London Banter - View Single Post

Arthur Figgis · August 30th 17, 09:27 PM posted to uk.transport.london

On 29/08/2017 00:50, wrote:

I must say I do feel uncomfortable going to countries where I know nothing
of the language to the point of not knowing which are the words for Ladies &
Gents' loos and have only done it once, to Poland in 2002.

The local Polish loo symbols seem to have fallen out of fashion.

I got away with
English entirely except on one occasion, buying single train tickets from
Krakow to Warsaw. I thought of trying German but decided it would be
undiplomatic at least.

I find that Poles don't mind tourist German, once they have established
that you are not actually German and so it is being used by both sides
for purely practical reasons.

The people who smugly declare how uniquely evil the English are for not
speaking every known foreign language (often combined with a sneer at
those people who were so ignorant that they did A Level maths and
science at school, and therefore can be assumed to be barely capable of
walking upright, never mind knowing the gender of a fromage sandwich),
have never seen German tourists in action in a place where the natives
don't speak English.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK