. Fourth day of internship, I was doing a task when the supervisor asked the other intern to update something and that something was, I quote, “un ours”! Wait, did he say ‘ours’? Update ‘un ours’, what does that mean? For me ‘ours’ is the French word for bear. How can somebody update an animal? I asked if he said ‘ours’ and the other intern said yes. I stopped what I was doing and searched for the word on Google. ‘Ours’ is simply the French term given to the information written at the start or the end of a document. This may include names, addresses, organisation names, email addresses…etc.  ‘Ours’ is not the only French term they use here. I also came across terms such as ‘dossier de press’ (media kit), ‘communiqué de presse’ (Media release), ‘document d’information’ (Backgrounder)… etc. However these French terms were easy to be understood compared to ‘ours’.

Mauritius is maybe a country in which we talked both English and French but the media here works mainly in French. Having an Australian degree is cool but in the working world, not everyone will take into consideration that you did your degree in English. You are in a country in which people talk more in French than English, as a PR practitioner you should be fluent in both (written and spoken).

Lesson learned! Now, if I come across an English PR term, I make sure to look for the French one and vice versa. Better be on the safe side and not look ridiculous when being asked to do a task.