OK, been going to France for quite a number of years and always managed to get by with my schoolboy French. I'm thinking about popping down to Spain instead at some point, but my Espanol is nada. I could probably pick up a few basics before going but languages have never been my strong point. Just wondering how easy it is to get by with just a minimal knowledge of Spanish when down there ?
you can get some pretty good translation apps for smart phones,I'm sure there is one you just say what you want to say in English and it will repeat it in what ever language you want
Google translate is a great help. I speak about much Spanish as you do but we got by alright. Though I did end getting a 3 course lunch when I thought I'd ordered bread and soup
its surprising how few Spanish are English speaking... cafes in tourist towns, hotel receptionists ok, but out in the sticks, nothing... not even Portuguese, which is next door. The fault is entirely that all tv and cinema is dubbed, no subtitles, and there's a strong national culture (that's good) that means satellite tv in hotels has 57 channels and nothing on and only in Spanish, even Kiss and Mtv plays nine out of ten Spanish tracks Here everything is subtitled , even the if the main national news channel has a story , politics, culture, sport, they play it in the home lingo and subtitle Portuguese. Try Portugal, French is spoken a bit, English everywhere, and German. The porkandcheeses are great adventurers and emigrants. the largest Portuguese cities in the world are Toronto, Paris, Dusseldorf. and Wisbech. but theycome home after thirty years with a pile of savings and buy a caff in the home village and there's a natural polyglot culture.
i remember the first time i went to Valencia and we were trying to find the train station,and everyone looked totally confused when we would ask,eventually someone said ah! Estacion de tren (sounded like he was saying station train) pretty sure if someone asked me where the station train is i'd work out what he meant! i was putting on my best posh Engish accent too..i know how hard it is for even the english to understand the scots
My Uncle's solution to the language barrier was to learn the local for "fill it up" Point to either your plate your glass or your car
It depends where your going in Spain, I don't think you'll have a problem around the costas. If your going to the Picos then that's a different story, but for me it's all part of the adventure or as Dougie says download a good translation app to your phone. Dave.
