Gary Brown: Becoming multilingual through medical procedures
One of the advantages of getting old and falling apart is that you can learn another language − actually many languages − through your Medicare notices.
"Usted tiene derecho a obtener informacion de Medicare en un formato accesible, corno letra grande, Braille o audio," a recent notice said, telling me, in Spanish, translated, "You have the right to get Medicare information in an accessible format, like large print, Braille, or audio."
Granted, I'd have to learn other words in Spanish for this to be helpful for any other reason than Medicare claims. But, just for example, merely learning the two words "guardar silencio," which − I looked it up − mean "remain silent," I'd be able to understand the complete warning, "You have the right to remain silent," in the event that I ever got arrested and charged with anything in a Spanish-speaking country.
I'm not planning on that happening any time soon, but it's reassuring to be prepared.
And, just to be even more safe, I'm learning "El verdadero ladron corrio de esa manera" from the internet, as well, so I can point and say what I now know means "the real crook ran that way."
The notice went on to say "Si solicita informacion en un formato accesible de CMS, no estara en desventaja por el tiempo adicional necesario que nos tome proveer la informacion," which translates to, "If you request information in an accessible format from CMS, you won't be disadvantaged by any additional time necessary to provide it."
There are a lot of words in there that could be handy in a huge number of Spanish sentences. The "el tiempo" and "adicional" alone would allow me to ask the time on the street or order more coffee in a restaurant. How handy is that?
Other languages also translated
But, like an old television kitchen gadget ad once insisted, "there's more."
The paragraph that talked about how any of us who are receiving Medicare Summary Notices "have the right to get help and information in your language at no cost" was translated into more than a dozen other languages: Arabic, Armenian, French, German, Haitian Creole, Italian, Japanese Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese.
I can become multilingual just by being old and decrepit, with a bunch of chronic medical problems. All I have to do is read just a small part of my Medicare mailings after each doctor's visit. And, really, why wouldn't I invest that time? What else do I have to do at my age besides watching Netflix, solving newspaper puzzles and reading government mailings?
Granted, some of the languages − Korean, Japanese and Armenian come to mind − are translated on the notice into squiggles and other symbols. I don't know how I could pronounce anything that I can't recognize as words and letters.
The Russian translation is a little difficult to comprehend and pronounce, as well. Some of the letters appear to be upside down or sideways, others have lines through them, and a few appear to be entirely new letters, like someone just made them up. But, I figure if I ever had to use any of the Russian words I could just put special emphasis on the pronounciation of the "e" and "n" and "p" and 'b" − and fill in the rest sounding a little like I'm talking from the back of my throat − and I'll make out all right.
Europe well represented
But, other translations offer a fairly identifiable alphabet and a relatively easy pattern of pronunciation, if you understand any of the accent marks over some of the letters.
Of course, you do have to note the subtle differences in translations of "If you" in French ("Si vous") and Italian ("Se voi") and Portuguese ("Se voce") before crossing any European borders. And, you probably should look up the correct pronunciation of "you" in Creole (Si oumenm) before talking to any particular real "you" people in Haiti.
But, other than that, if you study your Medicare paperwork for even a short time you'll be able to admit, sort of humbly and only technically, that, "Yeah, I've been able to learn how to speak 14 languages since I retired. It really wasn't that hard."
Sure, continuing education night courses in any of the languages might give you a better understanding of the vocabulary and grammatical structure of any of the languages. But, we old taxpayers already are paying for Medicare. Why not get double the benefit from it?
Reach Gary at gary.brown.rep@gmail.com. On Twitter: @gbrownREP.
On Twitter: @gbrownREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Gary Brown: Becoming multilingual through medical procedures
