16 May 2011 11:59 AM:
Charlie,
you are so right. We have a holiday apartment near Villamartin but have been holidaying in Spain and the islands for years. We were in Porto Colom in Majorca some years ago and sitting in a lovely local bar having a quiet drink and food when an elderly Spanish gentleman shouted to the barman (in Spanish) that he needed a light as his was broken. My husband promptly picked up his lighter from the table and said "Senor, aqui" The look of amazement on his face that we were English, and tried to speak the language, and approached him politely was quite something. He accepted, said " Gracias" to which my husband replied "da nada" We then continued with our meal, not thinking anything about it. Later we ordered another round of drinks and realised that it was cheaper than the last round so we called the barman over and queried the price. He told us in halting English " you respect my friends, you try to speak our language, you no longer pay tourist rates, you pay local rates" It turned out he was the owner of the bar and for the remainder of the week we had fantastic service. He helped us speak more spanish, correcting our pronunciation by making a game out of it, if we said it right he served us with a big smile, if we said it wrong he would fold his arms and say no! and repeat it to us until we got it right. One day a group of young Welsh men came in with ' finger' spanish (I want one of them whilst pointing) and was quite rude, the barman looked at us, shrugged, and proceeded to charge him tourist rates.
Now we spend several weeks a year over there and our local Spanish bar recognises us, they know we are English, but they speak Spanish to us. If we don't understand they then tell us in English and help us to learn. Our Spanish neighbours do the same because they know that we try. In England you hear the English complaining that we have 'immigrants' coming over who can't speak English, so why do ex-pats in Spain expect Spaniards to speak English? As you so rightly said, if you are not born there you are the foreigner. The common courtesies are not difficult to learn, such as please and thank you and make such a difference.
Forum thread:
Makes you proud to be English - - NOT!!
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