lynnxa

AL1492

I realise, that my question was stupid, it was refering to all spain, and no one can answer that. I am getting information from different parts of spain, which is going to be all different. Its like if i said "you didnt re-locate to spain for the skiing did you" someone would answer, and tell me that is exactly why they went there, because the season is as long as austria, its cheaper, and the slopes are not as busy.

I realise, my question should have included area, if not city. I realise its like asking about buying an apartment in the UK, and being told nothing worth buying for less than 200k, and then you are looking at a one bedroom, because the person answering the question lives in london, and i have been looking on line at newcastle. Or me saying, that Pakistanis in the UK mostly dont learn english, only shop at pakistani shops, and all work for other pakistanis. Based on a visit to bradford. someone who moved to the UK from Pakistan, is going to contradict that, tell me, he has no pakistani friends in the UK, eats british food, speaks english, and works for the coast guard. then it turns out he lives in stornaway.

I will ask about a city, or state next time.

cricketman

It sounds to me that you have lots of ideas which is great, but they are at the really early stage, based on first impressions as you passed through places

I've lived in Barcelona, the Costa del sol and the Atlantic Coast. First, if you want to open an English speaking business then there are not enough English speakers in the North. As for the Pyranees, I spent a week hiking there recently, maybe you didnt understand because most the people speak Catalan, not Spanish at all. There were loads of refugios and back packing hostels, if you could have asked someone in Catalan I'm sure they would have told you. In the week I was there I didnt hear a word of English and only a few words of Spanish. An English speaking hostel would die a death

As for 40k euro holiday apartments, not in a million years. Flats in the tourist parts of Spain are already bad quality, a really cheap one will be terrible. And the returns arent worth the hassle

The only place you could open an English speaking business would be on the Med Coast where there are already loads of British businesses. The market is saturated. There is always room for a good business, no matter what the economic climate, but it is pointless speculating from the Mid West, you need to go to Spain, look around for a few months and then put your money where your mouth is

Domino

Good advice CM, applies to all who come here asking for similar advice, not just from the US.
I feel sure that if working for a company that was contemplating expansion there would be alot of investigation, studies, pros/cons for different countries being investigated. Local consultants would be employed to advise. More importantly the money would be carefully monitored.
Even Tesco's, who bought a company in the US to make the transition "easier" ended up with a nasty taste in the mouth.

In the 8 months I have lived here permanantly (preceeded by 3 years part time) I have seen more and more things as I have settled in and started to understand why things are done, or not done. It takes time

steviedeluxe

Good point as regards Tesco. I think they've had a certain success in the far East? But they couldn't dream of making a go in Spain, whereas enterprises like Carrefour, Lidl and Ikea (and even Primark) have made in-roads. What's the secret?

Domino

well Carrefour is the worlds largest in revenue and 3rd after Walmart and Tesco for profit, Walmart had to buy Asda to take on the UK market, but there aren't that many players around that will provide the revenue and profit required.
Lidl/Aldi are just "pile 'em high sell 'em low" on a limited range of suppliers and products. Just like Fine Fare and others now subsumed in the UK.
Tesco seems to operate in a limited number of countries, not the original Europe, although some of the New Europe, former SovBloc countries seem to work quite well

so operating a bar in Spain has nothing to do with Tesco et al.?
IMHO that is wrong. If the major players of retail can make mistakes despite the steamroller attitude they have, then surely one or two people wanting to start a bar should read and learn the mistakes.
Understand there are a couple of hotels on the CDS that have been started but not finished, despite the €millions of backing they professed to have.

Mitzyboy

They have given up in Japan and have started an exit strategy
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012...n_1605169.html

I did read elsewhere that they weren't doing too well in other FE areas as well

AL1492

Thats good advice, but i wasnt neccessarily thinking of English speaking business. I have seen apartments on line, even in the south coast, some new apartment buildings, bank sales, offering sixty percent discounts on what the original price was. I saw that were only a couple of years old, for under 40k.

When i was learning spanish, i was told, that catalan, and basquo, and all the other languages of spain, were just really dialects of the same language, you could still speak to them. I have though read, they are more like a different language, but the people that speak them speak castilian also. What i havent figured out, is, it different like someone from newcastle or someone from buckie, speaks english, same language just very hard to understand.

I was also in portugal many years ago, and at the time, didnt know a word of spanish, or portugese, but we had some south americans on the ship, they said they would be able to understand portugese, but they couldnt, at least when we tried for directions, we didnt get them.

I didnt find no one spoke english in the pyraneeze, i found most didnt, but we did meet some other british people there, and some dutch people. My girlfriend couldnt speak any spanish, and she felt really stuck, because she had to say to me "ask them this" I also found, some of the spanish people we met up in the mountains, were students, who after realising, you were not a native spanish speaker, would switch the conversation to english, because they were from parts of spain, where people didnt speak english,and they wanted the practice.

Where i would disagre with what you say is, i dont think thier is really such a thing as an english backpackers, at least in my travells around the world, i have never stayed in such a place. All the ones i ever stayed in, tended to be international. I have used them canada, south africa, israel, egypt, and all over europe, and I stayed in one in london. I have never been to one, that only catered for one nationality.

me me

I can assure you that being able to speak spanish will not equip you to speak basquo (sic).

cricketman

You are gravely mistaken. Basque especially has nothing to do with Spanish. It is as close to Spanish as Japanese is. Yes everyone in Spain will speak Castellano, but they may not want to.

A lot of Basque and Catalan teenagers now struggle in Castellano because they are only taught it 2 hours a week at school while their parents were taught exclusively in Castellano

I have no idea if the Spanish people in the Pyranese speak English as I was speaking to them in Spanish and they always replied back in Catalan - which is a completely different langauge and with a Girona accent, sounds nothing like Spanish. I could understand most of the Catalan but couldnt reply (only the odd word or phrase) which is why I was given special compensation (as a foreigner) to reply in Castellano on condition that next time I went I would speak a bit more Catalan

Everyone we met were Catalan, with the odd Spanish Castellano speaker and a few French people (who the Catalans hated more than the Castellano speakers)

The point is, I guess, that a little knowledge is dangerous! So dont make any decisions based on it

AL1492

www.kyro.com Is the site i have been looking at house prices on. I have also seen preditions, that prices have another 25% to fall, but predictions are just that, predictions. If you go to that site, put in any region of spain, apartment, under 50k, you will find they start about 18k.

I have never done holiday rentals, i did think of it doing it in Florida when i came to the USA, but when i did buy property, it was in the midwest, and i have done very well out of it. I made a lot of mistakes, construction was different, roofs are made of asphalt shingles, its so easy to re roof a house, but only after someone shows you how to do it. Electrics are 110, but then i found out, a stove, a dryer, a water tank, and things like heaters, are 220, took me weeks to work that one out, their houses are all twin phase electrics. Insulation on all plumbing, is must, took me two years, to figure out, the only pipe, that can cope with the low tempratures, if the property is empty is Pex pipe. I spent about two years, renting to people who never had the rent, because they had garbage jobs, that paid little, and the people that had good jobs, didnt want to rent, as they would buy, then i figured out, you rent to the people with social security dissability income, and they pay as soon as they get their check, or you rent to people with section 8 where the government pay their rent.

You cant really lose money on a rental, someone will always want to rent it, and asset is always yours, buy it low enough, and even if it dosent rent for four years, all you are out, is property tax, (community charge in spain) and when you sell, you get your money back. Even if you bought a crap rental in a tourist area of spain, ok, tourists might turn their noses up, but the young couple from australia, working their way around europe, and staying for season, doing bar jobs, wont, they will want somewhere cheap, and all they want is a roof over their heads, and a place to keep their gear safe.

AL1492

I didnt actually have a clue, that spain was so divided. I didnt realise, that catalan, and what is spoken in other areas of the country were of such great importance. I have employed some mexicans here, and they speak castillian, as do all the south americans, its not exactly castillian, but has its routes in it, and if you were learning spanish, you wouldnt get Mexican spanish, or spanish spanish, its not like a course in english, you get american english, english english. Apart from brazil, the whole of south america, speak the same language, well obviously the native tribes speak their own language, but i think they are few and far between now.

jojojojojo

His comments are also tinged with how he's found things in the US, which has nothing to do with Spain in the slightest

Jo xxx

Domino

are you suggesting that a whole continent from top to bottom, left to right, all speak the same Spanish - whilst there are 4-5 in Spain ? Even in Granada there can be major differences, usually caused by sloppy use by Spaniards - I came across 3 different ways of saying the same word over the weekend.

the BH works with Spaniards and also a Mexican and German, the Mexican has difficulties at times whilst the German is more formal and Madrid based in the use of her language, which gets her many funny looks.

Wales, Spain and Italy each have a central organisation that monitor the use of the language and crack down on abuse
English we leave to the Americans..............

as has been suggested earlier, you need to come over here, let it waft over you, let it get under your skin.

lynnxa

yes, Mexican Spanish has its roots in Castellano, as do other south American Spanish languages - but they are different enough so that if you learn say, in Argentina, it could cause you problems in Spain & vice versa - it's not just that some vocab is different as far as nouns are concerned - some verb usage is different too

they don't all speak the same language in that respect in the same way that American/English/Canadian & Australian English are concerned - they are essentially the same - but with differences

they speak Portuguese in Brazil

Catalán, Valenciano, Euskadi, Gallego are all separate languages & speaking Spanish won't help you understand them much, if at all

some of my dds' friends only speak Valenciano at home, but they & their parents speak Castellano too - although some of the parents forget themselves & speak to me in Valenciano (I don't & won't speak it, [though I now understand a lot of it merely by osmosis], it took me long enough to learn Castellano!) - I answer in Castellano & we have been known to have entire conversations like that!

you will find Castellano speakers everywhere though & they will usually be happy to speak to a foreigner in Castellano - though in different areas the accents & true dialects (as opposed to different languages) might give you problems