Great Britain Not Serious About Spanish

Am I right in thinking that this thread has wandered just a wee bit off topic? If not, I apologise and withdraw to my corner.

That's right Nic: Francophone just means someone who speaks French. An anglophone is just someone who speaks English. So it doesn't matter what native language a pied-noir speaks.

Damian, just a wee bit as is often the case here :) Don't apologise, we're just trying to relate everything back to the first post to conclude that "Great Britain Not Serious About Spanish", a bit like in that movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind! What were we trying to forget again?

Damian,


Discussions have a tendency to go far away from the original subject sometimes. But is it so important? I don't think. The most important i guess is the possibility to speak english.

Mi5 Mick, Damian


You did not answer to my question, is it bad to say "coloured people"? If, i'd like to know it.

Nic,
You have to read back over what Julian wrote:

>>"Can't we say in english coloured people, is it bad?"

I don't know about other English-speaking countries but in the US, it's politically incorrect to refer to people as "colored". However, for some reason, it's perfectly acceptable to refer to a non-Caucasian (a questionable term in itself) as a "person of color." Go figure! Another confounding point: the largest, most powerful African-American organization continues to call itself "The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People" (NAACP)! >>

Read the rest of what he wrote. He explains it all very well.

Personally, I would never say it.

Growing up in Australia, back in the seventies, I remember all children in primary school were classified in four teams that had names of important Australian glories: Humes, Parkes, Horsley, Murray... Further to that, each team had a colour in ribbons, laces or the like. It's hardly by chance I ended up believing "green" was the most beautiful colour in the world. Could you guess which colour was my team? Some of us even hated "yellow" "blue" or "red"... There was nothing nor could there be anything better than "blue" as we sang our little song:
We love you Parkes
we love you too
we love you Parkes
and we'll be true
you are the best
you know it too
PE AI AR KEY EE ES
we love you!
Since then I've never been one for classifications based on colours.

better than "green" lest you believe I'm colour-blind.

So i won't use that term anymore.

Nut Steve K (Who i thought was american) said U.S people use the word "black" people like french use the word "noir" (or sometimes "black"), so it refers to a color.

nut = but

Damian sez:
<<Am I right in thinking that this thread has wandered just a wee bit off topic? If not, I apologise and withdraw to my corner.>>

The best thread always do! ;-)

If I can go back to the original topic. The reason the Brits in Spain tend to group together is a lot simpler than most people on here would like to think. It is simply that they tend to be in the 50+ age group. Spanish was never taught in our schools when these people were at school. My 15 year old daughter now learns Spanish. As a child, I was forced to learn French, a language I have never used since. I can still remember quite a lot of French because I learnt it at a young age but despite holidaying in Spain every year I find it almost impossible to understand spoken Spanish. I can read "El Pais" but something in my 45 year old brain just cannot convert the unbroken stream of Spanish speech into words, let alone begin to translate them "on the fly". I suspect many of the (even older) ex-pats have the same problem. It has nothing to do with socio-political claptrap or racism, it's just oncoming senility.

¡Claro!
Eso es más coherente que las teorías de racismo y conspiración que he leido últimamente en este foro.

!Por supuesto!
Cuando un emigrante español en Gran Bretaña no aprendre inglés es que no da para más. Cuando un emigrante inglés en España no aprende español es porqué sabe demasiado y no le cabe ya nada.