What did you call me...?!

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS OLD TIME LORRIES, COMPANIES AND DRIVERS (INTERACT
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A Polyglot…A. adjective. Thesaurus »1. Of a person: that speaks, writes, or understands a number of languages.

Nice word that, POLYGLOT, kind of rolls around the tongue! So how many of us would that apply to?

At home, it would be fair to say, the public`s eye view of a Lorry Driver would be of someone with a very basic education and maybe one step up from a builders labourer. Most members of the public would have fallen over in shock had they realised that most British “Continental Truck Drivers” could converse very well in a number of different languages and dialects. And it wasn’t just tourist level conversation, Yes, No, Please, and Thank You. It was day to day types of conversation incorporating everything from the weather, loads, distances to food, the various towns and city’s, women! :open_mouth: :laughing:

Anyone who was running around Europe, the Near East, Middle East, Afghan, India and Pakistan, The Old Soviet Union and its satellites etc during the 60s / 70s / 80s & 90s on a reasonably regular basis would probably have qualified as a Polyglot. Those were the times when we had to actually get out of a truck at various border crossings, navigate the myriad customs formalities, fill this piece of paper in, tick that box, find this window then go find that window, wrong piece of paper, back to the beginning with no explanations, ask someone, ask someone else, find a Dutch man! ( :laughing: ), negotiate with the local plod and their various ideas of “Law Enforcement” and so on. Stopping at various watering holes spread over an entire continent or two, trying to order all sorts of weird looking food stuffs and beers, conversing with the “locals”. This was the way we learned a language! Nowadays it would seem that you could load in the UK, get on a ferry / train, drive to your destination and only then would you speak to a “Foreign Johnny” to get tipped!

Personally I could get by quite well in French, German, Italian, Spanish and Serbo-Croat, and I could struggle by in Dutch but then again I was only a T-Form Charlie! :laughing: I once ended up translating for a German who was trying to get some information from a North African Arab who was speaking French but had the strangest French accent!
Those of us that went further a field learned a lot more tongues. And if you could manage reading Cyrillic or Arabic as well, you were the “Top Boy” :laughing:

So, as its mid week and maybe this part of the forum could do with a lift, what were your foreign tongues…and any amusing tales to go with it??

Let the Willy Waving begin :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

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hiya Bullit. I took French at school and when I was at Fridged Freight, got to practice it a lot. Italian was fairly easy and quick to learn, and coming from the North of Scotland where Buchany was the norm, a lot of German was common to me… I left road transport in the 70’s and then did the Arab Countries, Middle and South America as an engineer ( welder), Spanish and Portugese are easy to confuse, especially when you flit from one to the other but the one that has always fascinated me was Russian. I worked in Dn’ypropetrovsk and adore the Ukraine.- Not strictly Russian, but near enough. I suppose Polygit would describe my efforts, but it is great fun trying and when you do communicate - RESULT! Jim.

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I’ve got a theory…you have to have a gift for languages,
l come under the banner of " the least l can get away with" brigade. I’ve tried believe me, l’ve tried very hard, but struggled over the years, always had the basics, but never ever near being fluent in any language, except English, and that’s doubtful sometimes.
I don’t think I’m particularly lazy, just don’t have it in me. Mrs Fergie however is the opposite, within a couple of years of living here, her French was excellent, now she’d fluent…
Always admired and respected those that have the linguestic skill’s in one or more languages…alas I’m not one of them. :blush:

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When I first started on the European in the early 80s it was mad god only knows how I got by I took my cmr piece of paper and a pen for them to draw a map . then I moved on to hand signals before I got to no bits of French Dutch Italian Spanish must have done there heads in after 10 mins and still not a clue bet thy thought I was taking the p!!s …

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Some language schools talk about levels of language acquisition in terms of ‘Survival’, ‘Conversational’, ‘Fluent’ and ‘Academic’. I reckon they missed out ‘Drivers’', which is somewhere between ‘Survival’ and ‘Conversational’.

I didn’t even have ‘Schoolboy’ French or German, so I struggled a bit. However, I did end up with ‘Drivers’’ French and Turkish; ‘Survival’ Spanish, Italian and German; ‘Conversational’ Dutch; and ‘Conversational-plus’ Arabic. Keeping it’s the problem: I’ve already forgotten more Turkish than I learnt! Robert

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Just a few words of Spanish & German for me, with a smattering of Welsh due to my ancestry. However, I recall being totally flummoxed when I did regular trips to Glasgow and Tyneside as a 21-year-old until I studied the languages over a few pints on my many nights out!

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Never did languages at school so I only know two, English in public and Rubbish on forums…

Pete.

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robert1952:
…Keeping it’s the problem: I’ve already forgotten more Turkish than I learnt! Robert

You`re right there Mr Robert. Languages are a perishable skill. It is amazing as to how quick ones knowledge of a language can be forgotten if you don’t “keep your hand (tongue :blush: ) in”, so to speak!! Having said that though, Im sure the brain has a certain degree of muscle memory. I went to Croatia last year, first time in 20 years and it was amazing how quickly my limited but conversational Serbo-Croatian came back! Had you asked me to speak it back in the Uk I would have been struggling but a day back over there and it all came back!

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bullitt:

robert1952:
…Keeping it’s the problem: I’ve already forgotten more Turkish than I learnt! Robert

You`re right there Mr Robert. Languages are a perishable skill. It is amazing as to how quick ones knowledge of a language can be forgotten if you don’t “keep your hand (tongue :blush: ) in”, so to speak!! Having said that though, Im sure the brain has a certain degree of muscle memory. I went to Croatia last year, first time in 20 years and it was amazing how quickly my limited but conversational Serbo-Croatian came back! Had you asked me to speak it back in the Uk I would have been struggling but a day back over there and it all came back!

The other problem is the brain’s ‘mission creep’. A while back I went to North Cyprus and after a week I was amazed how much forgotten Turkish came back to me. But whilst sitting in a taxi in Girne, I was chatting to the taxi driver in Turkish but without me realising it the conversation had morphed into Arabic (which I speak much better than Turkish). Suddenly I said, ‘Hey! How come you speak Arabic?’; and the answer was quite simply that the driver came from the Hatay province (which includes Antakya). Then it all fell into place because during my few journeys to the Middle East I drove through that area to cross the border at Cilvegozu / Bab al-Hawa and the Turks are bi-lingual there. Robert

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A few years ago went to Italy on holiday with my Mrs. My Spanish had accelerated and my Italian diminished(Italian ex wife too). It the Trattoria one night, the owner said " You’re not Spanish, because your Italian is filled with Spanish words (when I’d forgotten the Italian, stick a Spanish word in)." I said I was English but lived in Spain" He said “What would you want to do that for?” I was stumped. I would love to live in Italy but couldn’t accept the crooked nature of people when you aren’t family!

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My wife has all ways said to me "you only learn what you!! want to learn"because she is ex Grammar school, and me well i went to a school…
i have been around like thousands of men, not just in europe, and my view is this …if you have a “Good” basic knowledge of your own language ie ,mine IS ENGLISH you will have the educational aptitude to pick a foreign language up and learn basics,however where i differ from many i do not have that ability.and i have always known it ,we all have our little place in this big old world and learning and even speaking any Foreign language is a no.

some will say i am just lazy, No!! i just do not grasp it ,i had piano lessons for 12 months when i was 14,untill i left school at 15, waste of mums money and my time, learned nothing.i just could not pick it up…if you then failed the eleven plus, you chances were ,well, educational dire .languages were never ever thought of in the secondary modern school i went to.

SO I.me,managed to drive all europe ,commie block be fore the wall came down esp POLAND, Not a single word of any LANGUAGE ,I was just my self and watched what others did, not rude ,polite to all authority.

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I had two languages, Glawster and Gibberish. I did try but have great difficulty with pronunciation. In Oostende an old Belgian told me that to learn a language properly you need to take girlfriend in that country. I told him I’d need a French, a Flemish, A Dutch and a German one and I didn’t think my wife would like it. I did find that establishments which dispensed alcoholic beverages were good places to learn.

As it was I got by on the Basics; Bier, beefsteak and cafe. Failing that there was always the finger.