Reading instructions

and then...well, reading instructions.
There were three new people at the knitting group yesterday. One of them didn't need any help. It was probably just as well because I am not sure she would have listened to anything we had to say anyway. 
The other two did. They came together. They were from another country. Their first language is Spanish. They were trying to read a knitting pattern in English. 
Oh. I groaned inwardly. I felt for them. The pattern was for a little baby jumper (sweater to you North Americans). It wasn't a difficult pattern in itself but it has - abbreviations. It is written to fit into the smallest space available. 
Oh yes, the abbreviations are "standard" but they are still abbreviations. They are confusing. A lot of people who read English as their first language have problems understanding a knitting pattern. When you are not a native reader of the language and you are a beginning knitter then....
The two of them were very nice. They were intelligent. They were genuinely interested in understanding. Their English was much better than my Spanish will ever be but....this is specialist vocabulary here. We have "knit" and "purl" and they have "punto derecho" and "punto reves". The pattern had a mock "cable" or "torsado".  They were about to start the decreasing for the raglan armhole. They were calling it the "reduction" but in Spanish it is the "disminuciones" or "menguados".
Oh  yes, we got past all of that but there is a point in the pattern where you decrease on the fourth row and then on the alternate rows. You also need to decrease in two different ways - and the pattern assumed that the knitter knows about those things. 
And of course, to add to the complication of actually telling them all this, they knit in a different way. I knit as I was taught by my paternal grandmother - who was taught by her Scots grandmother. They knit what in a way we here in Downunder describe as "continental". The results are the same but the process is different. Of course I didn't need to translate it all. I could not have done that. I just needed to be aware of what they were going through. 
I admire them madly for trying. They could have found a pattern in Spanish. There are plenty around. I have some myself.  But - the little jumper was nice. It is likely to be practical - unlike so many lacy baby garments.
At the end of the afternoon though I looked across at our lone male of the group. He is Japanese. He had been watching us. I knew what he was thinking. The Japanese write all their patterns with the sort of diagrams that even I can follow.  
There should be more of that sort of thing.
I think we got there in the end though because I got a hug and a "muchas gracias"....which is more than I have sometimes got from those who do read English as their first language.