Odd couple
I met these people, and for all I know they met on CS although that would be a fantastic coincidence and, if they read this blog, a little embarrassing. So I shall say nice things. They ARE nice.He is, I don't know, middle-aged, very fit and bronzed, good-looking, with a drop-dead-gorgeous French accent for the perhaps 2 dozen English words he knows. Which is about as many French words as I know. He does also speak a little Spanish. About as much as I do. That's really not a lot of Spanish.
She is a little younger, mid to late forties? extremely attractive, Spanish, lives a few hours up the coast from here. She speaks no French and no English.
They are staying a week. Would you go away on holiday with someone you basically couldn't understand or speak to except in the most general of terms? For a week?
Comments (117)
1. A song by the 60's song artist Donovan. The song's influence was from a short-lived rumor that a euphoric high could be reached by smoking banana leaves. The song became very popular in the late nineties after a cover was made for a series of Gap clothing commercials.
2. A Coca-Cola product with high caffeine and citrus flavor; not related to banana leaves at all.
Donovan lives in Cork
I'm very conventional, always have been, known for it, not about to rock any boats, me.
I think you are 2nd most likely to do something unpredictable
Map is certainly the 1st
Still singing? Ooh if he is, could I, er, um, any chance I come visit? Go see him? Could you introduce us?
Just that pretty much everyone who sang while I was a teenager is, you know, dead now.
Kerrrrist I'm old.
Maybe I'm not ready to be interred after all.
I’ve tried most of the above, does that make MiMi courageous?
Bifffffff!!
And it wasn't that I was a massive Donovan fan. More the excitement of learning he is still above ground.
We have a storm coming in this evening. Hopefully we won't be washed away
I want to take the dogs for a walk, not a swim
(Sorry, Art
Biff, unfortunately it probably will happen again. Spanish houses , or infrastructure, isn't storm-ready. And with climate-change, there will be a lot more of them, so you have to prepare your own house as well as you can for them
Enjoy your stormy walk
Sometimes saying nothing means more than talking much...
Where there is a will there is a way...
It's just a language needing to be learnt nothing life threatening...
The blog is more about whether the rest of us would be brave enough to take on such a holiday.
When I need something from the local shops, which are tiny and crammed, I look up the name on Google translate first, memorize it, and trot confidently off to the shops.
So - firstly the Dutch are the greatest linguists on the planet, and he will be close to fluent in a week. I have no idea how they do it. But what your friend has to do is look up five or six phrases that might be relevant, from 'yes exactly like that' to perhaps 'do THAT again and I will hurt you'
Obvious ones I have in Spanish are 'please speak slower' and / or 'I don't understand' and / or 'could you point?'
One or two off the top of my head -
dat was geweldig
Niet zo snel
ik heb erg veel honger
I could date a Dutch guy, come to think of it. Afrikaans is sometimes close enough to at least get the gist. And then he would learn (or already speak) Spanish and I'd never need to learn any more than I know already
You have the solution to just anything and everything!!
I think that's why I like talking on Skype rather than on the phone, as well.
There you go, Mimi, nothing to worry about
I don't know what they are but I do know there is something called ASL - American Sign Language - and too much to hope that the US is the only one which is out of step.
From 1.44 is best.
Got Dog!...................................