You speak English?? No comprendo!!

I was chatting with one of my work friends/colleague recently who reminded me of a bit of a funny situation I had gotten into onboard a Princess cruise with  one of the waiters whilst ordering dinner.

This then got me thinking that actually, this situation is far more common than we might think, it certainly is for me anyway. I seem to have a problem interpreting accents and that its not the language thats the barrier, its the accent.

Last year onboard Royal Princess sailing on a little 3 night work trip with some colleagues we were at Dinner, the waiter attentively taking our order. He comes to me, I placed my order, pate to start, shepherds pie for main, I think I skipped the salad and/or soup and just had the 2 courses, got to watch the figure. So when the others around the table began to receive their starters, mine was no where to be seen, assumingly I thought it would come with the next course and so on, until we got the mains, everyones main came along with mine…….. my shepherds pie and my 2nd main dish the PAD THAI – funniest looking pate I had ever seen!!!  Even the waiter laughed at the accent barrier that had caused my pate to magically turn into Pad Thai. Never did get my pate but the Pad Thai was delicious none the less!!

Now this isnt the only time I have been “caught out” lets say – how simple should it be to order a macdonalds in America of all places?, I just wanted a sausage and egg muffin for my breakfast, why I would want hat plates with it was astounding, until after being asked embarrassingly about 6 times saying, sorry pardon, sorry pardon, my daughter pointed out after translating for me that she was asking “Did I  want hot cakes with that”  [ pancakes to us brits lol ] I sheepishly walked away – still with my sausage and egg muffin- I did just about manage that.

Not having learnt my lesson, I was in France just last week for Easter, asking in a bar what beer they served, the lady promptly said, stella, kronenbourg, Leffe, all “in a can”, so I promptly asked my friends did they mind it in a can, until again my daughter [ now official translater ] corrected me to say she was saying “Heineken” Not “in a can” after all.

So if anyone feels the need to offer me a free phrase book please do, although I dont think there is such a thing as the Walker language, I made that up all by myself lol. The only one to clearly understand me is my daughter!!

But in my defence, I am not the only one this happens to me, Whilst away on the same Royal Princess trip last year, my work friend/colleague Harry had the same issue, although his accent is quite unique, he was asking one of the dancers onboard who was American, has she ever traveled to the Far East, she was a little stunned and again after a few times of her trying to understand what she was being asked it was not ” Have you ever been to the FOREST” but Far east ASIA lol. She never spoke to us again!!

All these little hiccups only add to our travelling experience I think, or not. I would love to hear your language/accent hicups if you have any??

Sally 🙂