The Best & Worst of Spain

Best: The people

           The pace of life

            The quiet roads

Worst:  The people they can be so, just so Spanish

              The pace for getting anything done

               The poor driving on the quiet roads

Well I have lived in Spain for 20 yrs now, and for me, the things I like most are

Pros......Climate in general

                  Life style and choice of really good retaurants.

                  Much more laid back  and less stress

                  Child friendly, you can eat anywhere with children or Toddlers.

..................  Easy to mix and speak with locals (if you speak Spanish)

Cons  ..... Barking dogs and general mis-treatment of animals.

           ...... Paperwork in General (Banks, Tax Office, Local Town Halls etc.)  but saying that

there are huge differences between Islands like the Canarias or Asturias or Galica in the North.

Weird thing is, how things change whilst not changing at all. Despite the crisis, the lists everyone has given seem almost exactly the same as the one I had when I last lived there back around 2000. Didn't run into the sweaty British guy rubbing against me in the supermarket, but I did stand behind one sheepish Brit at a market stall.

"ummm, er... uh... el bago, senor?"

Silence. Stall holder holds it out for him, smiling too nicely.... "La bolsa"

At which point the ground opened up and the poor brit disappeared forever.

Best- climate, people, pace of life.

Worst- barking dogs, flies, ignorant naive Brits.

I was told by the police that i had to carry my passport around with me now that I have renewed my residence card to the new one but I have just had the relevant page photocopied reduced and encapsulated and I just keep it with my bank cards, I have used it as ID in banks and shops with no prob.

 After 25 years in Spain I think some things are better than in most European countries and others are not.

Maybe we do not like their concept of "working" but they do not like our concept about "family".

What they do have however is a slower pace of life, an emphasis on spending quality time with the family (long since lost across much of the UK for example) and a wonderful amount of space and light with which to enjoy life. 

"I saw so many hares running senseless, I learned to be turtle and appreciate the journey"

Annemarie Bakker

Refering back to the post with the market guy ...... 

"ummm, er... uh... el bago, senor?"

He had a try and in my eyes that is a massive step for someone not speaking the language.

Witnessed lots of people who could take a leaf from his book

Yea, I felt sorry for the guy actually. I think everyone has had experiences like it - it was just such a classic "Brit Abroad" moment.

 You mean a bit like the "dos beeros, por favour" or the (my favourite) Graarsiarse.  Of course, if these "Johnny Foreigners" don't understand you, just shout louder until they do.

Pros: 1, SPRING, Summer & AUTUMN Winter.(hottest summer since 1942) Yes I know there are only two seasons, so I have been told.
           2, Spanish way of life and mixing with Spanish people and Spanish food.(we came to Spain to live Spanish not Brit. Yes you can buy brown sauce but have to hunt around )
           3 Going for a coffee and watching the world go by.

Cons: 1: Dog poo.
            2: Bad Drivers.....at round abouts
            3: Being 63 and learning the Language, it's is a chore but, one day I will not have my Spanish friends and need to know how to say "excuse me, but you are very rude and I want to see the manager, so I can have you sacked"....mmmmmm

I Love Spain

Pros: 1, SPRING, Summer & AUTUMN Winter.(hottest summer since 1942) Yes I know there are only two seasons, so I have been told.
2, Spanish way of life and mixing with Spanish people and Spanish food.(we came to Spain to live Spanish not Brit. Yes you can buy brown sauce but have to hunt around )
3 Going for a coffee and watching the world go by.

Cons: 1: Dog poo.
2: Bad Drivers.....at round abouts
3: Being 63 and learning the Language, it's is a chore but, one day I will not have my Spanish friends and need to know how to say "excuse me, but you are very rude and I want to see the manager, so I can have you sacked"....mmmmmm

I Love Spain

This is what I would say (don't know if it's perfect, but it should do):

"Perdon, pero Usted es muy maleducado/a, y quiero hablar con el gerente, para que el le despida."

I know the Brits are terrible for learning other languages, but I think part of the blame should also be upon the big estate agents who fly people over on "inspection trips". They actively enocurage the "Don't worry, everyone speaks English" mentality and a lot retireees who won't need to worry about working don't realise until they arrive that the narrative they are given is BS.

It's easy to say people should know better and do their homework, but a lot of people - especially but not always older people - tend to trust them, and the theatrics of some of the trips are extremely slick and make it easy to not worry and leave it all to them, until reality arrives with a jolt about the same time as the wheels hit the tarmac.

One reason why I'm studying the language well in advance. IMHO it's sink or speak.

 To be honest, I think that the majority of Brits who want to live in Spain just believe that by being here they will sort of imbibe the language without any effort.    Unfortunately it is bloody hard work.    I have been learning Spanish for 5 years and I speak good Spanish - but I am still not fluent.  It makes me sad that so many people just give up once they realise they will have to learn verbs and grammar.  I was a bit bemused when an ex pat kept telling me that she could not cope with the tables - until I realised she meant the verb tables.   If there was a magic wand I would have found it by now!!!    I still don't understand everything I hear because the Andalucian accent is so strong - but I can at least listen to Spanish news and read Spanish papers, which means I have a grasp of what is going on outside of the expat world.  And a visit to Madrid where they speak beautiful Spanish is a huge confidence booster!!

Not over there now, but this is what I imagine my pro-con might be if/when I can make the move. Some of it is based on past expweriences from my time there before (1997-2000)

BEST

* Culture. I'm something of a hispanophile, paticularly in terms of music and history. I'm really not that interested in the food though, which seems to put me in a minority.

* Climate. I love the climate around southern Valencia / Murcia / Almeria. Perfect for astronomy too.

* Landscape. Say what you will but few places have more dramatic and beautiful landscape than Spain.

* Language. OK I don't know it yet. But is undoubtedly a beautiful language. To usurp and abuse a quote "It's like wiping your arse with silk".

* Hopefully work life balance for my job. Since I'm hopign to do EFL in Spain, wheras here I would be working in state school teaching. EFL is much less stressful, and involves fewer hours over all by the time lesson planning is factored in.

WORST

* Social security system: The great big holes in the Soc. Sec. system concerns me, and I don't see the situation improving. (healthcare, pension and unemployment protections etc.)

* Beureacracy. No further explanation needed

* Scams and exploitation. It'd be nice to be able to trust a beureaucrat, but they will never happen! It'd also be nice to not  have to "tip the policeman"

* Conservatism of the expat community. It'd be nice t have am ore vibrant and progressive expat community in Spain, much as you get in Australia.

 Conservatism of the expat community. It'd be nice t have am ore vibrant and progressive expat community in Spain, much as you get in Australia.

The reason why expats appear vibrant and progressive in Australia is because they have to be to survive, we dont put up with Conservatism BS very well

Best:

1) The weather is quite rightly No1 - how many of us would have choosen Spain if it was cold and wet all year. Having said that I'm with Denny49 - Sping and Summer are best

1a) The outdoor life. Really a by product of the weather but there is far more social interaction with all sorts of people as a result

2) Having the best of both worlds. I am not a "going native" zealot! I like to have the choice between enjoying the banter on a Saturday afternoon watching English football in a British bar or soaking up the atmosphere in a Spanish bar on a Saturday night watching Spanish football. I like doing most of the shopping in Spanish supermarkets but having Iceland available to pick up bits and peices we can't get elsewhere

3) Being able to go out for a whole evening for the same price as 2 small drinks back hom

Worst:

1) Fear of the future. At best we are looking at deteriorating public services and infrastructure and increasing taxes and crime as austerity kicks in. At worst we could see a serious deterioration in law and order which will force those who have to invest in security to protect themselves and their possession from less fortunate elements in society

2) Endemic Corruption which enabled developers to build sub standard properties and still enables those with the right connections to build what they want where they want with no regard for planning regulations

3) I don't really have a 3rd

"I have been learning Spanish for 5 years and I speak good Spanish - but I am still not fluent.  It makes me sad that so many people just give up once they realise they will have to learn verbs and grammar.  I was a bit bemused when an ex pat kept telling me that she could not cope with the tables - until I realised she meant the verb tables. "

I too have been struggling to learn the language. Originally through evening classes in the UK and laterly though lessons when I am here. A real bar to learning is the fact that most people will break into English the moment we open our mouths. I considered it a real breakthrough when I received a response in German. I had not given away my nationality - but the response was still not Spanish.

Until recently all the classes I have taken have followed the academic route trying to learn the verbs, parts of speech differences in word order etc etc by rote. It does not work with me and I suspect it does not work with most people. If we had learnt a second language plus latin and the grammer of our own language properly it might, but schooling in the UK has not been like this even in grammer schools since the early 50's.

I am slowly getting there, but am convinced it could have been done more quickly and better.

I think that if someone analysed Spanish and found the most common everyday phrases and taught these as questions and answers it would be more interesting, much more useful and likely to stick. After all this is how we learnt our own language. We learnt that which was useful to us. As we then progress it could be pointed out (in small doses) that this phrase was the past of the one we learnt earlier or that we were now speaking in the second person etc.

Formal grammer should only be taught when we could express ouselves, however poorly, in the language. We understand when a child says, for instance, 'me get it' or 'no want to'. We do not expect good grammer right from the start and these days we do not even expect it from TV presenters (although perhaps we should - after all they are paid to do it properly).

 I agree with  a lot of what you say.    And I think most systems do start with some easy questions and answers without grammatical explanations.   The problem is, it is the VERBs that are the basic building blocks of language.  You will not get far without them.