Why Stop at English?
The Philippines is known as a destination when it comes to contact centers and support. Most of us are fluent in English, and the rest of us who aren’t know it and are not averse to using what little we do know. We can copy accents. We are unafraid of using idioms and metaphors. And we understand their humor. Even in the game industry, which I am part of, we get outsource work because our clients say we, not only are easy to coordinate with since we know the language, but also get the appeal.
Let me tell you a story of something that happened some years back. We noticed that Vietnam was beginning to emerge as a competitor for the Philippines in the game outsource business. The Philippines was supposed to be the perfect game outsource destination because we understood the aesthetics of both eastern and western popular culture. And while we hadn’t really heard of us losing to Vietnam in our outsource bids with our US clients, we were losing to Vietnam in terms of annual game-related revenues. So, I was sent there on a “spy mission” to find out what kind of support they had that allowed them to grow at the rate they were growing. And also, who were their clients? So, off to Vietnam I went, and my host took me to one of the biggest software outsourcing firms in their country. That one facility had 3,000 developers, and I found out that they were servicing the Japanese Market.
We didn’t have a lot of Japanese projects in the Philippine Game Industry. We serviced the US mostly, because we could speak English. But Vietnam hardly spoke English, and it’s not like they learn Japanese in school. So, how?
They went and learned Japanese. All the project managers in that Vietnamese software firm spoke Japanese. That wasn’t all. Another big industry they had in Hanoi was manufacturing. And their clients were Koreans. The Vietnamese learn the language of the clients they wanted to work with. When I came back to the Philippines, I asked why we didn’t work with the Japanese, and I was told it was because they didn’t speak English. And that was when I suddenly realized, why is that stopping us?
Let’s talk about us, Filipinos, for a bit. We all know we are multi-lingual. Right from the start, when we are born, we are already exposed to two languages: Filipino and English. If you’re a Filipino-Chinese, that’s three languages: Filipino, English, and Fukien. If you’re from a traditional Filipino-Chinese family, you’ll have learned four: Filipino, English, and Fukien, and the Mandarin you’ll have learned in the Chinese school your parents enrolled you in. If you’re from a traditional Filipino-Chinese family living in the province, you’d probably know five: those I’ve mentioned, plus Cebuano or Ilonggo or whatever language or dialect your region speaks. Six if you were born before the ‘80s, when Spanish was a required subject in school. And you’d probably know some words or phrases from a seventh if you’re into the whole Anime or K-Pop craze.
We do not fear language. We treat language like neighborhood friends. We play with them, tease them, adopt them into our own verbal family, and feed them incessantly with various delicious tidbits our mother tongue feels like offering, as evidenced by how we like to make tusok-tusok our fishballs, or have Ditses who like wearing bakyas and hikaws. We’re great with contexts. We can ano a kuan without breaking a sweat. We read manga and American comics and get the humor. We watch Korean and Brazilian soap operas and get the appeal. That’s why we love foreign media. Couple that with the fact that we also love puns, and, lo and behold, it’s more fun in the Philippines when you have shops like Hair Force One Barber Shop, Lord of the Wings Grill, and Bread Pit Bakery. It’s not really surprising since studies show that it’s easy for people who already know two languages to learn a third or fourth one. And the Filipino average is actually three. So, here’s my question. Why are we stopping at English?
Forget the cost or curriculum or where you’ll get teachers for now. Just imagine with me. What if we had foreign language as part of our basic education curriculum? It doesn’t have to be standardized. We don’t all have to learn Spanish. But maybe one school, whose vision for their students is, say, to work in diplomatic settings like the UN, can decide to offer French. From kindergarten up until they graduate senior high, their students will learn French. And another school whose push is, say, business, can offer Mandarin. This isn’t too far out as there are a lot of Chinese schools in the Philippines already. But what if Filipinos now can choose to study in these schools, not because their lineage dictates so, but because it’s something they want for their future. Culinary-focused schools can teach Italian. Tech-focused schools can teach Japanese. And maybe even primary and high schools who aim to produce performers and entertainers can teach Korean.
Imagine how a world like that would look like. We will have more Filipinos working in international companies. We could do business in China and haggle like a native. We could work in our dream game companies, be a Korean pop star, set-up a fashion house in Milan, darling, and no language barrier could stop us. We could target any industry we want in any country we want, and we would be able to enter it.
We could conquer the world. So tell me again, why are we stopping at English?
