Crew who learned a language from the job: how, which one, and did the passengers notice
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#1 Turkish Airlines, British, and I learned Turkish because I was lonely and then because I was curious and now because it is the best part of my day. That made me wonder how many crew have learned a language from the job rather than for it, and how.
How I did it
Not an app. Or, an app for the first 300 words, and then the galley. Turkish crew speak Turkish when they are tired and I started asking what they had said. Then the announcements, which I copied phonetically until I understood them. Then a teacher, once a week, for a year. Then the layover in Ankara where I ordered, argued about the bill and got directions in Turkish and felt like I had been given a second personality.
What changed on the aircraft
The Turkish passengers noticed within a sentence. An English crew member speaking Turkish, even badly, changes the temperature of a cabin. The grandmothers adopted me. The businessmen stopped being short with me. The children found it hilarious. And the crew, the biggest change, stopped treating me as a guest.
Other languages I have watched crew pick up
Arabic from the Gulf carriers, the greetings and the numbers first, then more. Spanish from the Latin American routes on the US carriers. Japanese from the Tokyo layovers, at least enough to get through a restaurant. Tagalog from Filipino colleagues, which every Gulf crew member ends up with a few phrases of.
The question
Did you learn one, which one, how, and did it change anything? Especially interested in people who learned Arabic in the Gulf, because I am wondering about it as a next one.
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#2 Kenyan at Emirates, and I learned Arabic to about a conversational level in three years. The greetings and numbers in month one changed how the Gulf passengers treated me. The rest I got from a Syrian flatmate and a Lebanese purser who corrected my grammar in the galley. It is the single best thing I have done for my career here.
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#3 Korean Air, and I learned Japanese from the Osaka and Tokyo layovers because the Japanese passengers are the most grateful when you try. Two years of restaurant Japanese, then a proper course. Now I get the Japan routes by request.
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#4 Italian, and I have picked up enough Tagalog to make my Filipino colleagues cry laughing. That is the correct level for Tagalog if you are not Filipino.
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#5 Delta, and Spanish from the Mexico and Central America flying. A year of Duolingo got me nowhere. A month of talking to the Salvadoran cleaners at the crew hotel got me somewhere. The job is the teacher.
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#7 Moroccan at Qatar, and the reverse: I have had to learn Gulf Arabic, which is not the Arabic I grew up with. Passengers from the Gulf notice the Moroccan words and smile. Different problem, same reward.
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#8 Finnair, and the honest answer is Swedish, which I should have learned at school and finally learned because the Stockholm routes shamed me into it. Not exotic. Useful.