Sounds British

The rolled R is essential to pronouncing Spanish well. I have trouble rolling Rs. I told you how I paid good money to a speech therapist to try and fix my problem. Nowadays, when I remember, I can make a sound that's good enough to pass muster as a rolled R but it's not a part of my normal everyday speech, it's not something I do without thinking. That's because most of the time I speak English. I have no problem with my British R and I don't have to think about how to pronounce it.

I was talking to a couple of friends, one is Scottish and one sounds Scottish, so they both roll their Rs easily enough. They were telling a story though about making an appointment. There had been confusion between an appointment at 2pm (dos) and 12pm (doce). The pronunciation of dos is a bit like the English doss - a nice wide open o - like in bother or otter rather than the o in hello. There is a tendency for we Brits to pronounce it more like dose. The pronunciation of 12, doce, is something like dough-thay or maybe doth-thay. The way the words are pronounced is not really the important point here though. The important feature is that the stress in the two words is different. My guess is that when our friends were confirming the appointment the Spanish person heard the vowel sound from one word and not from the other.

Stick with me. Like those who wear old fashioned wigs I'm building a case.

People keep asking me what I do with myself now that I'm old and retired with nothing to do. The truth is, as an ex work colleague told me, what happens is that the things that were once shoehorned into the working day now expand to fill the void. My days are full, I often feel a bit pushed even, but I suppose that my concerns are all a bit smaller scale than they once were - have I done the recycling?, have I read a bit of my book?, have I cooked the meal?, stirred the compost?, dewormed the cat? and so on.

One of the things I do is to try to do a bit of Spanish everyday. This isn't just an excuse to mention Ben and Marina, the Notes in Spanish people again, it's because I bought a series of videos from them that gave me the idea for this post. This series of videos is full of tips about learning Spanish. You know the sort of thing - speak every opportunity you get, find yourself a native Spanish speaker to talk to, don't get flustered by getting things wrong, read as much as you can, take delight in the victories and forget the defeats and so on and so on. If you count the videos - each one is available as an English language version or a Spanish version with transcript - I think they said it was over 20 hours - or it may have been 10 hours - either way it's a Netflix series worth.

My own Spanish is alright but it should be better. I've put a lot of work into it over the years and my failings cause me existential angst. I'm not one of those people who has a particular knack for languages, I'm not someone able to mimic sounds and to pick up phrases and constructions from overheard speech without any problem. I don't think many people are. The Britons I know who speak good Spanish seem to do so because they live in a Spanish milieu - living with, married maybe, to a Spanish speaker or working in a Spanish speaking workplace. In effect those people who have no option but to use Spanish for hours and hours on end. British youngsters who have been brought up in Spain, the ones who have been schooled here more or less from the start, not the poor adolescents suddenly dropped into an alien culture, also speak first rate Spanish. Having encountered several over the years I often find that those youngsters have no real difficulty with everyday conversation in either Spanish or English but when it comes to reading and writing or slightly higher level language that it's their English, rather than their Spanish, which is weak. 

The point is, I suppose, that the majority of we British immigrants around Pinoso don't live amongst Spaniards. We just bump into them, and Spain, every now and gain. We chat with our neighbours, we order food and drink, we have short conversations in shops or with officials but most of us have rebuilt a version of our former lives in our homes; little islands of Britishness. So, despite doing classes, despite trying to learn new vocabulary, despite buying videos full of language learning tips, despite our best efforts in general, whilst we're only popping in to Spain every now and again we'll simply have to put up with those linguistic misunderstandings.

Fleeting success

Our neighbours have been putting up a new fence over the past couple of weeks. Facing each other across the footings for what would be the new fence Vicente, for that's the name of our neighbour, was complaining about the builders. I sympathised - one has to with builders. Even builders complain about, other, builders. Taking advantage of his sunny disposition towards me I asked him if he could spare a couple of the concrete blocks that were piled up in his yard. The question I asked was something, in translation, like "Are two of the concrete blocks in excess for you?" I got them and I went away well pleased with myself not only because I had the blocks, but also because I'd used a phrase that a Spaniard would use without having rehearsed it beforehand. 

I mentioned this phrase to my online Spanish teacher. I was bemoaning the fact that this, and other, fleeting victories over Spanish are wasted on the audience. I may be pleased with myself for having got the construction right but it's unlikely that Vicente noticed. If you're a native English speaker you might notice the mistake in "is a nice day" but you wouldn't notice the correctness of  "it's a nice day".

You, one, becomes much more aware of language when you're not comfortable with it. I often find myself repeating a Spanish phrase after hearing it on a news broadcast or in a song. Often it's not the intricate stuff that seems to be the hardest. For instance Spaniards find it really hard, when they are speaking English, to remember to use pronouns, the little words that go before a verb. They are not needed in Spanish so they get forgotten in English. It's common to hear was a teacher instead of he was a teacher and she is late often becomes is late. It's no big deal. It hardly matters. Even those people who speak spectacularly good English, think Eurovision Song Contest hosts, don't quite sound right if you start analysing what they say. Even if their grammar is good, the vocabulary right and the phrasing OK you, one, will still notice that their inflexion, their pacing and their tonality is just slightly off when compared to a native speaker.

Obviously it's the same the other way. There's a programme on Spanish radio hosted by a bloke called Nicholas Jackson who's from Manchester. I wish my Spanish were as good as his but he sounds like a Briton speaking Spanish. Even someone like the writer Ian Gibson, who has been here for years, still has an Irish twang behind his very colloquial Spanish. 

Young Britons brought up in Spain offer a strange case. At home, with carers or parents, their principal language is usually English. In the street, with friends, at work, at school their key language is Spanish. In effect English becomes, very much, their secondary language and lots of young British people grow to make the same mistakes in English as their Spanish peers - referring to their parents as their fathers for instance. They also, often, have a, relatively, limited English vocabulary and lots of trouble with English spellings.

My style of speaking Spanish is still very much an exercise in join the dots. I provide a list of vocabulary and I hope that the Spaniard I'm speaking to will be able to piece together what I'm trying to say. I've never liked performing - I don't dance, I don't do pass the cucumber, I don't even ask for street directions. Recently though, a couple of times, I've been quite pleased with myself because I've been less reluctant to speak. I put it down to speaking two hours Spanish each week through the online classes. Outside of the online sessions I don't really have Spanish conversations. Ten minutes with the neighbour, a sentence or two in a shop, a short exchange of phrases in a bar or restaurant. Mind you it's not all wine and roses. I still, sometimes, go to see a film in Spanish and, when it's done, if it weren't for the pictures, I'd have no idea what it was about even.

Making me smile

I didn't do the 11 plus exam at school. It was just being phased out as I went from Junior to Secondary school but I was part of some survey to see if continuous assessment gave similar results to the old style exam.

The question I remember was: Which is the best pair?

• Peaches and ice cream
• Peaches and cream
• Peaches and apricots

The correct answer is peaches and apricots as they are both fruit. The question is obviously designed to mislead.

Spanish tests love to do the same. A sample driving test theory question for instance shows a tram and a car arriving at an unmarked junction and asks who should give way. The answer is the tram. There is a general rule to give way to traffic from the right at unmarked junctions. Obviously the likelihood of such a junction existing is minimal. The question tests something theoretical and unreal with no real practical application. Spanish education is a bit like that too. One commentator remarked that the Spanish way, for a course for trainee carpenters, would be to have questions on the properties of different woods and the history of cabinet making alongside a multiple choice question to identify different joints but without any sort of practical test.

To join the Spanish national police force here you have to do a competitive exam. One part of the latest exam has a test about words. There is a list of words and the question is are they spelled correctly as in the official Spanish dictionary. This adds a bit of a twist. One of the words for instance is outlet. It's used all over Spain for factory shops. It's spelled correctly in the list but it is not in the official dictionary so if you said it was correct you'd be wrong! Candidates should, apparently, know whether a common, everyday word is in the dictionary or not. If outlet is wrong then Brent, to describe a type of crude oil, is in the list, is spelled correctly and is in the dictionary. Broker is a bit half and half - it's in the list and in the dictionary but it needs an accent to be spelled correctly in Spanish - bróker. The other words in the test are often difficult and/or uncommon words - antediluvian and ribonucleic for instance are obviously words that any police officer is going to be using a lot.

Over the weekend we had the Spanish film awards; they're called The Goyas. The principal host of the  nearly all "virtual" event was Antonio Banderas. He'd obviously called a lot of his Hollywood chums who kept popping up throughout the ceremony to say "I support Spanish cinema" Some, like Tom Cruise and Robert de Niro did it in Spanish. Emma Thompson did it in Spanish too. She said it twice once in her best Spanish accent and then in a parody of a British person speaking Spanish. The comment I read in one of the newspapers said that the stars were "trying" to speak Spanish. I laughed because when the Spanish newspapers report on someone Spanish speaking in English, like Rafa Nadal, Felipe VI or President Pedro Sanchez they nearly always say "in perfect English".  They do, all three of them speak good English just as do Bruno Tonioli and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Splendid as always

So I'd bought a couple of railway tickets to go up to Valencia for the Fallas.

Covid 19 meant first the Fallas were postponed and then there was a general restriction on movement. I wasn't going to be using my tickets.

RENFE, the train people, famed for their idiosyncratic website, emailed to say they were returning money or giving credit. They said I had to wait till today, Wednesday, for them to get their systems in place.

I tried the website first. It said my tickets had been "consumed" presumably because they were dated for yesterday.

I tried the special phone number. It offered a service in all the Spanish languages and in English. Splendid as my Castilian is, I went for the easy option. Lots of blurb and then the message - all our operators are busy. Press one if you would you like to be served in Castilian. I didn't press one.

I tried ringing back. All our operators are busy. Over the next thirty minutes I tried a few times more.

Eventually the synthesised voice didn't close me down straight away and went on to offer the language options. English was busy still, but would I like Castilian? This time I pressed option one.

The voice asked me about when my ticket was dated. I answered. The voice asked me about my ticket type. I answered. "All our operators are busy," said the voice.

I think I might wait a while. There are only 65€ worth of tickets and the pal I was going with has already paid his half. The way it's going I could spend more on phone calls than the ticket money I'll get back.

---------------------------------------------

I phoned several more times with similar sorts of result. On 25 March the web page message had changed and I was able to apply for a credit online. The credit came through today, 26th March

I think there was a point when I started to write

One of the films we've seen recently is called Legado en los huesos, Legacy in the bones. It's a Spanish film, the second in a series of three based on trilogy of crime books set in Navarre with a woman detective, from the regional police force, as the key character.

Our nearest cinemas are just metres apart in Petrer about 25kms from Culebrón. In the Cinesmax we tend to go and see Spanish language films and films which have been dubbed into Spanish from languages other than English; French, Brazilian, Chinese etc. In the Yelmo, where, for the past couple of years they've had one performance of films every Tuesday (and some Thursdays), in their original language with subs in Spanish, we usually see English language films. Hearing Ian McKellen or Margot Robbie (and legions of others) sound like themselves rather than some dubbing actor from Pozuelo de Alarcón is a joy.

Now back with Legado de los huesos; I heard the principal actor from the film, Marta Etura, talking in a radio interview. Her character is supposed to be married to a North American, James, who speaks English. Consequently from time to time, in the film, Marta speaks in English. An English that was very laboured and heavily accented. During the radio interview she was complimented on her English in the film. Her on screen husband, Colin McFarlane, speaks some Spanish during the film and that is equally laboured and heavily accented. In the books which gave rise to the film and which I'm reading, James has no trouble with keeping up his end in the Spanish conversations in the family home. His use of the subjunctive has me in awe.

Last night we were going to see the new Clint Eastwood directed film Richard Jewell before we realised that with better planning we could see Mujercitas, Little Women, on Tuesday and still catch Richard Jewell on Thursday. So when Little Women starts it's in Spanish. To be absolutely honest I didn't notice for a moment or two but then I did just as the audience started to grumble, people went to tell the cinema staff and the film, was stopped. A woman came in and told us, in Spanish, that for technical reasons the film couldn't be shown in English and we were offered free tickets, refunds and the like. There was quite a lot of confusion as the generally British audience didn't know what was being said too them. We chose to stay as did the two Spanish families. English language films are not as good in Spanish and sometimes I get lost but we don't, usually, have a problem with understanding a dubbed Hollywood film. It's harder to understand Spanish films and it's hardest when the film is from South America because the Spanish in both is more idiomatic and less clear.

And that was it really. There was some vague point about the trickiness of bilingualism but I seem to have lost the thread so that will have to do.

Beep Beep Lettuce

Our fridge went beep when the door was opened. It shouldn't. It still worked though. We could live with that. Then the handle came off in my hand. Not so good. A beeping handle-less fridge. I put it off. I tried the enquiry form on the repairer's website. They didn't answer. Nothing for it but a phone-call. I could procrastinate no more. It went alright really. The woman on the phone asked me for the model number. "RD-46," I began. "Sorry?" RD-46. "What?" I tried hard to roll the R. I was reduced to "R - like the capital of Italy, Roma". "Loma?" she went. No, Roberto, Robot, Real, Radio." "Ah, R," she said. D for Dinamarca was easier. The engineer came today. The conversation went well and the fridge is mute though I'm 110€ poorer.

The electrical goods in the kitchen are in open revolt. The kettle, bought eleven weeks ago, started to leak. I had the receipt. I took it back. "No, this isn't guaranteed," said the bloke in the shop. "It's the limescale that's done for it and improper use isn't guaranteed." I became very cross very quickly. "If you want me to ever buy anything, ever again, in this shop - I listed some of the several big things we've bought there - then you will take this back as part payment against a better make of kettle". He argued, I blustered. My Spanish held together remarkably well. I heard myself using a third conditional. I was impressed. We agreed the kettle was guaranteed and I came home with a shiny Bosch one.

As we drove across Castilla la Mancha I knew the sign said to watch out for otters crossing the road. Otter is not an everyday sort of word. I can watch a film in Spanish without too much trouble. I can read a novel in Spanish though I may miss the nuances. I can maintain a conversation - well sort of. Imagine if you can't. Imagine talking to an insurance company about the burst pipes in your house or opening a bank account or going to the doctor with a pain. What do you do when the instructions for the self service petrol pump make no sense to you and you need fuel and it's 2am. Having a conversation using Google Translate, with gestures, drawings, odd words and a lot of smiling is fine when you're on holiday but it's not so good if you need an O-ring for your pool pump and it won't help you decipher the letter from the bank.

I'm of a certain age. Lots of the Britons I know here are of a similar age. A friend, back in the UK, sent me a message minutes ago to say that someone I once worked with has cancer. We're getting to the time of life when death is not such an abstract idea. When chronic illness is probable as well as possible. Someone was talking to me about their concern that they may end up alone, lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by people they couldn't talk to and being subjected to processes they didn't understand. I know of lots of people who have decided that it's time to move from that rural house that looked so idyllic just a few years ago. Now the garden seems boundless. The drive in to town a real chore, and with failing sight and a gammy knee, a potential problem. Some have moved into Spanish towns, others have gone back to the UK.

I know that I write about language a lot but, as I look around me, I understand the British ghettoes, the low level of knowledge about the place we live, the effort that Britons make to find people to provide British television and doctors and plumbers who speak English. It wasn't just the fridge door that reminded me to write this same blog yet again. I am appalled at the lack of support for the boats cruising the Med looking to rescue refugees and migrants. Count the emergency vehicles for a derailed train and compare that to the lack of response to a boat load of people abandoned at sea. I am disgusted at the racist attitudes of far too many people. I heard some MP, on £77,000 a year plus expenses, asking why some refugees don't stop when they get to the first safe country. I wondered if he would have walked from Senegal to Morocco and then crossed the water in a boat from Toys“R”Us to get his job? He wouldn't get it anyway without speaking English.

My Jamaican nan wants to know why I love chocolate spread so much, but mi Nutella

So I'm in a restaurant. I have wine and rice in front of me, outside the sun is shining and I don't have to work. Someone passes who knows me. They ask how I am and I respond that life is terrible. If this were an English person they would give a sort of half hearted, well mannered, version of a smile. If the person were a Spaniard they may well ask why.

I arrived late at the Monday evening intercambio session a few weeks ago and a friend was introducing herself to a Spaniard new to the group. After the formalities she added that English people can be a bit difficult to understand because they, we, joke with the language all the time. I watched as she struggled to explain exactly what she meant but I realised that it was true. When Maggie asks if she should put the kettle on I can't stop myself asking if she thinks it will suit her. I often explain to my students that the greeting "hi" is probably somebody playfully responding to hello pronounced "'lo"  with its opposite and that "hiya" is another form of wordplay against high.

Yesterday evening a Spanish pal posted a list of English words used by Spaniards in everyday conversation for which there is a perfectly good Spanish word available. The list included things like apariencia instead of look or pasatiempo instead of hobby. Along with the like I put the comment, in Spanish, "It's not our fault" and he responded with "Nobody says that it is, Chris". Ooops, that wasn't what I meant at all.

Maggie often tells me that I compound my difficulties in speaking Spanish by giving similarly obtuse answers when Spaniards speak to me. But I can't help it. It's how I think.

To justify  myself to my Spanish friend I responded with a blog I found which started with - El peculiar sentido del humor británico  - the strange British sense of humour can seem disconcerting at first. With strong self criticism, an almost imperceptible sarcasm and a very dry style it may seem like a completely new language.

Roll your own

My dancing is terrible. In fact I don't dance. I can't clap in time, I can't keep rhythm, I can't sing. At junior school they wrested the triangle from my grip enraged with my inability to strike it at the appropriate moment. At Grammar School I was beaten for singing badly. It was presumed that I was singing so tunelessly to be rebellious.

I can't roll Rs either. This is essential for speaking Spanish reasonably well. The R at the beginning of a word has to be rolled and the double RR has to be rolled. To Spaniards I sound like a Benny Hill Chinese person.

There are dozens of YouTube videos with tricks, methods, advice and examples of how to roll Rs. They all start by saying that everyone can roll Rs. Just the same way as my music teacher, Philip Tordoff, told me that everyone could sing just a few moments before he set about me with a ruler.

Apparently the trick, for Rs, not for singing, is to put the tip of the tongue on the alveolar ridge and expel enough air so that the tip of the tongue vibrates. The tongue, to produce a Spanish R, has to be somewhere near where it would be if a British person were to say de. I can do that. I can make my tongue vibrate but there is some coordination necessary with my vocal cords and that just escapes me.

It is, as Mr Jones my Latin teacher used to say, a bugger.

Round midnight

It was just after ten and I was putting away my paperwork at the end of the class when a WhatsApp message pinged on my phone. It said that Maggie was helping a couple of friends out with a bit of a medical emergency. One of them was having trouble breathing and, at the local health centre, they needed someone who understood Spanish. Maggie stepped into the breach.

Later it was decided to transfer the ill person to the nearby hospital in Elda for tests and what not. We ended up going too and so, around midnight, we found ourselves hanging around in the Urgencias, the Accident and Emergency of the local hospital. Nobody was watching the telly high on the wall, someone was throwing up on the pavement outside, the drinks and snack machines were doing a slow but constant trade. The main activity though was waiting; staring at mobile phones or talking in small groups. Nobody looked rich, nobody looked well dressed, one woman was even in her dressing gown and nightie - when things happen quickly I don't suppose there is time to spruce yourself up. Quite a few of the men were in shorts despite it only being 11ºC.

It reminded me of so many places with old plastic chairs or faded and lopsided posters on the walls, dole offices for instance, but, more than anything, it brought to mind my occasional overnight coach trips from Petrer to Madrid and on to Salamanca and Ciudad Rodrigo. A motorway service station and an A&E waiting room when the world has slowed down for the day are surprisingly similar places.

No particular news on our pal as I write- stable but not fixed.

You say you love me

One of the things I've realised about being old is that my reference points are different to those of younger people. I know that very few people go out and buy a printed newspaper nowadays, I don't either, but I still say “I read such and such in the paper” or “the papers say this or that”, even though I actually read the news on my mobile phone. I think of the telly as having times when programmes are on rather than calling them up on Netflix. Mention playing a game and I visualise football or Monopoly before I think of Destiny 2.

I used to watch the Star Trek: Next Generation. I haven't seen an episode for years as Star Trek isn't particularly popular in Spain. Actually it often takes me aback how culturally unaware lots of Spaniards are about US culture. I'd never quite realised how fifty first state we Britons were until I lived here. Anyway in this particular episode, as I remember, maybe inaccurately, the captain of the Enterprise is stranded on a planet with a non human adversary. Slowly the relationship between the two of them improves but communication is difficult because the non human speaks in cultural references. It would be as though a Briton used the date of the Battle of Hastings, 10th October 1066, as a way of saying, total rout, defeat with long lasting consequences or a turning point on history.

One of the big problems for my students is that the exams they have to pass are written by people who know about 1066, people with whom I share a culture. Those exam writers know about raising money for charities, about schools owning minibuses and about young people going clubbing. Spaniards don't. So when the conversation or the recording that my students need to understand is about a jumble sale for money towards a new minibus, for instance, my students have a cultural hill, as well as a linguistic one, to climb.

Yesterday I had a class where only one student turned up. The student is very young but she's good at English and refreshingly keen on learning. Nonetheless two hours is a long class for even the most dedicated single student. I needed a change of pace. I remembered a song that I'd prepared for another class of teenagers and asked her if she fancied doing the song Friends by Anne-Marie, at which point she burst into song. She went on to tell me lots more songs that she "loved" or "adored" often with vocal accompaniment. Obviously enough she asked me if I knew this or that song or artist and my lack of cultural awareness, of things Spanish and also of things young, soon began to show through.

As we talked the young woman was almost tripping over her words with excitement. Music is obviously something important in her life.  It reminded me that I had seen a list, "in the paper", a piece from el País in English, written by someone called Christy Romer.  I've just Googled the name and it's a him and he's based in Cambridge.  The list was called "12 classic songs guaranteed to get any Spanish house party moving." Now when I'd looked at this list I hadn't believed it. For a start the examples that the article gave of British "never fail" dance floor fillers were No Scrubs and Come on Eileen. Hmm? Anyway, giving that I had a young person in front of me, keen to talk about music, the sort of person who wouldn't, if she were British, be old enough to believe that the funniest thing ever seen on telly was the Only Fools and Horses episode with the chandelier, I went through the list with her. I hadn't thought the listing was any good because they were all very old songs and lots of them, from my limited knowledge of the artists, or just guessing from the song titles, were either very bouncy songs with lots of voices doing the chorus or overwrought solo efforts. It's quite hard to think of UK equivalents but maybe The Specials and Too Much Too Young or Viva España or some collaboration between Madness with Chas and Dave for the bouncy style. For the style of song which requires a pained expression on the singer's face, so typical of lots of quite famous Spanish songs, UK examples might be Tom Jones with Delilah, Barry Ryan with Eloise or maybe a bit of Renée and Renato. The fact that the majority of the songs must have been released twenty five years before my student was born made not a jot of difference. She recognised and sang every single one.

Class over and I was on my way home. I talked to my bosses who are both sub 30 I think. Young in my books. I mentioned the list to them. They too knew all the songs, maybe a bit Andalucia, was their comment but it seemed to me that they too recognised the list as being legitimate if not, necessarily, definitive.

Just another lesson in Spanish culture for me. Curiouser and curiouser!

For anyone who cares and for the few Spanish readers this is the list.

Celia Cruz - La vida es un carnaval
Rafaella Carrà - Hay que venir al sur
Las Grecas - Te estoy amando locamente
Los Del Río - Sevilla tiene un color especial
Gipsy Kings - Volare
Alaska - A quién le importa
Los Manolos - Amigos para siempre
Sevillanas - El Adiós
Camilo Sesto - Vivir así es morir de amor
The Refrescos - Aquí no hay playa
Bongo Botrako - Todos los días sale el sol
Raphael - Mi Gran Noche

The language of Angels

Despite my best efforts none of my students would ever be confused with a native English speaker. It's the same for me. Try as I might, when I speak Spanish, I sound like an English person mispronouncing Spanish with the wrong cadence. Lots of Britons around here complain that, when they say something, in Spanish, to a Spaniard, they get a blank look but that, when they eventually get through and ask the Spaniard to repeat the offending word or phrase it sounds exactly the same, to them, as what they originally said.

Most of us are, apparently, deaf to some sounds and incapable of reproducing others.

We went to see a French film last night called Historias de una indecisa in Spanish or, originally, L'Embarras du choix, in French. It was a nice, enjoyable, light romantic comedy; very French with lots of style and even more eating and drinking.

One of the characters was supposed to be Scottish; in reality the actor was English. Either way the man knows how to speak English. I can't work out from the French trailers on YouTube whether he spoke French on the original French soundtrack or not. He does speak English on the French trailers.

In the version we saw, dubbed into Spanish, everyone speaks Spanish, including the Scottish character. There are some sections in English. At least they purport to be English. They are what the Spanish dubbing artists suppose to be English. I would have been hard pressed to understand them save for the Spanish subtitles. The pronunciation was risible, alarming even but the total effect was remarkably amusing. It reminded me of that scene in the Steve Martin remake of the Pink Panther where he is trying to say "I would like to buy a hamburger".

Not typical

I was listening to a learn Spanish podcast called Notes in Spanish today. The podcast is produced by an Anglo Spanish couple Ben and Marina. They plan what they're going to talk about but the actual conversation is unscripted so that it's more spontaneous. Until this new series, which has just reached its third week, it's been a few years since they've produced any podcasts. I hadn't cared for the content of the first couple of these latest recordings but this one was much better. They were responding to the question as to whether Spain could still claim to be different from other European countries or whether it has been "globalized".

They talked about how some of the symbols of everyday Spain are disappearing - for instance the way that family restaurants are being taken over by corporate hotel and catering groups. They chatted about the new transport solutions like Cabify (a company that uses chauffeured cars to provide an alternative to conventional taxis) or the shared car schemes where users hire vehicles for a few hours at a time. One of the points they made was that whilst these initiatives might be new to Madrid they were probably old hat in large chunks of the world. They also mentioned that things were probably unchanged in España profunda - Deep Spain. I've been told that neither Pinoso, nor even Culebrón, can claim to be Deep Spain but we're hardly at the cutting edge of the latest trends either.

Family restaurants are still the norm around here, small family shops too and the few times that I've wondered about any of those services that work via a mobile phone app - like home food delivery, car sharing or chauffeured cars - I've always drawn a blank. No Just Eat, no Uber and no Bla Bla Car - I don't even seem to be able to get online supermarket orders delivered. My mum lives in St Ives, in rural Huntingdonshire, and she can do online supermarket shopping and order take away from Just Eat even though most of the shops on the High Street are local businesses. This discussion about "The Real Spain" the idea that some particular type of city, town or village best represents the essence of Spain reminds me of some spoof I saw on British telly when I still lived in the UK. In it a group of friends were in the after pub Indian knocking back pints of Kingfisher. Their conversation centred on the argument that the real India could only be found in the villages. Ben was comparing now to a time at the end of the 1990s. What makes that Spain any more or less Spanish than the Spain of Cabify and Car2go? It's something I always think about when I see "traditional costume" - why does some clothing style, frozen at some particular time in the past, represent "traditional" any more than the flip flops that have been the standard Spanish summer wear for years and years? Personally I think that the excesses and brashness of Benidorm and the style of the Alhambra both represent the real Spain as does some remote hamlet in Teruel, a fishing village in Cantabria or the trendiest bar in Chueca or Lavapiés.

As an aside Ben speaks pretty good Spanish. He sounds very British though, his cadence, as well as his accent, are British. One of the things I like about his podcasts is that he makes errors of the sort I make. He puts most of them right himself but sometimes Marina has to correct him. Ben wasn't the only recorded or broadcast Briton I listened to today. I also heard a radio programme, done on Spanish Radio 3 Extra, by another Spanish speaking Briton called Nicolas Jackson. His programme is aimed at a Spanish audience and is about new British music. Like Ben, Nicolas speaks cracking Spanish but, again, with a very obvious British accent. I've never noticed any mistakes in his scripted commentary but Spaniards tell me, that whilst what he says may be grammatically correct, at times it sounds a bit clumsy to a native speaker - in plan Guiri as they say - like a foreigner. Simon Manley, the British Ambassador to Spain, was on the radio a couple of times today talking about Brexit. He makes plenty of mistakes and sounds very British too. Maybe that's a part of his job description and I suppose media interviews are harder than either prepared scripts or a natter with your partner. I wish I spoke Spanish as well as the worst of them.

Hearing so many Britons speaking Spanish in one day I got to comparing my own linguistic capability with theirs. To be honest I thought very little of what they said was beyond me - at least with a following wind. Then someone phoned from my credit card company trying to get me to change my card. I have a suspicious mind and guessed that the new card would not be to my advantage. I tried to tell the woman that but as I spluttered and fumbled with the most basic pronunciation or structure I realised just how far there is to go.

They walk in the sun

I've just been to the UK, to see my mum. I was feeling a bit guilty about not having seen her for about seventeen months. She was in good form, fit and well and full of life.

In the UK I don't have any problem with talking. My words and phrasing may be a bit old fashioned but I can say what I want to whoever I want and with an appropriate emphasis. People even understand me if I throw in a bit of irony.

Nonetheless I find the UK a bit more foreign every time I'm there. I refer back to Spain all the time. I noticed hundreds of little differences - for instance I was impressed by the way that people repeatedly gave way to other people - in traffic, in queues, in doorways. People really do choose to walk on the sunny side of the street rather than to search out the shade. Food was distinctly different and I noticed that people eat all sorts of food in the street at all times of day. Forms of retailing seemed much more innovative with all manner of kiosks and small businesses offering services and products that don't exist here. It could be a long list.

I tell my students about ordering and paying for beer at the bar but I was surprised when the bar staff wanted the money before pulling the pint in Wetherspoon's so I'll have to change that a little. I tell my students that for we British a coffee is a coffee but I'm wrong - lattes, cappuccinos and americanos have taken the place of the distinction between coffee and black coffee and I wasn't there to notice. I found it strange, though I know the system, that the bus fare varies width distance. I was constantly perturbed as I rode on the buses that they seemed determined to drive into the face of oncoming traffic. It would take a while to relearn the driving on the other side of the road thing. Even the cars were slightly different; I spotted lots and lots of Jaguars and I doubled the number of Bentleys I'd seen in my life in just five days. I had to check the unfamiliar banknotes and coins before paying and not being able to see the tobacco in supermarkets was most odd. 

So I was quite at home in England but always a bit off balance at the same time. To be honest it's probably the same here though maybe the other way around. I'm in a bar as I type this. I was going to have a coffee but, as I waited to be served, I heard the waitress say the coffee machine was broken. When I ordered I checked about the machine and ordered a non alcoholic beer instead. She came back, "You may think I'm joking," she said, "but we don't have any zero alcohol either." I understood what she was saying without any trouble - though I probably didn't hear every word - and changing my order for a third time was no problem. It's not that I was lost, it's not that I was phased or confused but I wasn't exactly at ease with the situation either. So the talking can be a bit tricky but the way of doing things and the things I see around me are just commonplace.

As I got off the aeroplane in Spain I felt glad to be home but, as I will never be fluent, fluent, maybe I will never be at home.

Public reading

I've mentioned Azorín, the writer born in Monóvar a few kilometres from Pinoso, before. There's a lot going on about him because it's the 50th anniversary of his death. A while ago I went on a walk around Yecla based on one of his books and today I went to a public reading of another of his works. It wasn't something I'd planned to do but when I booked up for another Azorín event the woman on the desk persuaded me to sign on for this one too.

If I've mentioned Azorín a couple of times I have mentioned my terror at speaking Spanish hundreds of times. Terror is definitely the right word. In fact my Spanish nowadays isn't too bad and, under certain circumstances, I talk without too much effort or I laugh off my mistakes. One of the worst situations though is when I participate in something that isn't really designed for someone with defficient Spanish. Go and stand in the crowd to watch a procession and nobody is surprised that there is a foreigner there taking snaps. Go to a concert and it's the same. But, if you go to a poetry reading or a political rally then, obviously, if you're there you must be able to speak Spanish; if not why are you there and not curled up safe on your sofa watching the BBC?

It's worse if Maggie isn't there for two reasons. The first is that if we are spoken to she is much, much braver than me and she does the speaking. All I have to do is make gutteral interjections or laugh at the appropriate time. The second is that it means I'm alone with nobody to talk to about what's happening or why.

So I turn up at the appointed time for the public reading of Las confesiones de un pequeño filósofo. The reading was going to be in the street outside the Azorín museum but the weather has been miserable for the last two or three days (probably because it's a bank holiday weekend) so the event was moved inside. I was cold sweat anxious in that irrational way that I have when I may be called upon to answer questions in Spanish. It was fine though, all I had to do was say hello and then I was able to skulk against the wall. The organisers had a list of names and just before everything got under way they asked me if I was Chris Thompson. They asked me first, they knew. My tiny joke about me looking English went down well. A few minutes later they asked me if I would like to be the first to read. It wasn't a public reading in the sense of someone with nice intonation and a good knowledge of the novel reading selected passages; it was the public taking turns to read some of the book! At least I understood the question enough to be forceful, definite, resolute and clear in saying no.

The reading was interesting enough. I didn't know the book but, after hearing the early chapters, I thought I might give it a go. Azorín has two modes - in one he gets all philosophical and talks about writers and political theories unknown to me and in the other he writes descriptions. I don't care at all for the philosophical stuff but the descriptions are often splendid.