If you're in the UK then speak English!

No comment - .

Hmm. Would be very funny if it was true.

You jings? Cynical?

I have been told to speak English in Wales

I too wonder if it is apocryphal.

It may well be, but it gave me a welcome !
"Never let the facts get in the way of a good story"!!

Absolutely Alea

That's been posted on another thread today - I read it this morning. I doubt it's true.

Oops, sorry. Didn't see it.

Sorry, Indinana, didn't mean my post to be critical, the other was a bit of 'light relief' in the middle of one of the referendum threads so easy to miss!

Has anyone counted EUref threads recently? There seem to be several new ones every day.

I was once on a train with a work colleague (not the time of the underwear incident) and we spent the journey sitting opposite a family who were chatting away happily, but with pretty strong accents. I was fascinated by their conversation, and on leaving the train, asked my colleague what she thought of what they were talking about.

She gave me a bit of an odd look, and asked "did you understand them?" I said "well, yes,although the Scottish accent was quite strong."

She said "Scottish! I thought they were foreign!"

phoenix

Ana that'll be why I missed it then, as I've totally stopped reading the referendum threads - bored to death with them

Ok then we'll let them speak Welsh in Wales but it has to be English everywhere else. And no offering free translations/interpretations either-that must cost a fortune!
In France everything is done in French (of course!). If you can't understand you have to find someone to translate/interpret for you.
To introduce this practice here would save a fortune which is baldy needed elsewhere IMO

And there was me thinking I'd posted a thread that would be just jokey and lighthearted <sigh>

I am reminded by your post phoenix of the wonderful Stanley Baxter TV series

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfCk_yNuTGk

On a visit to Glasgow supplier, I was picked up from the airport bt one of the lads from the factory, I didn't understand a word throughout the journey, just hope I nodded in the right places.

Newquay Are you serious? People should be able to speak to each other in whatever language they choose.

So far as translating/interpreting services are concerned, I think it's better that people learn to speak the language of the country in which they live. But it takes time, and some people (particularly elderly people) have more trouble learning a new language. I have friends from other countries who, after a few years, are as fluent in English as someone born here. I also have friends who have been here for decades but who still have very strong accents and still have trouble with phraseology and pronunciation - not because they lack intelligence or motivation but because we all have different aptitudes.

And, of course, as others have said before, the British are notoriously bad at learning any language other than their own and are often quite indignant when travelling abroad if they encounter "foreigners" who can't speak English.

There is much I admire about France but I don't think it has a particularly welcoming attitude to people of different cultures.

Well I live in the NE where the dialect is completely incomprehensible to everyone except a local. It has been said that this is actually how English would have sounded, so maybe the rest of the country need to "larn Geordie"

I do think it reasonable that anyone wishing to reside in a country, be able to have a basic ability to speak and read the language, other wise simple things like warning signs etc, would have to be in multiple languages.

This also applies to Brits, who decide to live abroad, we have friends that live in Spain and are almost proud that they don't speak any Spanish, or need to.

Newquay, you have no authority to give permission for Welsh to be spoken in Wales only, Welsh is an official language of the UK so Welsh can be spoken in the four countries of the U.K.

I just wonder whether a niqab wearing woman would have lived in Wales long enough to have picked up the very difficult (I think) Welsh language and speak it so fluently. I know there would be second generation immigrants in Wales, but still...

Overthinking again!