LL-L "Language proficiency" 2013.07.10 (01) [EN]

[Lowlands-L]

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 L O W L A N D S - L - 10 July 2013 - Volume 01
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From: Roger Thijs <rogerthijs at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Language acquisition" 2013.07.09 (02) [CY-EN]

I'm in (Y)ekaterinburg this week and surprised how poor the knowledge of
English here is. Even the lady at the tourist information desk at the
airport (Koltsovo) does not speak English.
The same holds for some restaurants. Fortunately some menu cards have
pictures of the main dishes.
At the event side some staff people have a badge "I speak English", but
asking them to explain how to drive to the airport is much too much asked
for (The exit of the exhibition area is only towards downtown and one
cannot u-turn on the motoway).
The Hertz car rental guy could not distinguish between the fee one pays for
the damage insurance and the franchise still to pay in case of an accident.
He charged me the franchise first in stead of the insurance fee.
Stupid me, I should have learned to speak Russian.
My Yahoo menu appeared in Russian here at first, but after a warning
against use of false identity, I could switch.
American websites (as Yahoo, Linkedin...) automatically give warnings when
one logs in from a Russian IP address.
I'm at Innoprom this week (http://www.innoprom.com/) and staying at the
Angelo airport hotel in Koltsovo.
Regards,
Roger

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