DMV Tries to Remove Clients’ Linguistic Roadblocks

The word for “signal” in Tagalog is senyas.

The word for “brake” in Spanish is freno.

And the phrase for “stop the car” in Mandarin Chinese is ting che.

It helps to know such terms when you are a driving examiner for the Department of Motor Vehicles, particularly in Southern California, one of the most racially and ethnically diverse regions in the nation.

In Los Angeles County alone, the agency serves a population that speaks at least 120 tongues, from obscure Mayan dialects to the more familiar Korean, French, Russian and Spanish. Nearly 40% of county residents were born in another country.

As a result, DMV officials are forced to get a bit creative when serving a burgeoning number of motorists whose grasp of the English language is tenuous at best. The DMV not only translates its literature into dozens of languages, it also relies on three-way conference calls, gestures and quick, hand-drawn illustrations to communicate with non-English speakers.

Lois Johnson, a former driving examiner who heads the Culver City office of the DMV, has used all of these tactics in the 17 years she has worked for the agency.

She said that when she was an examiner and couldn’t communicate with an applicant, she turned to gestures and hand-drawn illustrations.

“Hand signals work fairly well,” she said. “I rarely run into a problem.”

Few other state agencies publish their literature in as many languages as the DMV. The California driver’s handbook--the Cliff Notes for the driving test--is offered in five languages: English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Tagalog.

The written test is published in 31 tongues, from Arabic to Vietnamese. (It is also given in American Sign Language.)

Every two years, the DMV conducts a survey to determine which languages are spoken by its clients. Based on the results, the department decides whether to publish the driving test or the handbooks in a new language.

In 1998, the agency began offering the written test in its latest language, Turkish.

But English is still the official language of the American road, so the DMV also tests all license applicants to ensure that they understand the meaning of every street sign.

For example, Spanish speakers who see the “No U-turn” sign on a test must choose the corresponding phrase prohibido dar vuelta en U.

State law does not require the DMV to be so accommodating.

The agency is required only to translate its material into languages spoken by more than 5% of the population. Spanish is the only language that qualifies under the law.

But DMV spokesman Steven Haskins said his department goes beyond the minimum requirement to make safe and legal drivers out of as many motorists as possible.

That is not always easy.

Johnson, the former DMV examiner, said things can get sticky when a non-English speaker comes into a field office to discuss a complicated problem, such as a drunk driving conviction or a lost vehicle registration.

If a customer speaks Russian, for example, Johnson must consult a list to find a local DMV employee who knows the language. Once she locates that person, she sets up a three-way conference call with the customer.

That doesn’t work during a driving test, so the DMV supplies its examiners with pamphlets that list key phrases and words in eight languages. The examiners use the phrases to give instructions to the applicant during the test.

If a crucial phrase is not in the pamphlet, Johnson said, the examiners rely on gestures. Often, they stop the car and quickly draw a picture on a piece of paper to express an instruction.

Not surprisingly, preparing non-English speakers for a date with the DMV has become a cottage industry in Southern California.

Dozens of driving schools from Orange County to the San Fernando Valley advertise lessons in Spanish, Vietnamese and Chinese, among other languages.

At King Driving School in Glendale, lessons in Armenian have become very popular, accounting for more than a third of the classes, said school owner Martin Balanji, who started the business seven years ago.

The lessons are conducted by a bilingual instructor who teaches students the key English phrases they may hear during the driving test, he said.

“When we ask them to make a left and a right, we do it in English, because that is what the instructor will do,” Balanji said.

The same is true at Kanor Driving School in Cypress, which offers instruction in Arabic, said school manager Teresa Farell. She said nearly 40% of her students speak Arabic.

“They have to get used to the basic English commands,” she said. “They won’t have a choice once they take the driving test.”

But not everyone believes such lessons are necessary.

Chris Juan, a Taiwan native who recently moved to Arcadia to work for his country’s diplomatic corps, said he paid a Chinese driving coach to prepare his wife, Christina Chen, for her driving test. She speaks very little English, so Juan assumed that a Chinese instructor would help. It didn’t. She flunked, he said.

“The instructor didn’t tell her much detail about the test,” Juan said.

After she flunked, Juan said, he took his wife out on Southern California’s streets and freeways to practice her driving. On Friday, Chen took another shot at the driving test at the Pasadena DMV office.

Juan sat on a concrete bench with his arms crossed while Chen waited in her car in the parking lot for the DMV examiner to start the test.

When he arrived, the examiner asked Chen to demonstrate that she knew how to operate all the devices in the car. He told her to flash the headlights, honk the horn and switch on the turn signals. She did so without a problem.

But then the examiner asked Chen to turn on the windshield wipers. Chen froze. She didn’t understand. Juan stood up from the bench and began to wave his arm frantically, back and forth like a windshield wiper.

Hoping sound effects might help, the examiner started making a “swish-swish” sound with his mouth.

Chen finally understood and turned on the wipers.

Eventually, the examiner climbed into the car and Chen pulled away, leaving Juan pacing nervously in the DMV parking lot.

A few minutes later, Chen and the examiner returned. She had a smile on her face. This time, she passed.

Juan insisted that practice made the difference, not the coaching. The couple then disappeared into the DMV office to take Chen’s driver’s license photo.

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If you have questions or comments on driving in Southern California, send an e-mail to behindthewheel@latimes.com