Eloise HorsfieldHOLIDAYMAKERS who become victims of crime may have to brush up on their pidgin Spanish this summer.
It comes after the National Police slashed its translation services in Spain.
In the highly controversial move, police stations around Spain have been told not to use translators during the summer tourism season.
Part of an ongoing series of cost-cutting measures, foreigners reporting crimes will now need to rely on the language skills of the officer on duty.
There will continue to be officers who serve as translators in investigations and in immigration units.
It’s not great but why don’t British people, or from other non Spanish speaking nations, bring along a dictionary/phrase book when they come here on holiday?
I’m only 35 years old and I remember as a child going to France with my parents and we had to take our english/french dictionary everywhere to try to explain what we wanted. Why does everyone now expect to shout loudly in English and that everyone ‘should’ understand? I know that Spain is a tourist destination but I think that it would be sensible for tourists to have a phrasebook to hand ‘just incase’ they need to get their point across! It would mean those of us who do speak Spanish won’t cringe so much in restaurants as well.
A little knowledge of Spanish would come in handy and most people would be pleased that you are trying to speak their language faults and all, they would understand.
Highly controversial indeed, when you think of the amount of money that has gone into attracting non Spanish speakers to Spain and the even more piles of money the non Spanish speakers have ploughed into the Spanish economy. Why didnt they say, non Spanish speakers not welcome in the first place?. That would have put paid to half the world trying to come into Spain to spend THEIR money. Strange and extremely worrying times for all residents of Spain.