It's always a bit of an eye-opener to many Spanish people to hear their fellow countrymen and women speaking English, especially if those fellow countrymen and women happen to be famous. Actors, sports stars, politicians, royalty... all have varying levels of English.
Fernando Alonso speaks better English than Rafa Nadal, but despite being based in the UK for some time Alonso's English is hardly proficiency level.
Antonio Banderas has an impressive level of fluency but still has quite a strong Spanish accent.
Penelope Cruz sometimes comes unstuck with prepositions despite all those years with Tom Cruise.
Let's not mention Ana Obregón.
Ooops.
But whose English has come in for most ridicule from his fellow Spaniards? None other than that of former Prime Minister (in English you can't be a president and have a king!) Jose María Aznar.
The man who instead of giving a Stateside speech in English gave it in (supposedly) Texan-accented Spanish. The man who went on to lecture - in English! - at Georgetown University.
The man who once had to ask King Juan Carlos to be his interpreter.
What follows is a fascinating interview - in English - that appeared on one of the BBC's international channels in July 2006. Unlike the sycophantic interviews Aznar conceded to PP-friendly channels in the past this interview pulls no punches.
His English seems to have improved since the early days of his friendship with Bush, and he seems to have less of a strong Spanish accent than in the past.
But whose English has come in for most ridicule from his fellow Spaniards? None other than that of former Prime Minister (in English you can't be a president and have a king!) Jose María Aznar.The man who instead of giving a Stateside speech in English gave it in (supposedly) Texan-accented Spanish. The man who went on to lecture - in English! - at Georgetown University.
The man who once had to ask King Juan Carlos to be his interpreter.
What follows is a fascinating interview - in English - that appeared on one of the BBC's international channels in July 2006. Unlike the sycophantic interviews Aznar conceded to PP-friendly channels in the past this interview pulls no punches.
His English seems to have improved since the early days of his friendship with Bush, and he seems to have less of a strong Spanish accent than in the past.
Pity that he has replaced it with a French one.
Also notable is the way that he has also used Bush as a model for his English... depite the BBC interviewer's referring to the Basque separatist terrorist organisation as ETA (a one-word acronym - pronounced as in Spanish), Aznar insists on calling it E.T.A. (as Bush did following the March 11th attacks). I wonder if he also refers to the former Spanish capital as To-leeee-doh when speaking English.
Now let's see if I can find a clip of Zapatero trying to speak English!
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