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Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 189, 9 May 1934, Page 6

The' unfamilhirity of New Zealanders in general with foreign tongues was exemplified on Monday evening when no one in a group of about ten people, including three doctors, surrouu * ig an injured French wrestler, could muster up sufficient French to ask the Frenchman how lie felt—or to understand the reply. One doctor, after announcing that he could speak Trench, began, “Ou la la! Hurts, eh?” at the same time gently massaging the wrestler’s injured neck. He was rewarded with a blank stare. It remained for n well-known Greek restaurant-keeper of Wellington—a versatile linguist—to come to the rescue by acting as interpreter. While the wrestler was being prepared for a jmirnev to hospital a doctor said to the Greek: “You had better go with him. No one will know French up there.”