Absolutely agree. I've had people visit me when I've lived in a few different countries and they've pretty much refused to even try and speak the language. It's caused loads of awkward and annoying moments when I've even told the person beforehand how to say "Hello/I would like/Thank-you/Goodbye" and they've outright refused and pretty much forced the shopkeeper/whoever to try and speak English or whatever their own is language instead. It's a myth that it is solely an English thing though, there are plenty of French or German people who would go to another country and do the exact same. It's annoying as hell.
tried german on a few occasions but failed.I do try and learn a few words/sentences/phrases when abroad though,some of these apps you can get seem really good but haven't used them yet.
It doesn't help that the first thing you learn is what's in your pencil case. I mean, let's just imagine if Jonny Foreigner starts talking to you in the street like we learn. 'Hellur, I 'ave 1 pen, 2 pencil and 1 rubb-air in my pencil case. Where is ze library?' He'd get a Glasgow kiss. Languages in this country are terribly taught.
I haven't done no, but his French CD-Book seriously helped me brush up on confidence talking to the in laws and I've since recommended it to quite a few people who knew absolutely none at all (one guy even pronounced Bonjour like Del Boy) and they've been extremely impressed with how fast they've picked stuff up.
I think Eddie Izzard did a stand up routine where he talks about trying to book a hotel room in France and can only talk about 'le chat' or something edit: like 'the mouse is under the table' 'the cat is on the chair' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1sQkEfAdfY
Used to work with somebody called Paul Noble. Called him the sex pest haha. Just thought I'd share that with you
On the subject of languages and Eddie Izzard, he's performed an act entirely in French to a French audience to try and dispel the notion of national comedic taste.
You're not wrong there. I did a linguaphone german course donkeys years ago. Lesson 1 was about losing your luggage at the airport, which I thought was a pretty good place to start Das ist nein mein gepack. Mein gepack ist brun! (spelling?). I think that means - this is not my luggage, my luggage is brown. Crazy what you remember.
I realised when in Germany that the one of the only phrases I could recall apart from the usual numbers and greetings is 'boiled egg'. Can't even spell it (gekoctes ei?!) but it's firmly imprinted into my memory.
Excellent, cheers for the recommendation. Think I might give french another go. Us Channel Islanders have an advantage with that as most of our place names and roads are french.
Just a couple of different colour variants I think. Then tootled off through passport control (another good idea) ... ich bin ein Student! Seems like I remember more than I thought, maybe it wasn't a waste of time after all!
The sexy poll is my personal permanent [NSFW]**** bank[/NSFW], where we all post pictures of hot woman all the time. There's a password on because the people from General Chat decided to post picture of goats and stuff.
By a spooky coincidence I used to work with a german lass who agreed to teach me a new german phrase every day (didn't last long). The first one she taught me was ... ich bin einen grossen kelten spegelei! Which she claimed meant "I am a large cold fried egg!". But i've always been convinced that she was teaching me to say something very rude about myself (she is a wicked sort). Even more worried now that i see that her version of fried egg has nothing in common with your boiled egg. Wonder what is was I was calling myself all that week?
