Postmaster who refused to serve customers who couldn't speak English "left" job...........

[FAQinglovely]

not sure whether he as fired or left voluntarily.

My 1st thoughts on the reading the article was blatant zenophobia/racism........

but it's not really

ermm - what do you say really??? I bet his English wasn't that great when he arrived in the UK either..........

I've heard of other linguistic rules here too. Social housing is only available in certain areas to people who speak flemish, and in one area they sent strongly worded "polite" letters to businesses/individuals who advertised in languages other than flemish. I can understand people not wanting to speak English to you, but it seems strange in a country where there are 3 national languages, that you are "not allowed" to use one of the others.

I do think that the free availability of translation in the UK maybe "discourages" the learning of english in some cases. I know that the fact that my tax return/gas bill etc being in flemish, gives me a greater incentive to at least learn enough to get by.

That's interesting Portofino. It's not such asn issue in Leuven, the language classes here are full of people trying to learn flemish. I don't often hear french spoken here.

This man was not a postmaster. Just someone from an agency apparently according to the news.

Apparently he is now working at a post office in Netherfield which is not too far from Sneinton.

I dont think that the point is valid regarding learning the language of the country you are living in. The BBC had a bit on people from the UK living in Spain and their main point was to learn the language, or at least enough to get by. If I were living abroard for a long time, I would want to learn the language, it must be very isolating not to be able to speak / understand the words around you.

Good on him I say. Why on earth SHOULDN'T someone who's been here say 30 years learn to speak enough English to "get by". I am not talking about banning non-English speakers, hey I love the fact that you can get on a tube in London and you just hear so many different languages all round you, but if you live here, it should be a requirement to learn English to a basic level.

All very well to say people should make an effort to learn the language. But how are they going to learn if the people who already know it refuse to speak to them??