Signs at Spanish beaches warn English-speaking tourists to stay away
Signs at Spanish beaches warn English-speaking tourists to stay away
The threat of rock falls, water contamination and jellyfish have been used to deter visitors from Mallorcan beaches
Hmm. Consider what folks would think if someone put up signs in Spanish and English on a US beach, where the Spanish text had scary (and false) warnings and the English text did not.
There isn’t a large influx of Spanish speaking tourists who demand that the locals speak in their language in the US. This is more akin to a shopkeeper blaring speakers with high pitched tones that only teenagers can hear.
Under an image of a swimmer surrounded by jellyfish, it reads: “Open beach. Not to jellyfish or foreigners.”
Another, this one apparently related to a rockfall, points out that there is no landslide but that the danger is due to overcrowding.
Seems a bit racist and xenophobic to me, not to mention the undermining of the societal trust that is required for warning signs to work at all.
Yea especially when tourists often don't know about the local risks. Warning signs are mostly for people who aren't from a particular area
Don't want a 'boy who cried wolf' situation
On the flip side tourists are making entire regions unlivable for the natives through exploitation of economical inequality.
The local government sought this out via policy, now they need to undo it.
If you tell people "this is a great place to party" they're gonna, and they're not gonna go home when you're ready for bed.
100% But that could certainly be ameliorated through proper Spanish governmental policy no?
The latter really jumped out at me. I've definitely heard more than once "These careless tourists just ignored the signs!"
sewage contamination in the water
Just like home!
The title says Spanish beaches, not Spanish language.
The signs are found on Spanish islands.
The "learn a language before traveling" always seemed like gatekeeping to me. I've traveled a decent bit, and I would not have had the time to learn a dozen or so languages. Especially when you have to learn entire new writing systems. I'll learn a little bit while I'm visiting because I'm immersing myself.
if someone wants to study another language, all power to them. But it shouldn't be a barrier from experiencing other cultures.
The small text is in Catalan (not Spanish). I'm curious how many people learn more than Spanish before going to Spain .
So you'd be cool with people doing this in Spanish on Texas and Florida beaches right? And I mean people should definitely never travel to a foreign place without a decent grasp of the local language. Not like world exploration is something that can be a life altering experience. Or could help people empathize with different types of culture. Nope. Everyone should stay in their own little bubble. And honestly that applies to states, districts, etc. Hell even towns. Because Alabama and California are super different and have different customs. But even Houston and Austin Texas are way too different to go into each other's areas without having a firm grasp on local customs. Barcelona and Aragon are so very different that many of them don't even speak the same language. One of my neighbors and I don't get along real well. Perhaps we should really only stay in our houses.
No, because in the US we have a different legal and cultural stance on language.
Yeah, how dare they expect one of Europes most popular holiday destinations to make things easy for people speaking the de facto Lingua Franca worldwide.
On the topic, what do you recommend to learn another language for a trip. I have one next year and wanna try to be decent
Immersion. News in target language. Childrens TV in target language. Besides that, any resource. After a month or even two of immersion only and intent listening, begin studying for real. Nit 5 minutes a day but rather 30 minutes. You can reach basic fluency in 6 - 9 months, and then before your trip ensure you learn more specific grammar and vocab in topics you feel you need.
Amazing amount of strawmans saying they need to learn the entire language and not a small amount of it, as you clearly stated.
How much is "a bit" ? I've got the hiragana, the katakana, a few Kanji and all the korewa, sonowa etc grammar rules. Will it be enough to visit Tokyo? No. But the way it works is sometimes a stupid attempt at speaking will trigger the "poor stupid helpless tourist" reaction that gets you help, which you won't get if you don't make yourself "vulnerable" as people say today, but do the opposite: implicitly demand that others make themselves vulnerable to you.
I think it funny that there’s an assumption in this thread that these posters are aimed at U.S. tourists when visitors from the U.K. outnumber the Americans by a factor of six to one.
People in this threat also don't seem to realize how the island of Mallorca is full of foreigners, even some just living there, but nobody speaking Spanish. In fact it's probably easier to get around with German or English in the touristic parts of Mallorca.
This is not about some poor US tourist who wasn't good enough in school back home to learn Spanish. It's about huge crowds of rowdy UK and German tourists who go to "Malle" every year for partying and getting piss drunk without any consideration of the locals.
To be fair, they spent years encouraging that kind of tourism and are no annoyed that they've got to popular. As the article points out it represents 75% of their economic activity so they'd be buggered if everyone just said, fine we'll go somewhere else then.
One time I went to a bar in Mallorca, asked "dos cervezas, por favor" and the guy went: "Was? Zwei bier??"
It was surreal to realise that nobody there actually spoke any Spanish. Outside of the tourist traps Mallorca still has some authenticity here and there but it's like the locals just hide in the shadows for the most part.
Locals sometimes call it "the German island of Mallorca"
Are you counting by individuals or by volume?
(sorry)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/TourisminSpain
No worries. There’s a chart on the Wikipedia page above. The U.K. boasts over 18 million tourists per year while the U.S. is just over 3 million.
Lol but the gap is closing, US is 36 % obese and uk 27%.
Haha amerifat joke funny