Language Barriers

Where i work, we have a rather large amount of customers who don't speak english as a primary language. This in itself isn't a problem at all. Normally they speak enough to communicate, or we just muddle through without saying a lot. All is well.

Sometimes however, it becomes a significant problem. A good example has occured recently.
I have a customer, and he likes to talk a lot. He talks loudly and energetically, with much pointing of fingers and waving off hands. That's nice. He doesn't, however, speak much english. Or if he does, he chooses not to.

He seems to have the unique impression that i will magically learn arabic or whatever it is, if he occasionally and randomly inserts english words into his sentences. This leaves me with the task of picking out enough of these words to understand what on earth is going on. Generally, i fail. Curiously, he seems to understand what i say back to him. I think.

Worse still, he always brings a friend. Together they chatter away in thier own tongue, in the same lively manner. After a few minutes your brain has decided it's not going to get anything useful from this and takes a well-deserved rest. Suddenly, however, the attention is back on you, with some hand waving, foreign chatter and those scarce few, precious english words. Bear in mind of course that he has a very strong accent, so these are reasonably difficult to understand, even for a seasoned veteran.
They've told me they'll be back for more stuff tomorrow. I'll enjoy that. I've always enjoyed hide-and seek.