Dilip Kuner
IN a dazzling display of irony, the UK has announced that all immigrants must now speak English to B2 standard – a level so advanced it practically requires you to quote Hamlet before you are handed your residency permit.
Meanwhile, in Spain, tens of thousands of British and other northern European expats are still pointing at menus, mouthing words like mime artists, and calling every waiter ‘amigo’, despite living here for years.
“Fluent English?” scoffed a barman in Marbella. “Tell that to the man who’s been ordering ‘pint-o beer-o’ since 2013!”
Social media erupted with Spanish delight.
One post teased, “So, do all Brits in Benidorm have to take GCSE Spanish now?” Another suggested the ultimate punishment: “Ban fish and chips for anyone who cannot say pescado.”
Which brings us neatly to the linguistic tragedy of Sid the guppy.
In English, fish is fish. Alive, dead, battered, grilled. It swims and it fries under the same name.
But in Spanish, there’s ‘pez’ (the swimming kind) and ‘pescado’ (the vinegar-soaked dinner kind).
If it moves, it’s a pez. If you shake salt on it, it’s a pescado. Simple? Not for Karen.
Ah, Karen. She has lived in Andalucia for 25 years and still greets neighbours with the linguistic finesse of someone shouting into Google Translate.
When a kindly local woman knocked on her door with a homemade cake, decorated with ‘Bienvenidos a Espana’ (welcome to Spain), Karen was politely baffled.
The woman kept saying, “Yo, Milagros. Milagros, yo!”
Karen smiled and nodded, then later told a friend: “Very kind of her, but I do not know who this ‘Jo’ is.”
This, friends, is what happens when we study a language system that teaches us to conjugate ‘avoir’ at 13, then forgets to mention that real people might one day talk back.
Blame the education system if you must. But maybe it’s deeper – an imperial ‘resaca’ (that is hangover, not a tapas dish).
Brits abroad often operate under the noble assumption that if they just shout English slowly and loudly enough, people will understand.
Take a stroll around any Spanish market town, and you will hear it in action – a baffled cashier asked: “DO… YOU… HAVE… MILK?”, as if volume alone might bridge centuries of linguistic and cultural difference.
Case in point: in Spain, if your bar bill is €19 and you say ‘bote’ as you hand over 20, the place erupts in smiles and bell-ringing.
In Britain, that same bell is a passive-aggressive death knell telling you to finish your pint and leave.
Cultural nuance? Linguistic sensitivity? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves – there are still entire expat communities in Spain who think ‘gracias’ is pronounced ‘grassy-arse’.
And yet, while Britain tightens its rules and demands near-poetic English from every new arrival, there are pensioners in Alicante who believe ‘hola’ is something you say when answering the phone.
Still, the double standards are rarely noticed by those enjoying roast dinners in 30-degree heat, surrounded by satellite dishes beaming in Coronation Street. They are, after all, ‘living the dream’ – just not the local one.
So while the UK gears up to enforce B2-level English from newcomers, Spaniards are laughing into their ‘jarras de cerveza’ at the irony.
And somewhere in Benidorm, a British bar is already preparing its summer menu… in Comic Sans. In English. Naturally.
¡Viva la diferencia! Or should we say, long live the… difference-o?
