Friday, October 23, 2009

WHAT'S ZAPATERO SAYING?

I recently wrote on Spanglish and today the theme is taken up on the Yahoo España blog.

The key interest is in Spanish politicians and their inability to communicate in English. Of course this is not a problem at home but it certainly is on the international stage where English rules albeit the US variety.

Yahoo España takes various Spanish politicians to task for their inability to converse well in English.

It quotes the Israeli president Simon Peres saying the world would be better if the English of Aznar improved.

José María Aznar could communicate with Tony Blair even though his English was poor because they both speak French. It also says that he could talk happily with George W Bush because of the Texan’s good Spanish – which is amusing to us because the US President frequently murdered his English.

I do not believe that Zapatero speaks English – the blog says he rarely uses it even with Barack Obama who hailed him – "José Luis, qué pasó". I thought he did speak French but then the blog says that when he addressed the French Parliament he received a loud, enthusiastic round of applause when he told the MPs he was switching from French to his native Spanish.

The alternative looks no brighter as Mariano Rajoy, the opposition Partido Popular leader, admits he doesn’t speak English. So maybe the world has to move on and switch from English to Spanglish!

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