By Nathalie Schon

www.leblogdelamirabelle.net   Tuesday 6 July 2010

Translators get paid less and less. Most of us have studied at least four years, some much longer. We are often specialists in several fields: film, art, literature, tourism…yet we are often offered rates that would translate into a minimum wage if we were salaried.

By Paul Whitelock

www.theolivepress.es   Thursday 13 May 2010

Tessa Norman’s article about “F**ked translations” (Olive Press, Issue 81) neatly sums up what I have been tittering over and battling against for the last 40 years, ever since I first spotted “Fried Brian” on a menu in San Sebastián and an expensive neon sign advertising a “Nihgt Club” on the Costa Brava! 

By Tessa Norman

The Olive Press,  Thursday 29 April 2010

THE lonely image of Spanish leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero at a recent political summit made it painfully clear how isolating an inability to speak English is.
Sitting alone, Zapatero listened to a Spanish translation while the other world leaders thrashed out a debate at the other end of the room in English.

by Don Pablo

  www.secretandalucia.com  21 March 2010

So many of my foreign friends and acquaintances here desperately want to do something about improving their Spanish language skills.  Some have tried quite hard, but get quickly frustrated and give up. 

Giles Tremlett, the Guardian correspondent in Madrid, wrote an interesting piece in that paper on 1 November 2009, on the subject of ex-pats being disenfranchised. It was subsequently picked up by The Olive Press here in Andalucía and provoked an interesting online debate on its website.

The story raises some important issues.

If you’re interested, you can read the original article (Give a Commons seat to the member for Costa del Sol, 1 November) by Tremlett at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/01/expats-deserve-mps

By Paul Whitelock

June 5 – 11, 2009

 As a former OFSTED schools inspector for languages I have been fascinated by the articles about language teaching which have appeared in SUR in English over the last couple of weeks. 

por Paul Whitelock

  Olive Country Life revista, junio de 2.009

¿Saben hablar los británicos lenguas extranjeras? ¿Y los españoles? Paul Whitelock descubre que no todo es positivo cuando se trata de aprender lenguas extranjeras en la Península Ibérica.

By Peter Sanderson

 May 29 – June 4, 2009

I read with interest recently the article by Steve James regarding the difficulties we expatriates experience in learning foreign languages.  We should in reality be the most proficient at learning languages in view of the fact that our own has roots in both the Romance and Germanic languages.  Unfortunately a combination of apathy, laziness and the fact that almost everyone speaks English means that we just don’t do foreign languages.

By Berry J Prinsen

  May 29 – June 4, 2009

It is certainly arguable that Spanish is an easy language, as stated by Steve James in his article ‘Why Brits Don’t Learn Spanish’ (SUR in English, May 15 – 21, 2009). 

By Steve James

May 15 – 21, 2009

What is it with the British and foreign languages?  Spanish is arguably the second easiest (after Italian) mainstream language to learn.  All words are spoken as they are written.  All letters (except ‘h’) are pronounced.  It is such a serious problem for the British that maybe it’s genetic; a linguistic disorder blighting a whole nation.