Announcing in French?

[DiscoStu]

I was travelling home from work last night on the 17:13 Euston - Northampton/Birmingham last night, and the guard was announcing in French as well as English.

It's not as though the train was heading into St.Pancras International or anything, so it's unlikely the train would have too many French speakers on board, so why would he do this? It's never happened before.

 

[Ferret]

I was travelling home from work last night on the 17:13 Euston - Northampton/Birmingham last night, and the guard was announcing in French as well as English.

It's not as though the train was heading into St.Pancras International or anything, so it's unlikely the train would have too many French speakers on board, so why would he do this? It's never happened before.

Who knows?! I've announced Birmingham International in French and German before, once to confuse my catering crew, and once because there were umpteen foreigners on!

 

[crewmeal]

Must have got the idea from the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies

 

[SS4]

Je ne suis pas sur, peut-être il a l'esprit des Olympics! Certainement il serait une bonne histoire. Les gens de Birmingham devraient être plus intelligents et cosmopolites qu'on pensait!
Bien sur, normalement on pourrait entendre le Punjabi ou le Hindi

To comply with forum rules on legibility and in case my French is more like Crabtree's "Fronch"
I'm not sure, perhaps he has the Olympic spirit. Certainly he'd have a good story. The people of Birmingham must be more intelligent and cosmopolitan than one though!
Of course, normally one would here Punjabi or Hindi

 

[175001]

I could do mine in Welsh on arrival to some selected stations in the North West :-

"Yr orsaf nesa fydd Wigan Wallgate, diolch am deithio gyda Rheilffyrdd Gogleddol"

I'm sure they wouldn't bat an eye lid either

 

[12CSVT]

Some of the automated announcements seem to be in Double Dutch

 

[WestCoast]

I'm not sure why. French was traditionally perceived as being the second international language, although it's not much use to most people in the UK who's first language isn't English.

I could do mine in Welsh on arrival to some selected stations in the North West :-

"Yr orsaf nesa fydd Wigan Wallgate, diolch am deithio gyda Rheilffyrdd Gogleddol"

I'm sure they wouldn't bat an eye lid either

Ha. I was on a Northern service between Manchester Victoria and Hebden Bridge last week and there was a large family chatting loudly in Welsh. The guy behind me whispers to his mate, "bloody Eastern Europeans".
:roll:

 

[MK Tom]

Je ne suis pas sur, peut-être il a l'esprit des Olympics! Certainement il serait une bonne histoire. Les gens de Birmingham devraient être plus intelligents et cosmopolites qu'on pensait!
Bien sur, normalement on pourrait entendre le Punjabi ou le Hindi

To comply with forum rules on legibility and in case my French is more like Crabtree's "Fronch"
I'm not sure, perhaps he has the Olympic spirit. Certainly he'd have a good story. The people of Birmingham must be more intelligent and cosmopolitan than one though!
Of course, normally one would here Punjabi or Hindi

I thonk this mist have hod something to dee with the Olompics!

In all seriousness I've never heard other languages on an LM service before, but I have heard French on EMT once or twice. Could have just been showing off!

 

[175001]

Ha. I was on a Northern service between Manchester Victoria and Hebden Bridge last week and there was a large family chatting loudly in Welsh. The guy behind me whispers to his mate, "bloody Eastern Europeans".
:roll:

haha next time I work a Vic-Leeds and you're on it, let me know if you see him again and point him out to me Haha

 

[user15681]

I've heard French on SE HS1 to St Pancras Int'l a few times (could have been the same person), but that makes sense. Maybe he had seen a few French people on board? Could have been a joke?

 

[tsr]

I have made up some very facetious announcements quietly in both French and English to friends I've been travelling with on the Eurostar, but I won't embarrass myself by revealing my poor-quality standards of written French on a public forum!

To be honest, most railway technical or semi-technical terms sound quite close to a foreign language to many of the "normals" - I rattled off the phrase "extended dwell times due to an unusually large passenger flow" to my mother earlier whilst in "railway mode", and she was amused and completely confused in equal measure just by that... :P

 

[PR1Berske]

haha next time I work a Vic-Leeds and you're on it, let me know if you see him again and point him out to me Haha

Haha. As it happens I'd love to hear someone do the announcements in Cymraeg into Preston, if only to check if the mutation works

"o Phreston", isn't it?

 

[175001]

It certainly would be "O Phreston"

 

[bronzeonion]

I was on a Southeastern 376 and the driver was announcing in French!

 

[pendolino]

Je ne suis pas sur, peut-être il a l'esprit des Olympics! Certainement il serait une bonne histoire. Les gens de Birmingham devraient être plus intelligents et cosmopolites qu'on pensait!
Bien sur, normalement on pourrait entendre le Punjabi ou le Hindi

Je crois que peut-être vous avez oublié quelques accents circonflexes; en fait, j'en suis sûr!

 

[marks87]

Must have got the idea from the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies

I've been trying to re-teach myself French by re-watching the ceremonies over and over again

 

[krus_aragon]

I could do mine in Welsh on arrival to some selected stations in the North West :-

"Yr orsaf nesa fydd Wigan Wallgate, diolch am deithio gyda Rheilffyrdd Gogleddol"

I'm sure they wouldn't bat an eye lid either

The sad thing is, I can never recall hearing a Welsh announcement made by a member of staff here in Wales...

 

[175001]

Quite a few do it in the North mate.

 

[A-driver]

There is a driver on southern I know who repeats announcements in French and sometimes German. To be honest I think he's just showing off!

On the other hand I also know plenty of drivers who struggle to put an announcement together in English let alone any other language...

 

[185]

Got a round of applause from 80 French students for doing just that once, working a Liverpool-York.

 

[Ibex]

The chap who does on LM has become very well known for it. He even had a radio interview with Vanessa Feltz about it.

I believe he's only doing it for the Olympic period now but before the Olympics there were daily comments on the LM Twitter feed about him, positive more than negative.

 

[rf_ioliver]

Haha. As it happens I'd love to hear someone do the announcements in Cymraeg into Preston, if only to check if the mutation works

o Breston ... which /might/ sound worse

If you're wondering, the other mutations are: P->Mh and P->Ph

in Preston = ym Mhreston
and Preston = a Phreston


Actually I'm trying to think on which English station I heard the anouncements given in Welsh - this was back in the 90's ... might have been Canterbury West...sorry, too far back in time

t.

Ian

 

[6Gman]

I had a conversation in Welsh with an LM Guard between Crewe and Lime Street a few weeks ago ...

 

[185]

Metrolink in Manchester had a good answer. During a major footie match between Manchester Utd and Bilbao, they used someone from the staff canteen, (from Bilbao!) who did recorded station announcements in Basque.

 

[Stephen55a1960]

The sad thing is, I can never recall hearing a Welsh announcement made by a member of staff here in Wales...

I heard announcements in Welsh, Several times, on my last visit to Cardiff Central (in February).

 

[starrymarkb]

The Germans seem to do multilingual announcements at major interchanges. Smaller stops/stations just get a German announcement. In Leipzig the trams used to do German, English and French (though last time I was there the English had been re-recorded* and French removed - possibly due to it taking too long to announce between stops)



*It now says "This Tram Terminates here, All Change please" rather then "The Next stop is the last stop, All Passengers must leave board"

 

[WestCoast]

The Germans seem to do multilingual announcements at major interchanges. Smaller stops/stations just get a German announcement.

The announcements are generally only repeated in English for InterCity/EuroCity and InterCityExpress services (if one of them arrives then the connection info for all services is also given in English), plus regional/suburban trains heading to airports.

I remember pretty much every single automated announcement on regional RENFE services in Spain was repeated in English - even the tiny villages on the Ronda to Algeciras line (wonderfully scenic line by the way - originally built by the British to serve Gibraltar!).

 

[ex-railwayman]

I was travelling home from work last night on the 17:13 Euston - Northampton/Birmingham last night, and the guard was announcing in French as well as English.

He'd probably had a Rosetta Stone DVD given to him for his birthday and was trying it out......

Cheerz. ex-railwayman.

 

[SS4]

I wonder how he managed saying Birmingham New Street with a French accent

 

[charley_17/7]

When I worked for FTPE I used to do multi-lingual (French, German, Dutch) on services to/from MIA. Signage at York station is in French and German. Some units also have Japanese around the NW, possibly Class 150 units IIRC.

I'm not surprised about the WCML outer-suburbans. Lots of foreign nationals like to stay in Milton Keynes because of the high quality, reasonably priced hotel accomodation and the frequent, almost 24-hour service to/from London. Lots of foreign nationals live here and their families visit.

On an average workday at MKC I will hear French, Dutch, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Polish, Latvian, Croat, Slovenian, Czech, Japanese, Urdu, Farsi, Gujariti, as well as English.