the short trip to France last week left me feeling like a completely stereotypical brit-abroad, leaving the confines of England completely unprepared to speak anything other than English.
OK, slight exaggeration, but knowing the French for hello, goodbye, please and thank you hardly counts as learning another language.
two holidays in Spain in the last few years haven't fared an awful lot better but the fact that we can get by on a handful of words while other nationalities accommodate us in their own countries is rather shameful.
The staff in Disneyland must have been versed in multiple languages to deal with holiday makers and i even overheard a young German girl taking pleasure in reciting the English she had learnt, introducing herself and saying that she likes swimming, fluent and to a degree I was only capable of managing when my secondary school began teaching us German at the age of 11, obviously it must have been a well thought out decision to teach half the new year 7's German, and a very worthwhile effort when you take into account that I'm yet to consider holidaying in Germany.
so now to try and reverse some of the damage done I'm loading my generic mp3 player with language courses with the hope of broadening my horizons, today i was learning how to ask where the gift shop is, not the most necessary question when you are surrounded by them in Disneyland.
and the relevance of Girls Aloud? Girls Aloud are always relevant, and who really needs much of an excuse to watch one of their videos?
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