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[Porkscratching]

Age 16 a few of us went to Paris for a week, we used the classic British technique.... " Oi..give us a couple of beers over here squire...".    it worked surprisingly well !...

[rustynuts]

I am consistently surprised at how well and how many Dutch people speak English. Sadly my Dutch is limited to "Tot Seins" !

The Norwegians are another mob whose command of English puts many native speakers to shame.

Umpteen weeks of lockdown ahead, perhaps check out Duolingo and learn enough of another language to be able to survive a holiday when all this is over ?

When you live in a country with a small population that has its own language you need to speak one of the world's major languages in order to conduct business or to get an education. It just isn't practical to translate volumes of academic and technical literature into Norwegian for example. It's just lucky for us that English has become the universal language of the whole world.

The Europeans have always had a tradition of learning languages, I guess because they aren't separated from their neighbours by the sea. I remember my Danish uncle saying that before the war, the second language taught there was German, but was changed to English after the war.

I always remember an occasion when I was on a motorcycling holiday in Norway, I needed directions to the tourist office, so I asked a chap on on the street whether he spoke English. He replied "Not very well, but if you speak slowly and clearly I will do my best to understand".

[crumbly65]

Wherever we go in the world, there are a couple of things SWMBO and I always try to do.

1) Try to learn a couple of the basic phrases in the language of the country we're in. 
    It can be challenging, but it is also fun, and has provided us with many laughs. 
    It has also enabled us to establish a rapport with the people we meet, staff like waiters, hotel reception staff,               
    room service people etc etc...... 
    We think it's a polite and respectful thing to do.  Most foreign people speak, or at least have a smattering of, at                             
    least 2 languages.   
   In Egypt, even the waiters in the hotels we stayed in, could have a basic conversation in English, French, Italian,           
    some Russian, and of course Arabic.

2)[i] Always[/i] ask the name of the waiters looking after you in the Restaurants.  Again it shows respect,     
           and can often lead to better service, better food, and some "hidden gem" of the country you're in.

It's not too bad an idea to do it in this country either.....

Maybe it's just me being old-fashioned, but treating people as people rather than just as "foreigners" when we're in their country seems pretty basic manners.  I always think how I would feel if an Ethiopian (for example) came up to me in the street, and asked for directions in Ethiopian. 
Because English (both the UK and the USA version) is the language of business, air travel, ship to shore and ship to ship communication, we native English speakers expect everybody to speak it - and we're often not disappointed.

But the amazement, joy and respect we've experienced, when we've tried to say "Please can we have the bill" in Arabic for example, has been a delightful part of our holidays.  Well worth the effort.

[Genem]

^^^^ Absolutely agree. Something as basic as "hello" in the local language goes a long way.

[Clifford Pope]

Two opposites.... windward and lee.    So the windward side is the side where the full force of the wind is hitting you. The lee side is the opposite side, sheltered from the wind.

So if you were playing boats, you could be in the lee of a headland, meaning sheltered from the elements.

The English language is horrible, 10 different ways to say anything.

I'd give lee and windward a miss unless you are a very knowledgeable native speaker.
"Lee" has two meanings:
a) the sheltered side of something
b) the very windy side you risk getting blown on to - eg a lee shore.

The connection is that leeward is down-wind (and windward is up-wind).
:)

[GatheR RoveR]

  Sorry a quick post, excuse for my strange sentences 

This discusion is probably the same in every language, that is just a lot of fun when you’r playing with words.

A little while ago we had our first TV, black and white (and 40 tints of gray).
Because the Dutch movie industry was and still is small, therefor we have/had a lot of English spoken movies.
Other than in country’s like Switzerland, France and Germany who dubbed the movies we still only have subtitles.

As a little boy I had three choices, learn to read, try to understand a strange language or go play outside.
So we are used to hear every day English/American.

But I would love to speak Spanish, that is after Chinese the most spoken language.

[Dentman]

.....and a lot easier to learn!