Crossed wires are a standby in comedy the world over. We English-speakers can't begrudge other European nations a chuckle at our attempts to master a few words of their languages.
I still chuckle out loud whenever I watch any of the skits about the crossed wires between John Cleese’s obnoxious character and his well-meaning but dim-witted Spanish waiter in Fawlty Towers.
In one of the more memorable scenes, Basil Fawlty berates Manuel because there’s “too much butter on the trays” he’s carrying – only for Andrew Sachs to reply, “Not ‘on those trays’. No sir, uno, dos, tres.”
It gets worse for the know-all hotelier when he then uses the word ‘burro’ for ‘butter’. Most of us probably know that’s a donkey.
Thankfully, after ten years living in Madrid, my own Spanish is much better. Yes, I’ve had my share of mortifying moments thanks to linguistic ‘false friends’, telling people I was “pregnant” instead of “embarrassed” in my early days living in Madrid.
But I realised recently I’ve become lazy after my own Fawlty Towers experience when I asked a hotel receptionist for directions to the bus stop – proud as punch that she initially thought I was fluent.
However, when she took out a map, I didn’t know the words for “mark it” with an X. And as I mumbled it in Spanglish, she switched over to English and replied: “Market! Sorry, no market here!”
Funnily enough, Fawlty Towers was a relatively popular show in Spain, with it available here on DVD. It helps that they haven’t got a clue that Manuel is from Barcelona because in their dubbed version he’s Italian!
My partner was mortified when I showed her the sitcom in the Queen’s English. But the natives are enjoying the proverbial last laugh because living well is the best revenge.
The quality of life is much better here. Yes, their wages are lower but they’ve a world-class health service, live longer thanks to their delicious Mediterranean diet and Madrid is the safest capital city I’ve ever been in… and let’s not forget the weather.
I know we all like to laugh at Manuel’s limited grasp of the English language, but it is equally no joking matter that the local lingo is double Dutch to the majority of the 400,000 British and Irish ex-pats residing in Spain.
In fairness, it’s not all their fault. The tourist traps make life too easy for “guiris” – their derogatory version of “gringos” – with everything in English because they’re over-reliant on tourism. After all, you never see UK restaurants with menus in Castellano. I have to say, all the recent protests against tourism in Spain make no sense – they are biting the hand that feeds them.
We expats would be much better served if it was more of a sink-or-swim situation with the menus at their seaside hotspots. My recent mortifying experience with the hotel receptionist has made me even more determined to be able to better butter up people in Spanish.
