Hello Jeremy,
I completely agree that we change gears throughout the year, or even throughout the day. Does it have to do with the clima in Spain?
For me, a good way to recharge batteries is to have lunch with my colleagues somewhere out of the office. This way we can disconnect for a little while !!!
By the way, this is my first post after the summer…like you explained in the article I took a break from the weekly letter during the summer.
Regards,
Cristina

English is spoken by the majority in Australia, but the country is pretty laid-back, I must say. It seems to me that every day here is like being on vacation. So I think Cristina is right: it must be because of the climate!

I came to live here on the Basque coast fourteen (nearly fifteen) years ago. I had been living and working in Dublin (and previously in London) for a number of years and then in early 1992 our daughter was born and my wife and I looked around for a place to bring her up. Start a family life. I had been here a few times on holiday and it seemed the perfect place to settle down. Initially, I was worried that my perception of living here might have been tainted by the fact that I’d only ever been here on holiday. What would day-to-day life be like? Well, I soon figured out that people lived a more relaxed life here even when they weren’t on holiday. I noticed that, be it going out for a Sunday afternoon stroll, walking to the train station or going shopping, I had to learn to move at a slower pace than what I’d been used to in Dublin or London. “¡Tranquilo, hombre!”, people would say. And you know what Jeremy? I distinctly remember saying that the reason I wanted to move here was literally so that we could ‘shift down a couple of gears’. Hmmm, time for a siesta.

Hi everybody.
As the article mentioned summer in Spain is great, it doen´t really matter if you want to slow down or hurry up, it is plenty of things to do.
If anyone decide to go parting there is a chance to chosee any place all over the coast, by the time enjoy the sun and beaches.Even for anyone who prefers to go visiting museums is the perfect time in Madrid, Barcelona, etc just because is where more people all over the world come to those cities to swap their cultures.
There is also space for those who like chilling out without worries by the time they spend holidays studing the lenguage or doing what they really miss during the whole year.
In my particular case I like the idea of doing a little bit of everything, is so important to make the most of the time, especially in holidays.
Greetings

My new bicycle has 3 chainwheels and 8 gears. That makes for 24 combinations. Uphill and downhill I go. Wheeeeeeee...

Jeremy and his metaphors… Okay, my bike has one chainwheel and five gears. That makes for five combinations. To be honest, though, I can’t be thinking of combinations. It’s too much work. So I don’t shift gears. I am, in Spanish, de piñon fijo y plato único. For the ups and downs of life, my breaks will do; that and an ability to change bike altogether. This year I learned to bake and got a cat. Meow.

Do you really think we have more gears than people from other countries?.
No, I don’t. I think we work less than people who live in countries where English is the most spoken language, but sometimes, and because of this reason, we must make a big effort to finish our work. This is the moment when you are seeing a lot of gears in your life. In fact, there are only the need and the urgency that causes of our gear’s changes.We are always working at the rhytm marked by happenings. We never plan nor anticipate the events. We are improvisation kings (not only the Spanish people, also Italian and Greeks are doing the same things). This is the way our productivity goes. The lowest in Europe.
Taking the same example you’ve used about cycling, do you know what it means the expression ” to do the gum”?.
It’s when a cyclist can’t follow the rhytm of the best cyclists in the race and stop to pedal for a few moments to take his breath. Then he tries to pedal hard to catch the group again. The cyclist does repeat the action three or four times trying to maintain himself in the best group. But, normally at the end, he isn’t able to catch the group again. He has to pedal alone till the end of the race or get down off the bicycle. He has done a lot of gear’s changes, he has become exhausted, but all it has been in vain.
I think like this example it’s the Iberian system to work, changing every moment the rhytm, exhausting and at the end, nothing : low productivity.
Mediterranean countries could be good places to spend holidays, but to work in it, it is a very different experience.

Definitely, the answer to your final question is ‘no’, we wouldn´t change gear to use energy for studying a language. Aren´t we among the worse language students? You must know a lot of this… For what reason should we be making such a big effort by studying a language, if sign language will work for sure?
Marian

“I’m talking about the chance to stop. Or at least, to press the pause button on your life. To take things easy…to relax and recharge the batteries.”
Hi Jez,
we too in Italy (as you might remember) have the chance to stop in summer. We press the pause button, relax and recharge the batteries…
Maybe it’s not just an Iberian thing, could it be a Latin thing?
However, Italians are not very good at learning foreign languages too…
Maybe that’s a Latin thing as well

Ilaria,
Perception is everything. If you think that Latins are bad at languages, then you will be bad at languages. If you think you can do something, you probably will do it. You only need one gear:forward!
Just as you would never accept someone else telling you how bad you are, don’t accept it from yourself either. So many people make arguments for their own limitations.
If you can want it, you can get it. That is a law of the universe!
So, Do you want to learn English?

I think in Spain we have many gears, or, at least, we try to have many gears. In my opinion, to change the rutine relaxing ourselves is very positive and necesary.
Holidays is time to relax, to have many siestas, to go to the beach, to go to the mountain… In our calendar there is many holidays. And I prefer that style of life to another. Because we shouldn’t let this capability to disconnect.
But language learning is very different. We have many gears and I think it isn’t positive. In general, we have many difficults to learning a language, and we have many relaxing time and we don’t use as many the language as we should.

Thank you, Donal!
Actually, I speak very good English, I teach English, that’s what I do!
I can also speak some Russian, some French and some German…
But that’s me, I’m an exception.
I have to thank my parents, who gave me the opportunity to learn English when I was a child and paid for my private lessons with a native speaker. And I’ve been to London so many times that British people tell me I speak with a cockney accent (well, maybe not a cockney accent, but I have a slight London inflection).
But I have to say that Italians are not good at all with languages.
I teach in an MA course at the University of Milan, my students should already be able to speak proper English, but some of them are really terrible. They study English as their first foreign language, in a course for language specialists, and many of them have never been to England, or the States or Australia… Sometimes it’s really frustrating… They rather go to Spain or Greece for their holidays, so that they can have fun. I mean, if they study English why do they go to Spain or Greece? Life can’t be just fun! Why don’t they study Spanish or Greek then? Personally, I think that if you study a foreign language you have to love not only the language but also the place where that language is spoken, its culture, its people. And if you don’t feel the desire to visit the country where the language you study is spoken, well… there’s something wrong with that.

Hello!
I think that summer is the better time to makes things. The days are longer that the rest of year and many people work in a continus jorney, the this time is a great opportunity to study, turism….
In Spain the climate is a very good company and it does that our character be more pleasant.

Hi everybody,
Yes, the Spanish people have the ability to change gear, to be working all the day, but at night to go out with friends and to change the “chip”. We are very social people, and I think this is by the weather. We can go out all the year without a lot of heat, and without a lot of cool.
In order to recharge batteries I think that the most important thing is to go far away from routine. All the days to do the same things can be very stressfull. If you do differents things, you may be phisycaly tired, but your “batteries” will be recharged.
After recharge the batteries you can begin again: to look for new things and new experiences.
In summer or holidays you can recharge batteries learning english at UK or USA. It is a good way to profite the time and to know new peoples and costumes.
By.
Conchi Calvo

What about long weekends?
I have the feeling that on Monday I’ll be way more tired than today…
I hope I have long lasting batteries…
:-)
Good article, Jez!

I have to get a word in before we move on to the next Weekly (too late, I know).
BUT, though the Iberians you mention will be proud of your positive portrait of their habits, I bet every single one of them would take the English workday over their long-lunch, gear-changing jornada partida.
I think if you change gears too much, especially uphill, maybe you could break the bike…