Providing ATC in a country with a language you don't speak

[Jeroen DeRyck 1342499]

Hi all

 

I'm a member of a French VA, and we obviously have LFPG as base airport. I love to fly on VATSIM, but I noticed there where little to none flight bound for Paris, even after the release of T2G LFPG.

That got me thinking, I came to the conclusion that it is due to the lack of ATC in France.

I'm thinking about doing ATC myself, however French isn't my native language. I'm from Belgium (Flanders), so Dutch is my native language. I do speak a bit French, but it is far from fluently. Would this be a problem, since the language when contacting ATC is English?

 

Thanks a lot.

DagelijksGamer

[Sean Harrison]

Hey Jeroen, English is the norm. Sign up for the training.

[Joshua Black]

English is the norm... All controllers and pilots need to be able to communicate in English. However, I know some regions allow controllers to speak another language on the radio if they so choose, but English must always be an option.

 

For example, Montreal FIR in Canada have controller who speak French. If a pilot speaks French on the frequency, they will communicate in French. If a pilot is speaking English, they will speak English to that pilot. This is matched in the real world.

[Dace Nicmane]

You have to contact the French vACC and ask them. Some places do require speaking the local language.

[Morten Jelle]

In case they require that, they are breaking the regulations that are made. The only language people need to speak is english.

[Jeroen DeRyck 1342499]

Thanks for all the replies, I just read in the VATFrance ATC regulations that they require you to speak a basic level of French. I'll contact vatfrance and think about it a bit more. Thanks guys!

[Sean Harrison]

Thank you, for wanting to provide services to pilots. It's great to see Jeroen.

[Adam Trzcinski]

Thanks for all the replies, I just read in the VATFrance ATC regulations that they require you to speak a basic level of French. I'll contact vatfrance and think about it a bit more. Thanks guys!

 

If they require it, they are in violation of VATSIM rules.

We had the same topic in Germany and the conclusion is: You only need to be able to speak English. If you are willing and interesting in learning bits of especially VFR phraseology in the local language, it is appreciated, but not a requirement.

[Andreas Fuchs]

Absolutely. Just apply there and communicate with them to make sure that your application will not be rejected for this reason. France can surely be happy to have more controllers.

[Florian Harms]

Gents,

thanks for the answer to the colleague. However, it is simply too short to state "English is primary" and so on as it sounded in a few answers.

 

It is correct that English is primary language in VATSIM. However: if a mentor is unable to mentor in English, nothing is won. And we have many local organisations in VATSIM in which the ATC team might have problems to give trainings in English. Its not nice, but it is simply the situation. Since mentors are working in their free time to give knowledge to trainees, who should convince them to do that in a language they might be not perfect in? Lets face it, this approach might not work out at all. Giving training is a service from members to members and nothing else.

Furthermore, in some areas you really need local language knowledge. ATC runs in all ICAO Languages. And especially the coordination work with other controllers in a Control Zone might also need local language knowledge. But this stuff is not un-learnable.

 

However, in VACC France I don't see a problem.

 

Flo

[Ernesto Alvarez 818262]

Thats a bit odd cause I remember when I was with the Cuban FIR we were flat out told no, we couldnt make spanish a requirement to be a controller. Doesnt seem to be a solid consensus there if its ok to do in some areas and not the other

[Josh Glottmann]

There's a difference between makinng it a requirement to control and making it a requirement to train.

[Ernesto Alvarez 818262]

aka one of those fun little loopholes. Which is still making it a requirement to control

 

Its much easier i guess then reaching out to neighbors for support

[Josh Glottmann]

You can't expect everyone to speak English.

[Ernesto Alvarez 818262]

I dont. But im pretty sure that is actually a network requirement, not mastery but at least read it. if you can read it, guess what else can be done? P[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing on information (ie training). Eventually a student gets into the trainer position, now you have someone who can do it fluently instead of blocking them from the start, which stops that from happening.

 

Gotta think long term.

 

Ive yet to see a single area on the network that has absolutely no users that dont speak or read english at any level.

[Sean Harrison]

Hang on. So if the controller mentors can't speak English..... and train other controller unless they speak French........ what happens when a pilot enters French airspace? I can't follow the comment that the current controllers only speak French so they can't train English speakers!

 

Who is talking to the pilots then?

[Bradley Grafelman]

So if the controller mentors can't speak English

Who said they can't? Being able to speak a language doesn't necessarily mean you're able to participate in instruction-type discussions where you're teaching new material to someone using that language.

[Sean Harrison]

Ok, just seems a little weird to me. I accept that this is the case.

[Andreas Fuchs]

On the other hand it is not that hard to learn the standard-phraseology in French, for example. Same in German. In Germany we happily permit non-German speakers to visit, but we will appreciate if they make an effort to learn the German radio telephony phraseology for our local VFR-customers.