One of the most difficult things I've dealt with working with people "over there" is the fact that "they" will have one conversation in their native language and then tell you something totally different in english.

For example. I was at our company plant and the folks there had a discussion about one of our questions in their native language. My friend leaned over and said "These guys have forgotten I talk their languague. They're talking about what they did on vacation." And this was a plant that we owned. It can only get worse from there.

We never sent a team to an offshore entity without making sure we had at least one person who could talk the native lanuguage.