Everyone speaks English to Alex?

Discuss the June 2017 Book of the Month, Superhighway by Alex Fayman. Superhighway is the first book in the Superhighway Trilogy, so feel free to use this forum to discuss not only the first book but also the other books in the series.

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Mindy Conahye
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Re: Everyone speaks English to Alex?

Post by Mindy Conahye »

I never thought about this while I was reading the book. I think I've read other books that the characters all speak English though they're in a different country. Good observation.
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stonehaven494
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Post by stonehaven494 »

I hadn't noticed that inconsistency, but it's true; it doesn't make sense that everyone knows English, conveniently. There are other things about the story that I think need work, like character development and more suspense when there's action, but overall, I thought it was a pretty good read.
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aprenni
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Post by aprenni »

I hadn't noticed this particular inconsistency, but now that you mention it, it is very distracting. I had been focused on some other distracting inconsistencies during the book, but it would've made the book 100 times better if Fayman had mentioned some sort of language barrier. Alex simply could've downloaded a Dutch dictionary on one of his web trips, and this issue would've been explained away. But it makes sense that people would talk to him in English in hotels and other very touristy areas. When I traveled abroad, I (and my cohorts) stood out as American, and restaurant servers, cashiers, and other service people immediately spoke to us in English because we were in such high touristy areas. However, as soon as you go to a less touristy spot, they speak their home language first. So it doesn't make sense that the homeless shelter would speak English, or the mobsters outside of the city. Stewart may have initially tried waking him in Dutch, but switched to English thinking that Alex didn't understand Dutch. Otherwise, though, there should've been some sort of language barrier mentioned and dealt with throughout the course of the novel.
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Post by jjmainor »

I imagine some countries get so many American tourists, it's not that hard to find someone who speaks English, but the suspension of disbelief left me when the newspaper showed up in English.
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Mai Tran
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Post by Mai Tran »

I noticed that too, but it was something I had to accept in order to enjoy the book. I agree with aprenni, it would have been more realistic if the author had mentioned some sort of language barrier.
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Post by DC Brown »

dbulkley wrote: 01 Aug 2018, 12:21 I didn’t catch this, but excellent point. Adds to the many things I didn’t like about it!
Glad you mentioned there were other things that bothered you in this book. I hadn't actually thought about the language barriers, but there were other disconnects that I did notice...
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Post by Atara Miles »

That was another peeve I had with this story. I thought maybe he could translate it due to his bouncing through the internet and since the internet isn't limited to one language, it just came with the package. Even if this is the case, Fayman doesn't actually provide an explanation for that, so that's just my assumption and not a fact.
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Post by Sarah Schmidt »

I found this questionable, too. There are a lot of people that speak English, yes, but the likelihood of Alex running into so many people without fail who do is slim to none. This wasn't continuous with reality and was another area that required improvement in the story.
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Post by Moneybag »

It was wired though, but yes everyone did.
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