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So that's why they hardly speak English in Spain!
It has always shocked me how little English people speak in Spain. Travel to big cities and generally you can communicate with the locals in English, but in Madrid (for example) you will be lucky to encounter a Madrileño to speak to in English. It's embarrassing how here you can't even order a coffee in English at Starbucks!I think one of the main reasons for its lack of English-speaking capabilities is the fact that Spain is the only country in the world (according to a recent article in the English version of El Pais published by the IHT) that dubs everything. Everything!
The article (which unfortunately isn't online) also says that Spain has 4,300 cinema screens, making it the country with the highest number of movie theaters per person in Europe. Although now there are a number of Version Original (VO) theaters in the country, they are visited mostly by tourists; Spaniards generally don't want to read subtitles. When asked, although Spaniards said they prefer to watch films in VO, only 4% of them actually go to cinemas to watch them in VO.
To make a comparison of sorts: I have a lot of Swedish friends, both here and in Sweden. What always surprised me was how well they speak English and how perfectly American their accents are. When I asked them, they all unanimously said it's because they have grown up watching English-language programs on television as nothing is dubbed. Sweden generally being a rich and cold country, most people have cable and I guess they stay in a lot!
Although English is taught in Spanish schools, it is not uncommon to find it being taught by teachers who can't really speak English, but they know the grammar. On that note, it's interesting to think that should Spain not have dubbed programs (initially done under the Franco regime), Spaniards would at least have had basic English communication skills.
The influence of media on the language capabilities of a country is quite fascinating, don't you think!?
Although English is taught in Spanish schools, it is not uncommon to find it being taught by teachers who can't really speak English, but they know the grammar. On that note, it's interesting to think that should Spain not have dubbed programs (initially done under the Franco regime), Spaniards would at least have had basic English communication skills.
The influence of media on the language capabilities of a country is quite fascinating, don't you think!?
Filed under: Arts and Culture, Europe, Spain
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
mike Jul 3rd 2008 8:38AM
yeah, It's true. spanish is my mother tongue but i live in New york, so I am used to listen to every program in english. when i went to spain 3 years ago, they were showing on tv "the fresh prince of bel air" (that show with will smith) and the translation was so freaking corny; it actually made the characters of the show sound really stupid. at that moment, I realize how lucky i am to listen tv in english.
Nick M. Feb 23rd 2009 4:14AM
"how perfectly American their accents are.
Isn't that an oxymoron?"
Indeed, an oxymoron. The yanks have been butchering the Queen's English for years. The American accent burns hole in my ears. I'm 20 years old living in Barcelona and my flatmates all talk with these horrendous American accents, and they are from Italy, Portugal and Spain! It kills me to think that our fine language is being destroyed by these stupid Americans. Time for some proper English I say.
Sam M. Oct 20th 2010 4:57PM
As an American living in London for the time being, I must say it's funny to see comments about our butchering of what you assume is "your" language, considering I can hardly find anyone here that doesn't add an "r" sound to the end of every word ending with the short "a" sound; conversely, you all seem to substitute actual "r's" at the end of words for the short "a" sound. It's just weird.
Get over it, they're just different inflections, ya douche.
Eva Apr 5th 2009 4:27PM
Listen man, I lived in London more than 2 years and I have not met anyone who could speak other language than English (the mother tongue). So, first before you critize anything look at you!!!! I learnt English and Spanish, perhaps you can do a minimum effort, be grounded, and dont rely on your monther tongue and use your brain and learn some foreign lanaguage too. Europe is composed from more countries than GB only!! Your comments are very stupid in my view.
Kiara Oct 24th 2009 11:48AM
First of all, when you travel to a foreign country YOU should be the one that adapts to it. Who do you think you are? You go to Spain and expect the WHOLE COUNTRY to adapt to you?
I could say that I find it embarrassing how I can't order a coffee in Spanish or Italian in London or Chicago. When my spanish family (including grandparents) travel to an English speaking country, they take a pocket dictionary with them and try their best to make themselves understood, not just march in there speaking spanish and expect the waiters and clerks to understand them.
And as to why Scandinavian countries watch movies and tv shows in the original language? It's because no-one outside their country speaks their language and dubbing movies would be an unnecessary waste of money in proportion to how much they would make out of them, unlike in Spain, where you dub a movie and then distribute it all over south and central America, and even some American states like California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas or New Mexico, where most DVD's come with a spanish language version, and you can even have some TV channels in Spanish.
Spanish people don't tend to learn a foreing language too well because 1. they can understand all of the other romance languages (to a greater or lesser degree) which are the languages spoken in the countries all around Spain, 2. there is about 425 million people that speak spanish (and 510 million english speakers). 3. There is far more countries that have spanish as their official language than english-speaking ones and 4. Why would you learn English if you're not planning on travelling to an english-speaking country? If you're travelling to France, you learn basic French, if you're travelling to Italy, you learn basic Italian, etc. And this is valid not only for Europe but also for Asian countries. I'm not saying learn chinese before you go on a two week vacation to China, but take a dictionary and take the time to learn how to say please and thank you and "where is...?" and hello and goodbye.
With this post the only thing you've achieved is to make yourself look like one of those dumb americans who travel the world demanding that everyone bend over backwards for them and get outraged when restaurants dont want to put ketchup on their pasta.
And to all of you out there - keep this in mind: when people in other countries speak english to you THEY ARE DOING YOU A FAVOR because you're too lazy or stupid to learn how to say "I'll have the spaghetti bolognese please" in another language. THEY ARE NOT OBLIGED TO SPEAK ENGLISH TO YOU.
katya Feb 20th 2010 9:33PM
If it really shocks you that they don't speak English in Spain, then just don't go there. ' English is the international language and everyone should speak it ' and nah nah nah nah, this is just bullshit.
Don't criticize them because they don't speak Spanish in their own country. YOU should be the one trying to know some words in Spanish before you go there.
Anthony Feb 25th 2010 10:46PM
Why should you expect that they must know English. Spanish is a beautiful language, and speaking in the language of the country that you are visiting is part of the experience. I always try as much as possible to do this. It would be so boring if everywhere you went everyone spoke only the same language, had the same stores, with the same music, and the same movies and TV programming. What would be the point of traveling. By the way, I happen to be an American, and know English as my first language, but I find it sometimes disturbing to see it becoming THE ONE WORLD LANGUAGE. I honestly don't think that it is all that pretty (not the ugliest, but not so pretty, French, Italian and Hungarian I find prettier). It is part of the experience.
julia Mar 31st 2010 4:04AM
I am spanish from Madrid I know many people who can speak very good english maybe you just didn't meet them , I love spanish language italian I love english and Bangli and hindu languages and some aramaic too.
You meet someone from Spain very different , and I give you right when you go to Madrid please say HOLA COMO ESTAS?? Feliz Dia!!
Un saludo muy cordial.
julia.
carlos Sep 11th 2010 10:23AM
Well, next time that I will travel to US/UK/Australia I would ask for a coffee in Spanish :-)
I completely agree that we don't know English in Spain, thats a concern for us regarding international markets and work with other foreign companies, but doesn't make sense move to another country and complain that they don't speak English.
What should concern you is that in tourist places or services (museums, ...) they should speak English or another language (French, German,...).
Miguel Angel Sep 16th 2011 7:56PM
Abha, you're forgetting that the Spanish (also called Castilian) is spoken by over 500 million people worldwide. All Americas (except Canada, USA and Brazil), speaking Castilian. As is to be considered a very important language, without being at the height of English, of course.
You were right when they said that everything is dubbed in Spanish, but I think the root of the problem, at least in my generation (born in 1979) is that we started too late to learn English. For example, my first English class at school was when I was 10 years, also the hours of English classes are just a few, about 4 in a week. I think this is changing and now the kids are attending bilingual classes in school from 4 years old.
After finishing college, most companies ask for a fluent English, but everyone lies in the curriculum, and there are few jobs where definitely use English every day.
Sorry for the mistakes in this blog, as you might guess, I'm from Madrid.
autentyk Nov 27th 2011 8:40PM
Word for word what I`ve been telling for years now. I`m an English teacher who happened to spend some years in Sweden back in the day.
Eduardo Jan 5th 2012 6:58AM
I share your opinion, the dubbing its just pathetic, I truly believe that Spanish people don't even know the real voices from famous actors, their loss since the dubbing takes away all the main and good representation.
Its in fact embarrassing that Spanish people working in hotels, museums and tourist places cant barely speak English. One time in Seville, I went to a restaurant and asked for the BATHroom, the lady who as at the balcony then made this brilliant dumbass figure by making fun of me saying "bedroom?bedroom? this ARE a restaurant!" while making gestures of pillow and sleeping...I raged and shouted " Really? you cant barely speak English and although you are trying to humiliate me? Just tell me where is the TOILET and give the complain book"...at this point she started "no hablo ingles" realizing that she made herself look like an idiot, some English tourists in the back of the restaurant also started getting pissed off with the situation and also asked for the complain book. The rest was just a very sad episode, you get the idea...
So yeah, Spanish people cant speak English, and when I read arguments like " when you go to other country you try to learn their language", that's just yada yada, because for instance, Spanish tourist when visiting Portugal or France don't even make an effort to understand the country language, they just keeping speaking Spanish and hoping for people to understand it, for their luck the average Portuguese knows, apart from the mother language, Spanish, French and English.
When a tourist approaches me for help in my country I really make an effort to speak their language, if not, i try to use the universal language for BUSINESS, ECONOMICS, POLITICS, TRAVELLING,etc, that is ENGLISH.
It's amazing, yet sad, that in Granada the only person I could find that could properly speak English was a Chinese girl in a Chinese restaurant.
Alex Engel Dec 9th 2007 3:54PM
Wow. The "big cities" you might find someone that speaks English. And then you use Madrid as an example of where you won't.
Madrid is the CAPITAL and the BIGGEST city. That's an embarrassing error there.
Abha Dec 9th 2007 2:14PM
Reaper: I've traveled a lot around Western Europe and in most big cities they can speak English, although they may choose not to. In Madrid, they just can't!
Alex: In fact that was my point -- Madrid is an exception to those big cities where English language communication is not a problem. Being the capital and the biggest, it's quite surprising at how little English is spoken here.
Alex Engel Dec 9th 2007 3:56PM
It's unclear from how that's worded that that's what you meant.
Also, is it necessary for everyone to speak English? As far as I know, French tourists here don't expect most people to make an effort to speak French (or Spanish tourists for that matter).
David Lee Dec 9th 2007 9:29PM
Abha, when you're in Spain, you should be ordering that coffee in Spanish. It's not their obligation to speak to you in English.
Leif Dec 10th 2007 7:50AM
In my experience, not only do the Spanish generally not bother to learn English (or French, Italian or Portuguese, languages you'd assume they'd encounter regularly), but they often get curt and flustered if YOU don't speak perfect Spanish. I've had the girl at the coffee shop pass me over and help someone else when I didn't use the proper term for an apple tart (In my decaffeinated haze I used the Italian word, which is what happens when you try to learn TOO MANY Latin languages).
Virtually everyone I met in Rome spoke passable English. I've been there five times.
Berliners, like most Germans under the age of 45, speak reasonable English. They often just don't feel like it.
The same used to be true for the French, but in the past few years I found this to be changing. Even in perennially rude capital Paris, people can often say enough to get through a transaction or at least are more patient when communications break down to pantomiming. They deserve more credit.
And guys, please, leave the petty name calling over at usenet. There's plenty of ways to disagree without resorting to schoolyard tactics.
Justin Glow Dec 10th 2007 11:35AM
I agree. Pretty much everywhere I've traveled -- big cities or not, east or west, finding decent English speakers is hardly a problem. I haven't been to Spain, though, so I can't comment on that.
Oddsocks Dec 10th 2007 11:49AM
"how perfectly American their accents are."
Isn't that an oxymoron?
Eva Dec 10th 2007 4:55PM
"It's embarrassing how here you can't even order a coffee in English at Starbucks!"
Embarassing for the Spanish-speaking employee, or embarassing for the tourist who can't even order a coffee in Spanish?
I did notice that almost no one seemed to speak much English in Spain, but I noticed the same thing in Italy. France I'm not sure about, I have the impression people don't speak as much English (or refuse to) but never really found out since I am fluent so no need to
ask.
I lived with kind of a mini-EU in the UK, and all my Western European friends, while they all spoke good English (obviously since they were studying in England), were in agreement that they resented the idea that English was a requirement, and felt that more people should make an effort to learn German/Spanish/French - which is true. (Although I
then asked them if they would learn Thai to go to Thailand.... or speak to Thais in English? It is a bit of a double-standard on Western Europeans' part... they just want people to learn THEIR languages.)
Anyway, my point is, I think there is a broader cultural attitude or tradition at work here beyond the dubbing/VO question. Not sure why the Scandinavians (and some Northern Europeans) don't fall in with it
as well... I guess it's an imperfect theory. Ah well.