There's a very funny cartoon strip entitled "It's grim up north ......London"

It's about a pretentious camp couple of yuppies who are into everything 'Nouveau'.

They walk into a latte bar and one of them starts making the order in what sounds like a strange language. When one of their friends says "Quentin, those Catalan lessons are really paying off. You sound really fluent!"
The other one says "That's not Catalan. His tongue stud's gone septic."

Bil is that the one that used to be in Private Eye?

Our Norwegian friends say they have to speak English as no-one in the world speaks Norwegian. They also watch English TV. In Holland nearly everyone speaks excellent English. Of course, I had to deal with one who didn't speak any at all. Daughter said when the Gardener comes can you pay him. I asked him how much and with hand showing 15, I gave him 15 euro, he was refusing it, took a while to realise he was saying he was coming back at 15.00 hours

Yeah, that's the one. There were some brilliant strips in there. I used to love Celeb and Clare in the community.

I have an American friend who is effectively Dutch. he has a Dutch wife and a family there. I always found them a very grown up country with their attitudes to sex and cannabis.

On New year's eve, they used to set fires in the middle of cross roads on back streets using everything wooden they could find or steal. The road wasn't damaged as they were engineering bricks set in sand.

The rolls of firecrackers they used to let off sounded like heavy machinegun fire, and were rated as to how many thousand fireworks there were to the roll, and some of the rolls needed a forklift truck to get them into position.

Most do not give a hoot how polite you are or how you smile at them with gleaming teeth, all they want is you in and out and have spent some money and have left them a tip, this is the reality of a low paid waiter who relies on tips, he would rather you be like a bear with a sore arse and leave a decent tip that someone who can speak the lingo is polite but leaves a miserable tip.

no star

Hey mate where u from ?
'Smiff !
Wot, Ammersmiff ?
Nah, Portsmiff !


its the way I tells um

I'm sure that's how you are treated. It has the ring of truth about it, but please don't assume that we are all like you.

IMO ......
Depends where you are in Spain, where we live you need to know a reasonable bit of Spanish, but better to know a great deal more.

Recently spent 3 months in Benal/La Cala de Mijas and there is no need to speak Spanish, I would ask in Spanish and the reply would always be in English etc etc etc.
So it no surprise that many in the area just carried on with what they knew & even the doctors had an English lady at a desk who would interpret for anyone should they wish.

I have also read that once over 40 (more or less) the brain simply tries to ignore study type input, wear as we all know that the youngsters will take to another language without giving it a seconds thought (please bear in mind that I speak in general terms)

For me ?, I need to work with the locals/speak to them every day to ram the info home, but once done it seems to stick there.

The vast bulk of Brits that I have known over the years desire to speak another language, most though found it quite hard, bit like the locals here mind who would like to speak English as their children are becoming more fluent and I guess would like to keep on side.

Flexing the 'muscles' inbetween your ears is a good way to stop them atrophying, and helps to stave off the onset of Alzheimer's. I'm nearly 60 now, but in my early 50s I started to study arabic as a distraction from the problems I had. I think you are still capable later on in life, -hell, I'm still working on my Spanish, just not quite as frantically as I was. I put that down to being infected by the dreaded Mañana virus that is endemic here.

I think tho people get to the point where they manage to cope ok, and they just think "What's the point?"

Welsh speakers are a bit of a sore point with me - I used to work in the Regional Office of a trade union which covered North Wales as well as the North West of England. The militant Welsh speaking lobby succeeded in getting a proposal adopted that we must provide simultaneous English/Welsh translation facilities for all our meetings (where about 4 people out of 200 or so would be able to speak Welsh at all, and all of those 4 spoke English as their first language!) and it fell to my lot to have to arrange it, as well as getting all the papers translated into Welsh. How happy was I?

Oooo,me, me me, I know!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...r-multitasking

Good one, thanks. I have always said that the rudiments of two foreign languages should be taught at primary school to get children's brains up and running.

So French and Zummerzet would be mine.............

They actually say playing chess is the best work out for your brain.