Westminster Politics

Paul the Wolf said:
Everywhere then and the only French born person I know around here who speaks good English (she's fluent) is my wife.
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Anecdotally, my (non-native English speaker) wife does not like going to France because of the lack of English outside the cities, although, in my experience, it has changed hugely in the last 20 years in that respect. Anyway, is it reasonable to expect tourists to speak French? Do French people learn Greek when they go to Greece?
 
MoskvaRed said:
Anecdotally, my (non-native English speaker) wife does not like going to France because of the lack of English outside the cities, although, in my experience, it has changed hugely in the last 20 years in that respect. Anyway, is it reasonable to expect tourists to speak French? Do French people learn Greek when they go to Greece?
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If they are in the tourist industry they'd probably speak English. Where we are and within a 200km radius there are few large towns, it's mainly an area of natural beauty, hundreds of medieval villages, lakes, hills and so on. Most people would have Spanish as a second language or occitane, the local patois dialect as we're closer to Spain. On the eastern side ,the Alps, where my wife originates, the second language would be more likely to be Italian. Those actually directly involved in the tourist industry would speak English. My wife spent 32 years in England which is why she is fluent.

I doubt very many French people speak Greek. Question is would they start shouting at the Greeks in French to try to make them understand.
 
MoskvaRed said:
Anecdotally, my (non-native English speaker) wife does not like going to France because of the lack of English outside the cities, although, in my experience, it has changed hugely in the last 20 years in that respect. Anyway, is it reasonable to expect tourists to speak French? Do French people learn Greek when they go to Greece?
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Yes it’s reasonable. And also really damn easy. Learning bits and pieces of other languages is an awesome part of travel.

Super basic phrases like ‘Beer’, ‘Toilet’, ‘Right/Left’, ‘Bill’, ‘Please and thank you’ are learnable on the plane.

And yes, French people do learn Greek when in Greece.

It’s a gift and a curse to be English speaking. Far easier to get by, almost everywhere. But it makes us all quite precious and closeted.
 
Paul the Wolf said:
If they are in the tourist industry they'd probably speak English. Where we are and within a 200km radius there are few large towns, it's mainly an area of natural beauty, hundreds of medieval villages, lakes, hills and so on. Most people would have Spanish as a second language or occitane, the local patois dialect as we're closer to Spain. On the eastern side ,the Alps, where my wife originates, the second language would be more likely to be Italian. Those actually directly involved in the tourist industry would speak English. My wife spent 32 years in England which is why she is fluent.

I doubt very many French people speak Greek. Question is would they start shouting at the Greeks in French to try to make them understand.
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The shouting at locals is a fair point…. anyway, it sounds like a nice spot where you live. Is it the Pyrenees?
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
Yes it’s reasonable. And also really damn easy. Learning bits and pieces of other languages is an awesome part of travel.

Super basic phrases like ‘Beer’, ‘Toilet’, ‘Right/Left’, ‘Bill’, ‘Please and thank you’ are learnable on the plane.

And yes, French people do learn Greek when in Greece.

It’s a gift and a curse to be English speaking. Far easier to get by, almost everywhere. But it makes us all quite precious and closeted.
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With respect, I think that’s bollocks. French people are only marginally less useless at speaking foreign languages than Brits and would be just as bad were it not for the fact that English is now the global language. They might know “kalimera” but I doubt they can ask for directions and understand the reply (as per the seemingly troll tweet that started this discussion).
 
MoskvaRed said:
With respect, I think that’s bollocks. French people are only marginally less useless at speaking foreign languages than Brits and would be just as bad were it not for the fact that English is now the global language. They might know “kalimera” but I doubt they can ask for directions and understand the reply (as per the seemingly troll tweet that started this discussion).
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I’ve literally said ‘bits and pieces’ and then actually quoted some absolute basics. And also pointed out speaking English makes us all lazy.

Clouds exist, go shout at one.
 
UnrelatedPsuedo said:
I’ve literally said ‘bits and pieces’ and then actually quoted some absolute basics. And also pointed out speaking English makes us all lazy.

Clouds exist, go shout at one.
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Thank you for the cloud reference (nuage?)….The original tweet was not about asking for “une bière“ but for directions. As for lazy, yes and no. It is hard to practice foreign languages as an English speaker as people, wanting to be helpful and practice their English, tend to respond to you in English even when you speak the local lingo.
 
Paul the Wolf said:
If they are in the tourist industry they'd probably speak English. Where we are and within a 200km radius there are few large towns, it's mainly an area of natural beauty, hundreds of medieval villages, lakes, hills and so on. Most people would have Spanish as a second language or occitane, the local patois dialect as we're closer to Spain. On the eastern side ,the Alps, where my wife originates, the second language would be more likely to be Italian. Those actually directly involved in the tourist industry would speak English. My wife spent 32 years in England which is why she is fluent.

I doubt very many French people speak Greek. Question is would they start shouting at the Greeks in French to try to make them understand.
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I had a bad experience when I was working as a waiter in Spain and they were expecting us to know french. I knew a bit so I could interact but I could hear them criticize the others openly. In a somewhat touristy spot in a definitely non touristy area

Being a twat is not exclusivity of one nationality. On the generalization nationality game, I don't think that french will come very well on the twatish department
 
4bars said:
I had a bad experience when I was working as a waiter in Spain and they were expecting us to know french. I knew a bit so I could interact but I could hear them criticize the others openly. In a somewhat touristy spot in a definitely non touristy area

Being a twat is not exclusivity of one nationality. On the generalization nationality game, I don't think that french will come very well on the twatish department
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As a generalisation I don't believe the French are very good at other languages and for sure there will be twats of all nationalities. It makes me cringe probably more when there's a British person being obnoxious because someone they are talking to agressively doesn't speak their language because being originally British I want to say, "that person is nothing to do with me!"

I went on a business trip to Greece some years ago (before satnav). I don't speak a word of Greek, hired a car at the airport and drove to the company I was visiting about 150km from Athens. To my horror the roadsigns were only in Greek with the Greek alphabet but somehow managed to find my way to the right area. I went to a petrol station and asked politely whether the man spoke English. He said he did (sigh of relief) and he directed me to where the company was located a few miles away. Had I gone storming in there and said, "Where is this Company?!" I doubt he would have been quite so helpful.
 
Suella blaming students. Not just stop the boats. It's stop anyone coming.
 
Adisa said:
Starmer blasting Sunak for not bringing immigration down was soul destroying to watch. The discussion around immigration is so fecked in this country. Starmer complaining there are too many work visa issued is disgraceful.
Also, international students can no longer bring their families over.
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It was a depressing listen this week.
 
Punishing people for what is essentially a supply side crises. Hunt is a fool.
 
Adisa said:
Punishing people for what is essentially a supply side crises. Hunt is a fool.
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BOE should tell him to do one. Interest rates are nothing to do with him. The government set the inflation target, how its achieved is supposed to be feck all to do with them.
 
11101 said:
BOE should tell him to do one. Interest rates are nothing to do with him. The government set the inflation target, how its achieved is supposed to be feck all to do with them.
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That's not how nationalistic populists operate. I doubt they even know...
 
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