The other day as I was sitting on the train from Wokingham to Waterloo, a lady got on at Virginia Water and sat down opposite me. When her phone rang I was intrigued when she answered in Danish. From some of her expressions I could tell that she has been in the UK for a while. After living here for some time, you start using English expressions that you directly translate. So anyway, there she is chattering away and I’m considering saying something to here after the call is finished. I mean, what are the chances that a fellow Dane sits down directly opposite you on the train to London. Then she started discussing her love life with her friend, mentioning more details than I really cared to know!
As we both got off at Waterloo I was wondering if I should still say something to her, but I decided not to ruin her day. Probably better to leave her unaware that I understood everything she had said. The moral of this (true) story is to be careful when speaking your non-English language in London, even when it is a language only spoken by 5 million people. London is too global a city for that…
