 |
| Sat on the plane waiting to leave |
Being a native speaker in English, along with many millions of other people, I have found that some things are a lot easier on us than on any other nationality. I've also realised that it causes far too many problems as well. Since I was at secondary school (between ages 11 and 16 for those of you unfamiliar with the British system) I've been passionate about languages. I don't know what first gave me this passion but it was strong enough for me to spend 4 years at university studying them. With all this time studying I have come to appreciate other nationalities a lot more for their necessity of studying another language, mainly English.
I've always been somewhat annoyed that English is spoken by some many as a second language. Mainly because it allows more native English speakers the chance to ignore other languages but over the last weekend I realised just how bad this is for other nationalities as well.
As some of you who follow me elsewhere online will know, I spent the Valentines' weekend in Berlin with my boyfriend (which will be blogged about in another post!) I flew with a German airline called Air Berlin. It was my first time flying with them and it was pleasant enough. That was until we landed at Berlin airport.
As sometimes happens, although it seems to happen with me far too often!, the plane stopped moving when it hadn't fully arrived at the gate causing come confusion amongst the passengers. I say confusion when I mean most people stood up and starting getting their bags from the over head containers. This is when I realised just how detrimental English is for those of you who weren't born in a country with English as the first language
.
First they asked the people to sit down in German (well that's what I assume as my German abilities only stretch as far as asking for a large cola in a restaurant!) and that makes sense. We've landed in German, it's a German airline. But when they were ignored they proceeded to ask/tell them in English... Yes, English. From a flight that had started in Spain... As we all know Spain is where you find a large majority of fluent English speakers....
It's amazing that the cabin crew could speak English as well as German but when you are flying between Spain and Germany it's a pretty safe bet that there won't be a lot of English speakers on the flight. The Spanish people were completely oblivious to what had been said, and a few seconds later even more people had stood and were beginning to remove their own possessions. I think this is a prime example of why people should learn a foreign language. And also why you should employ at least one Spanish speaker if you are flying into Spain.
I spent the weekend being amazed at this behaviour and the insistence of the cabin crew in using English, despite it's lack of use. Although on the way back someone spoke Spanish so maybe it was just the bad luck of the draw for AirBerlin on that day? I suppose I will never really know!
Have you ever experienced any weird encounters on a plane? Let me know in the comments! And don't forget to follow me on bloglovin for more posts at the below link!
https://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/my-lavender-tinted-world-13615547
Hasta la fuego
Lauren :) xLabels: air berlin, Berlin, english, english language, problem