Languages – especially those that one doesn’t speak – are an eternal problem for us all. It’s really quite tiresome to have to listen to someone yattering away in a foreign tongue, and even worse when they decide that speaking louder might help.
And thus, the dismay from many of the Spanish, faced with a foreign tourist (or sometimes even a resident) as everyone finally must resort to pantomime.
Pity the poor woman who bought an apartment in Tenerife and finds she must bring along a translator for the regular community meetings. For some reason or other, this local woman doesn’t speak German – which is the majority language spoken in that particular block of flats located in Santa Úrsula.
There are a lot of foreigners living in Spain – something like 19% of the population. Most of them speak perfect Spanish (think: 4.2 million Latin Americans plus many others). Most of the rest of us can get by (short of sudden visits to the hospital or the lawyer, when one finds one’s vocabulary begin to fail).
Then there are all those tourists flopping around – most of whom simply know nothing much beyond una cerveza and (usually spelt wrong while pronounced perfectly), ¡hola!
Maybe if I speak louder. Anyway, I ordered a sandwich, what on earth is this?
In winter, it’s easy for us guiris to distance ourselves from the trippers. We wear long trousers and a sweater while they are in t-shirt and shorts.
They’ll be pinker too – we know all about the power of the sun.
Summer’s a problem though – perhaps we’ll flex our linguistic muscle and order un tinto de Verano. That’ll show ’em.
Some of our leaders here in Spain are also challenged by ‘foreign’ languages. Isabel Díaz Ayuso walked out of a meeting of Spain’s regional presidents the other day when one of them spoke in Catalán (How Dare He?), and then there's Feijóo’s lack of languages and Abascal’s comic recent attempt at speaking French.
A
waiter needs to speak English to get a decent tip; but a politician can – as
Feijóo says – always finds an interpreter.
Water-Pistols at Dawn
The gangs of roving tourists are a problem in the cities, as anyone who lives and works in Madrid, Barcelona, Granada or Seville must know, as the local folk on their way to and from work or to the supermarket must zigzag around unconscious groups of culture-vultures.
Some of our younger and more impressionable neighbours with itchy trigger-fingers have taken to arming themselves with water pistols and anyone pink over five foot eight (173cms) and wearing flip-flops might receive an unwanted squirt. Indeed, some Spaniards are so angry, they’ve been using ‘super-soakers’ (the assault-weapon of water-pistols. I believe Amazon sells them).
The answer is to choose a holiday in those resorts that are geared to tourism. A jolly time to relax rather than a hurried visit to some city crammed with camera-shots, selfies and a guide yapping on about squeezing in just one more palace before lunchtime.
There are no water-pistol shops to be found in Benidorm or Marbella and everyone there speaks English.
You know something?
Business is good.
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