Things that piss you off that shouldn't

[bickster]

One of the most irritating things aboiut being English and travelling abroad and trying to speak in the local language is johnny foreigners insistence on pracising their English on you

I speak English

I'm trying to speak french

My English is better than your French

My French won't get any better if you keep speaking English

 

But now we have the fluent in French daughter, the tables are turned... she's my secret weapon

They speak to us in English, she answers in French, she can do a number of different dialects quite well, including bossy Parisian, they stop the game of my Dads bigger than yours

[chrisp65]

I have found a couple of times in Paris that when I’ve had a poor stab at some French, they’ve happily responded in english.

Then, whilst we’ve been sat there, trying between us to come up with the words for the next exchange, someone else has come in to the restaurant, spoken english, and been given blank stares or a response in French.

Witnessed that a couple of times, ten years apart.

[mjmooney]

10 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I have found a couple of times in Paris that when I’ve had a poor stab at some French, they’ve happily responded in english.

Then, whilst we’ve been sat there, trying between us to come up with the words for the next exchange, someone else has come in to the restaurant, spoken english, and been given blank stares or a response in French.

Witnessed that a couple of times, ten years apart.

It's a dilemma, and really just depends on whether the other guy is OK or a dick. I remember when one young French waiter spoke to us in English (I guess he wanted to practice), and I made the mistake of responding in French (which I wanted to practice). He obviously took this (wrongly) as a put-down of his attempts, clearly thought "You want French? OK ya con, cop for this", and hit me with a high-speed barrage of heavily dialectical French. Fail.

[bickster]

13 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I have found a couple of times in Paris that when I’ve had a poor stab at some French, they’ve happily responded in english.

Then, whilst we’ve been sat there, trying between us to come up with the words for the next exchange, someone else has come in to the restaurant, spoken english, and been given blank stares or a response in French.

Witnessed that a couple of times, ten years apart.

Yep its a game they play, called piss off the arrogant twunt, I'm fine with that. They've never played it with me though I've seen it often

Funniest time was in Austria... I'll cut this short/ We got taken to a bowling Alley for a late drink by the bloke that owned the bar we drank in. It's close to closing time and there's some English Knobs making dicks of themselves being demanding and shouting.... We stand to oneside as this bloke Richard who owns the place does his best I don't understand English impression, eventually he gets them to leave and locks the front door

Walks behind the bar and just announces "Right lads what you having?"

So we instantly all just went "You don'tspeak English" and laughed

Richard for that was his name, says, I just dont speak English to dickheads, my English is better than their I worked on a P&O liner for ten years. Great bloke

I could write a book just based on those ten days in Austria

[NurembergVillan]

2 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I have found a couple of times in Paris that when I’ve had a poor stab at some French, they’ve happily responded in english.

Then, whilst we’ve been sat there, trying between us to come up with the words for the next exchange, someone else has come in to the restaurant, spoken english, and been given blank stares or a response in French.

Witnessed that a couple of times, ten years apart.

I know the service is slow over there but **** hell!

[Stevo985]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

One of the most irritating things aboiut being English and travelling abroad and trying to speak in the local language is johnny foreigners insistence on pracising their English on you

I speak English

I'm trying to speak french

My English is better than your French

My French won't get any better if you keep speaking English

 

But now we have the fluent in French daughter, the tables are turned... she's my secret weapon

They speak to us in English, she answers in French, she can do a number of different dialects quite well, including bossy Parisian, they stop the game of my Dads bigger than yours

Yeah that’s more annoying than people might think. 
 

when I’ve been to Spain, I really enjoyed Madrid and Seville Because far less people spoke English so I actually got to speak Spanish to people. 
Somewhere like Barcelona everybody speaks English and you feel like a spanner speaking broken Spanish when they just reply in fluent English.  

[mjmooney]

22 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

Yeah that’s more annoying than people might think. 
 

when I’ve been to Spain, I really enjoyed Madrid and Seville Because far less people spoke English so I actually got to speak Spanish to people. 
Somewhere like Barcelona everybody speaks English and you feel like a spanner speaking broken Spanish when they just reply in fluent English.  

Probably because they prefer Catalan. 

[sidcow]

10 hours ago, Xela said:

English is the defacto business language of the World. Global companies even if they are headquartered overseas use English as their preferred language at work. 

It means that for overseas people, to be successful at work, you need English skills. Its a necessity. Unfortunately it means for us Brits, learning other languages is largely down to a personal hobby or specific reason. 

I'd like to learn French properly (i can just about get by) and Spanish but i'm just too lazy and there is no burning reason to do so. 

Is the correct answer. 

If the world business language was Dutch probably hardly anyone else would be able to speak English and we would be fluent in Dutch as it would be drilled into us. 

It's also more than just the business language it's also the leading cultural language as well with most globally successful movies and songs also being in English.  I've seen quite a few travelogs where the local is explaining that they learned English from TV/Movies. 

[sidcow]

10 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

It’s also down to the soft power of culture.

All those US and UK films, all that pop music, The World Service.

I can’t help feeling that if all the best films and music were all in Portuguese for 70 years and a couple of super powers conversed in Portuguese, we would be much better at Portuguese.

 

Aghh, beat me to it.  Note to self, read full thread before posting. 

[sidcow]

23 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

I’ve tried to hold a work meeting in Welsh. I spoke a little about the weather. 

Mae'n bwrw glaw

[Stevo985]

52 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Probably because they prefer Catalan. 

They don't really. Some do, but only about half the population of Barcelona speak Catalan.

 

[chrisp65]

6 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Mae'n bwrw glaw

As sung as the footy yesterday evening...

 

[KentVillan]

Laurence Fox.

I don’t necessarily disagree with all his opinions but he just comes across as such an unkind and self-satisfied person. Boasting about dumping one of his many girlfriends because she expressed an opinion on the Brett Kavanagh case was bizarre.

Seems like the kind of man who routinely breaks women’s hearts and then blames it on their own mental instability, smearing them to anyone who’ll listen long after he could have just shut his trap. Not surprised he has latched onto a worldview which excuses all this kind of behaviour.

[Seat68]

A man that has had a help up in every aspect of his life reveals himself to be a bit of a word removed. 

[lapal_fan]

20 hours ago, Davkaus said:

I'll stay out of the UFC topic as going in to a specific topic and saying "I think this is shit" is a bit of a dick move.

I'll admit it's just not my thing in general, I don't get it, and I may well be in the minority, but I saw a video of the McGregor fight and the whole thing is just disgusting. It's basically just blokes beating each other half to death in front of a baying mob because it's their best chance of earning a decent living. It's a pretty vile sport IMO. Same for boxing. 

Yea I agree.

I do think Boxing is the lesser of two evils though, I think it's because it's hands only, the rules are very strict (no punching the back of the head etc) and the gloves are much more padded.  I still wouldn't like to try it though.

But MMA.. it's absolutely barbaric and I don't know how they get away with putting it on TV.  The gloves are tiny, you can stand and smash a guy lying on the ground, barely able to protect himself until he's out cold or the ref decides to stop it.  

The amount of broken bones and blood on the canvas is nasty.  It's like a snuff sport to me.  I get absolutely no pleasure watching people maim each other. 

[Seat68]

I do prefer MMA these days. It's a lot more exciting for me at least. 

[Dr_Pangloss]

39 minutes ago, lapal_fan said:

Yea I agree.

I do think Boxing is the lesser of two evils though, I think it's because it's hands only, the rules are very strict (no punching the back of the head etc) and the gloves are much more padded.  I still wouldn't like to try it though.

But MMA.. it's absolutely barbaric and I don't know how they get away with putting it on TV.  The gloves are tiny, you can stand and smash a guy lying on the ground, barely able to protect himself until he's out cold or the ref decides to stop it.  

The amount of broken bones and blood on the canvas is nasty.  It's like a snuff sport to me.  I get absolutely no pleasure watching people maim each other. 

From a head trauma perspective boxing is probably worse given you're getting constantly hit in the head with 8-14oz gloves is worse than the lighter gloves in MMA, and especially given MMA gives you more options than punches to the head.

But there's definitely the sense that boxing is more of a 'gentleman's' sport than MMA. Looks less brutal, more rules, generally less blood etc. I'm a massive boxing fan but rarely engage with MMA.

[lapal_fan]

2 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

From a head trauma perspective boxing is probably worse given you're getting constantly hit in the head with 8-14oz gloves is worse than the lighter gloves in MMA, and especially given MMA gives you more options than punches to the head.

But there's definitely the sense that boxing is more of a 'gentleman's' sport than MMA. Looks less brutal, more rules, generally less blood etc. I'm a massive boxing fan but rarely engage with MMA.

Colour me educated. 

I'd have thought the extra padding of boxing gloves would have softened the blow, rather than making it a heavier impact. 

I agree about the sheer amount of punches aimed at the head though, although it's easier to defend one part of your body (minus body shots) than it is to protect yourself from any angle of attack.  I just hate it when there is a knockdown and the guy/girl  jumps on top of the opponent and starts finding ways to smash guys/girls on the floor in the face (often with forearms).

It's disgusting to me. 

[Chindie]

MMA tends to cause more superficial injuries than boxing, as the wider range of strikes available cause more cutting (some types of strikes are more or less designed to cut). Generally it causes less long term significant injuries than boxing on a per capita basis, simply because the focus isn't really on damaging head hits as much and a boxers punch is going to do more damage than many MMA fighters hits. 

It looks nastier and you have a greater degree of limb injury, but on the whole, given that you have a submission game and focus on wearing down opponents through leg strikes and controlling, dominating the opponent, you're seeing less power hits to the head which is where the real danger is.

[villa4europe]

from the little I watch of both sports boxing seems to have more of the real nasty looking eye cuts and socket damage too

cowboys was obviously bad at the weekend 

and they don't spar in the same way, means the MMA fighters don't take the continuous or just shear number of hits to the head that boxers do