yuriblury wrote:

I think if you’re traveling to another country you should learn at least the basic, like thanks, please, bathroom, food lol, that’s my thought

But anyway if you learn the language doesn’t always mean that you’ll understand what people say.

On April I went on vacation to Scotland…I was amazed by Edinburgh and rocked by Glasgow. My native language is Spanish and I studied English for 3 years. Once I arrived Scotland those 3 years seemed pretty useless, couldn’t understand a thing, it was so frustrated but I managed myself to handle the situation.

If you learn Spanish and travel to Chile, you probably won’t understand how we speak

AbsolutPurple wrote:

where's this bar ?

yuriblury wrote:

Sorry can’t control my index finger lol

Aletways wrote:

Link to The Times article

I think it sucks how the whole thing is presented as if the only problem with this measure was that it applies to football players. It's about xenophobia. Most EU countries have language barriers as well, so it's obviously a way to discriminate against poor countries. Besides, it only applies to skilled workers, because immigrants do the worst jobs, those the british wouldn't do, and they want it to stay that way.

monkey wrote:

i agree with the article 100%. To cry discrimination when asking for “an ability to understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases, to introduce themselves and others and ask and answer question about basic personal details” is nonsense, it's asking for nothing more than a sign of courtesy and respect

I Came in Through the Bathroom Window wrote:

Yeah, well. There are a lot of countries in the EU that don't speak English as a mother tongue, so if the reason is that people should be able to communicate in English in order to work there, it should be applied to every country in the world that doesn't speak English as a native tongue.
It would make sense that way. But if you don't include the EU, then what you've got is Asia, Africa and Latin America (except for the former colonies).
If it was applied equaly to everybody that doesn't speak English, then I'd agree. But it applies only to people from certain countries that don't speak English. Which happen to be the countries that provide cheap work force.

It'd be a good and reasonable measure if it was applied indistinctively to people who don't speak English no matter where they come from. Otherwise, it's just a measure to prevent immigrants from "undesired" countries.
Anyway, it obviously has to do with power. Here no one would ask a british to know spanish in order to work in Argentina... So it doesn't surprise me one bit.