Bring your own dictionaries

BUSAN, South Korea: Communication is one of the main barriers at the Busan 2002 Asian Games for journalists, not only because most South Koreans do not speak English, but also because of the diversity of languages being used by the journalists themselves.

From Arabic, Urdu and Malay to Japanese, Chinese and even Russian. You name it and it is probably being spoken here.

Sometimes journalists have to exchange information on each other's contingent's strengths and weaknesses. But most of the times, English is just not enough.

An Indonesian journalist was seen communicating with a Chinese colleague using an electronic English-Chinese-English dictionary to make their conversation easier.

"I think I should have brought a lot of dictionaries to interview athletes or officials from far away countries," Yunas Santhani Azis of Kompas said.--JP