I can hold my hands up and say that I’m terrible with accents. Even UK accents I find hard to decipher. I’m not sure why, my fiancé finds it hilarious when I can’t understand someone in a restaurant when they’re asking if I’d like a drink. I think I look at a person’s mouth to work out what they are saying and when they have a strong accent it just doesn’t work. So if I’m bad with accents, can you imagine what I’m like with foreign languages?
A study commissioned by Holiday Autos found that French is the language Brits are most familiar with, with the average UK adult being able to rattle off up to 15 words. Well that may be so but I definitely learnt my lesson when I went to Paris a couple of years ago, and to be honest, it was deserved because looking back I was a big ignorant. I assumed that everyone would speak English in Paris. In my mind, it was only across the pond. Why wouldn’t they? I’ve been to the other side of the world and people spoke English so it only made sense. Lets but a big fat buzzer sound right here, because NO! WRONG! I was really surprised that hardly anyone spoke English and I felt like a fool.
The first taxi I got in I said a cheery hello and the driver responded with a stagnant Bonjour. I thought he was playing along, you know, making the tourists feel a part of the culture and all that. Well. No. I asked if he could take us to our hotel, I gave him the hotel name and basically he spoke a whole load of French while I sat there dumbfounded. All I could say was… ‘Do you speak English?’ and he returned with a pretty sharp ‘Non’. I realized through out my city break that actually this was the case pretty much everywhere and I wished with all my strength that I could remember some sentences from my GCSE French days!
After that trip, I vowed that I would learn the basics of the language of any country I went too. It makes it safer but I just don’t want to feel like a rude plum again! There are some handy language guides if you need a quick fire session of the language basics for France and Spain. I guess my experience wasn’t too bad. But have a look at this video for some funny examples ‘Lost in translation’.
Have you had any ‘lost in translation’ moments? Let me know!
