If you're in the UK then speak English!

When we first moved south from the Midlands I did 'temping' and remember my embarrassment when I asked the boss to spell out the word he had just repeated for me a couple of times. It was 'silver steel'! I heard it as silastoi.

Aw Gretduster, it is a very difficult language , I hope on your next visit to Wales you will encounter more friendliness , we are a very friendly race , loved you looking for Tato newi on your map , Pembro have lovely potatoes X

I'm reminded of a trip to San Sebastian many years ago - we were looking for a particular restaurant and sought help from a quite elderly chap sitting outside a cafe.

With our very basic Spanish and his incomprehensible accent we managed to work out in which direction to go - good job this native Basque speaker didn't refuse to speak Spanish to visitors needing assistance.

Well, when I first lived in London, I had to ask directions to the Swiss Embassy. One gentleman took great trouble to give very precise instructions, in very clear English, speaking slowly - but that didn't help...

You go straight on, right? The up to the lights, right? And then 3rd on the left, right?

YES, I did follow 'instructions to the letter and got thoroughly lost! ;)

A Muslim woman does not have to have been born in Wales to speak Welsh she just has to have been a child in Wales where Welsh is spoken.
Well, if she was from Newport ( I doubt that much Welsh was spoken there when she was a child as Newport was in England until 1974.

Of course, she could have been from somewhere else in Wales where Welsh was spoken.

Anniebach
Perhaps learning the language of a country one is visiting is polite riverwalk
I am laughing (politely!) at the thought of someone learning enough Welsh for a week or two's holiday and being able to understand someone giving them directions in Welsh.
Perhaps please, thank you, help and araf?

I can't even remember 'I can sing a Rainbow' from my lesson yesterday

Greyduster
The best laugh of the day so far!! (visiting Granny)

I wonder if that is where the slang word 'tatties' comes from?
DM always called potatoes 'tatties'

and granjura in London

Still laughing

MOnica - Your fear that in some immigrant communities the women are discouraged from learning English by the men in their families as a means of restricting their activities outside the home,without the need for a family member (i.e. a man) being present,has a lot of truth in it. My DP is from Ethiopia and is a Muslim,and when I asked him why so many women in the Muslim/other immigrant communities seemed unable to speak English at all,or only had a very basic grasp of it,while their husbands,fathers,brothers etc seemed much more fluent,he said one sentence,that I think sums it up; 'Its a form of control'. Says it all really.

Newquay is wrong about France not supplying translators. I live part of the year in France and the courts and the health service do have translators - where did you get the idea this did not happen?

One shop keeper laughed and laughed the day I first used the word 'spuds' when we moved to Staffs. I still had a distinct foreign accent- and he thought it was hilarious that I used a 'local' word.

ah yes, spuds was another term

What you said about Newport not being in a Welsh-speaking part of Wales is what crossed my mind too, jalima and what made me sceptical of the authenticity of the story. She could, as you say, have grown up in a part where Welsh is still a first language for some of the population but I think the main appeal of the story is the nyah boo factor.

More Welsh speakers these days, and, of course, she could have been helping her little boy - or he could have been teaching her as DGD tries with me!
I had a friend who taught in Newport - a native Welsh speaker, Welsh being her first language so that is why she got the job teaching reception when Welsh was first introduced as a compulsory subject.
However, as she pointed out, it was extremely difficult trying to teach 4 and 5 year olds Welsh when they spoke neither English nor Welsh and the lessons were in English in the main.

My husband's niece is the only Welsh speaker we have in our family. She is a bilingual civil servant. She is about to give birth to her third child and they are all being brought up from an early age to speak both Welsh and English, apparently. I don't think this is so unusual these days and that the language will make a comeback in areas where it is little used at present.

ever heard the ex pats in Spain bet they dont know a Spanish phase between them

there are 100s of British and US expats in Zurich, Zug and Geneva who have been here for years and years- and can just about say 'hello' and 'thank you' in German or French.

And complain bitterly that the plumber, the shop keeper, the cleaner, the .... can't even speak English! The trick is to shout louder and louder in English... apparently (it doesn't work) - and that they signed contracts they didn't understand and therefore can't possibly be valid, etc.

I don't think this is so unusual these days and that the language will make a comeback in areas where it is little used at present at the school where this friend taught, up to fifteen different languages were spoken by the infant children. She had the task of teaching them in English and teaching them Welsh too.

An increasing number of expats in Zurich, Zug and Geneva/Lausanne are asking that Switzerland, that already has 4 linguistic regions- and therefore 4 national languages- should adopt English as the 5th national language. They are also asking for the children in German speaking areas to not have to learn French as second language, but English, and same for French speaking area children not to have to learn German either, and just adopt English. no wonder some of the locals feels pushed out and undermined.

I wonder if that will go ahead now granjura

At the end of the 19th Century my grandmother was living in Antwerp. She used to get into trouble for speaking the Flemish that she picked up at school instead of the French that the better classes spoke.

DH and I were looking for an address in an Italian town we had never visited before. I asked a group of men outside a bar and they gave me directions. When it became clear that I hadn't understood anything they said they kindly finished their drinks and took us round to the address.