Anonymous

I certainly wouldn't avoid a business such as a restaurant, hotel, store, etc. based on weak English. But I wouldn't hire a TOUR GUIDE whom I couldn't understand.

Patrick

This reminds me of some of the tour guides in places like Pompeii and many sites in Turkey, where they stand around and try to get you to hire them as your personal tour guide. Often I couldn't understand a word they were saying. I avoided them but wasn't quite sure how to politely say, "how can you guide me when I can't understand you?"

Anonymous

But Patrick, how else will you find your way to their father-in-law's carpet store for an extra-special deal?

Patrick

Funny you mention that Anonymous. Actually I found the carpet hawkers to speak flawless English and they were easily understood. I'm thinking more of the ones like in Cappodocia at the underground cities, etc. Maybe they couldn't get jobs as carpet hawkers because their English wasn't good enough, so they decided to be tour guides instead?

Beatchick

I tried searching for the name of Leslie's tour guide in Prague here but couldn't locate. I'll aske her & post back.

walkinaround

it's always best to have an american (preferably one from your part of the country) show you around europe. You will always know that you will be able to understand every word with no extra effort and without having to deal with any pesky accents or stupid people who can't speak english "perfectly" like they do in america.

Patrick

walkinaround, I'm going to assume your message was meant to be funny, because I refuse to believe you are a total idiot.

No one is complaining about accents here or wanting an American to guide them. And no one is saying that Europeans should be expected to speak English -- but a person hiring himself out as a tour guide to Americans should speak at least comprehensible English, don't you agree? Only a complete fool would hire a tour guide if he couldn't understand a single word the person was saying. And if you don't agree with that statement then I'll go back to my opening sentence and determine that you are indeed the second and not the first after all.

In the past you have made many intelligent postings. What has come over you to post such nonsensical ones?

Beatchick

I had thought/hoped that walkinaround's post was meant to be extremely tongue-in-cheek/ironic.

In any case, Leslie's guide was Czech and she was very happy with her guide's performance.

Patrick

UH -OH, now I fear I've been unclear. Yes, of course I thought too it was probably meant to be very tongue-in-cheeck but as a sort of slam saying that those of us talking about the problem with the language felt the way she is describing. I was giving her the benefit of the doubt thinking just maybe she wasn't so silly she believed that's really what we thought, but that she was just trying to make a funny joke about the whole thing without making an insult to those who have already posted about the language barriers.

Beatchick

Yes, I see that now, Patrick, since I read her previous post. And she was taking a slam at ME and all I was doing was trying to help. Pardon moi, walkin', for attempting to offer some assistance. I suppose we should ALL bow to the master seeing you've lived in Praha lo these MANY months (where IS that rolling of the eyes emoticon). Too bad you can't back up your assessments with some real feedback instead of focusing your negative energy to this thread.

And you mention approaching this with the right attitude. I thought I had. Too bad your posts come across with a poor one.

"What is funny here is all the nonsense attempts that don't even realise they are talking about a 5 day stay in Prague."
No, it wasn't that obvious to me but at least I was making an honest effort to understand. I was approaching it as a word puzzle. It reminded me very much of what medieval English must have been like without punctuation. And then again, I might use Jack Kerouac's "The Subterraneans" as an example of a work in English that doesn't use punctuation and is a little difficult to understand (at first) but working through it you get a flow of the language and you understand eventually what's being said.

Or you might just wish to read one of my previous comments:
"I didn't think it was necessarily bad English, just bad punctuation. Perhaps inflection in the voice (with appropriate pauses, stops and starts) during the tour will be clearer than the written word."
It is my contention that hearing someone speak is different than seeing the written word. So although I was attempting to be neutral I was actually trying to lend credence to the writer of the e-mail.