Madam, – My son and I recently took a flight from Nantes to Shannon that was otherwise full of French tourists, many of whom we understood to be making their first trip to Ireland. Their enthusiasm about coming here was obvious and genuine. On our way home from the airport we stopped for lunch in a pub to find many of our fellow passengers already there.
Quite a few of them were struggling with the English-only menu and at one table everybody had ordered pizzas. On paying the bill, I asked the manager if the pub gets many French customers and he confirmed that a bus-full stops once a week. I made him aware that one table had ordered pizza probably because it was the only recognisable thing on the menu. He agreed and said he couldn’t get around to everybody to explain the menu. The suggestion of having a French translation of the menu available was greeted with the comment that on his travels in France he was not always provided with an English menu. Certainly that was my experience in France also, but where necessary an English translation was usually available from the waiter – and besides the pizzas in France tend to be of a high standard and not of the frozen variety.
Ireland is a good holiday destination and the French tourists in question will more than likely have a positive experience here, but will they come back again and what stories will they will tell their friends when they return to France?
In Ireland every year we invest millions of increasingly scarce euros in teaching French in our schools. When will we realise that there needs to be a return on our investment? – Yours, etc,