Once Brits abroad couldn’t speak foreign languages – now no one lets us try

I grew up, like most Brits, as an unwitting monoglot. Back then, in the 1980s, speaking only English was not considered odd. Hollywood and the Disney Channel, Enid Blyton and the Beano: all were accessible in our mother tongue. So why go to the trouble of learning a foreign language?

One answer, of course, is travel. But this was 30 years ago, the early Schengen days of travellers cheques (Gen Y, ask your parents) and Allo Allo (ditto). Foreign holidays – for myfamily, at least – meant a rain-soaked week in Brittany. A lesson from these forays across the Channel (other than the rotten weather) was the woeful inadequacy of school-boy language learning. Great for vocab tests; utterly hopeless sur le continent proper.

Fortunately, the global travel industry adjusted. Brits abroad, the consensus held, were a linguistic lost cause. The prospect of an Englishman’s tongue ever sliding smoothly over a German diphthong or Spanish cedilla was too fanciful to imagine. If Morris wouldn’t come to Montpellier, to tweak a phrase, then Montpellier would have to come to Morris.

English, in short, would become the industry’s lingua franca. Fast forward a generation and the results are jaw-dropping. For English-speakers abroad, the days of confusion are gone. Check into a hotel in the centre of almost any major European city and everyone has an admirable grasp of our mother tongue. Not just the concierge, but the cleaner too.

The ubiquity of spoken English in the international tourism industry is not all upside. Sure, it means the likelihood of ordering lamb and ending up with lobster are vastly reduced. But what of the world beyond the hotel lobby?

Speaking (or trying to speak) the local lingo is part of beginning to see a place for what it really is. Surely, that’s why we go to Bologna, not Bangor, no? For a taste of what’s distinct and different.

Yet, as anyone who has tried can testify, breaking out of the Anglophone bubble created by the global tourist industry can be tough. I recently moved to Porto, Portugal’s second city and one of Europe’s hottest tourist destinations right now. I’m taking lessons to improve my Portuguese, which is basic at best. But everywhere I go – be it a bar or café, a shop or ticket office – I find the same scenario playing out: I say something in mangled Portuguese and back comes a response in English; I try again, the same result; eventually one of us (me) gives up.

Why does this keep happening? Plenty of reasons. Most obviously, there’s the language imbalance. As is immediately laid bare, their grasp of my language far exceeds my grasp of theirs. Second, using English is demonstrably more efficient. Why have a train conductor cause potential confusion by saying “ida”, when he could just say “one way” and we could all be on our way? Finally, there’s a question of roles: it is the receptionist’s job to check me in, not to indulge my efforts at conversing in his language.

Of the three arguments, the last is the weakest. It is certainly true that tourism and hospitality workers are not paid to act as part-time teachers – their jobs are demanding enough already. Yet, surely, part of what the travel industry should pride itself in is providing memorable experiences? The constant back-and-forth described above is definitely memorable, but not in a good way. In truth, it leaves me feeling dispirited and frustrated – frustrated at my lousy language skills and, yes, frustrated at having them thrown back at me.

This is not my local interlocutors’ intention, I know. Which is why I think the travel sector needs some clearer rules of engagement. Nothing formal. Just a mutual code that both parties can understand at the outset of our interaction.

At its core should be the principle of tolerance. If a non-native speaker is attempting to speak your language, humour them a moment. It needn’t take long, a sentence or two at most. Rest assured: if this Brit abroad is anything to go by, they will run into trouble soon enough. And then what? You’ve guessed it, the inevitable plea: ‘I beg your pardon, but falas inglês, by any chance?’