Greetings!
My MIT interview is in a week, but I have a small problem: My country’s native language is NOT English, but I read that the interview will be done in English. How should this go? When I meet the interviewer in the cafe do I greet him in English or do I greet him in our native tongue (and move onto English afterwards)? What if he greets me in our language?
Thanks for the help in advance!
It’s fine to say hello, etc. in the language of the land. Or you can greet him/her in English - it does not matter. But at some point after the initial greetings, the interviewer will switch to English. The only caveat is if you indicated, as an example, that you are fluent in French, and that’s not the language of the country, the interviewer may speak to you in French for a couple of minutes.
Releax. If you say “Bonjour”, they are not going to crumple up your application right there.
Fine to say hello in either language – don’t overthink. I’d let the interviewer guide the use of language in your conversation.
Thank you guys for the help! In the end you were right - we exchanged "hello"s in my language and then he said in English “Let’s continue in English, shall we?”.