Recording the answerphone message on one's mobile is normally a (relatively) simple and painless procedure. You say your stuff, inwardly wince as you hear it played back to you, seethe at the rather long-winded voice prompts, and that's that.
But now I live in Brussels it's a bit more of a minefield. After all, what languages should I use, and in what order?
My usual protocol when living outside of the UK is that the first message should be in the language of the place I'm living in (if I speak it) followed by English. Well Brussels is officially bilingual, and so (ever supportive of the underdog) my usual principles would dictate Flemish first, then French, then English. And that's what I've done.
It's a bit problematic, though, for the following reasons:-
1) 2 languages is acceptable - 3 starts to sound like showing off, and after all, everybody understands the text of an answerphone greeting - it could be in Ruritanian, as long as there's a voice you recognise followed by a beep.
2) The two languages that most of my callers currently have as their mother tongue, English and German, come off rather poorly in this arrangement.
But I can't really come up with an acceptable alternative. French without Flemish would be against my principles - the Flemings are forgotten often enough in Brussels, and I might meet a perfectly lovely one next week, who I'd just as soon not disappoint with a Francocentric voicemail mesage. Flemish without French would just be stupid in Brussels, which is 85 percent Francophone. And English on its own smacks of wilfully snubbing the country I have, after all, chosen to live in.
So there we are. Three languages it has to remain, I'm afraid.
Posted by Eurodan at October 15, 2003 7:41 PMI'm disappointed. I was expecting you to have found the appropriate shared vocabulary to allow you to record just one message that would be understood by all of your friends :-)
Posted by: Shyboy at October 15, 2003 8:45 PMHmm... that's quite an interesting concept actually... But then I think everyone understands English anyway - it's spreading like bindweed you know! ;-)
Posted by: Eurodan at October 15, 2003 10:50 PM¿Que?
Posted by: Shyboy at October 15, 2003 11:57 PMA message not actually in any single language but understood by everyone would be inclusive and inoffensive.
English should not be the primary language on an answering machine except in an English speaking country.
Of course, following this directive there will be a transition period to allow linguistically challenged people (like me) to get sufficient grasp of the native tongue of the country in which they reside to be able to converse on the telephone ("¿Habla Ingles?" unfortunately doesn't qualify :-)
Posted by: Shyboy at October 16, 2003 12:24 AMYou could just leave the network's default message in place, which I'm afraid is what I do.
Or issue a series of unintelligible grunts:
"Ugh ugh ug beep."
Posted by: matt at October 16, 2003 12:02 PMAdam: All this talk of directives and language allocations shows clearly that you have missed your vocation - you should be working somewhere in the European Commission! (Or have you installed a bug somewhere secretly?)
Matt: As for the default message - that's a can of worms as well, I'm afraid, as you have to choose the language of that too!
Posted by: Eurodan at October 16, 2003 6:13 PMAs my result in the Political Compass test (http://www.politicalcompass.org/) illustrates, I'm too far to the libertarian left corner (-8,-7) to actually be allowed near any position of power.
I think what's lurking behind my utterances is a fervent belief in the value of diversity and a desire to discourage anything that serves to homogenise the world.
With only three languages you're also neglecting your Swedish and Polish speaking friends ;-)
Posted by: Shyboy at October 17, 2003 3:38 PMI think any message which I recorded in Polish would be so painfully bad that it would be kinder to them not to bother ;-)
Posted by: Eurodan at October 17, 2003 5:05 PMI've just heard an example of exactly this sort of dilemma on the Gatwick Express. The announcement of our imminent arrival at Victoria started somewhere around East Croydon, as it took about 10 minutes to wade through the 5 languages :-)
I suspect the goodwill created amongst speakers of French, German, Spanish and Italian using the service for the first time is matched by the annoyance caused to regular travellers trying to work or converse, who wish it would just shut up ;-)
Posted by: ShyBoy at November 11, 2003 2:35 PMYes - indeed - good point!
Posted by: Eurodan at November 16, 2003 8:52 PM