Bilingual Clubs and Translation

In Singapore I went to the Francophone club where the meeting was entirely in French. I once went to a Mandarin club where nobody spoke English, except for one girl who spoke half a dozen words. Simple questions such as 'where is the toilet?' were a major challenge, involving several people and phones and drawings.

In the bilingual clubs I have been to in Singapore, people spoke rapidly in one language, and no translation was given to those members of the audience who spoke another language.

I would like to see bilingual clubs with translators.

In real life you are often talking to an audience where some of the people do not speak English fluently. At conferences you may be speaking to audiences where the speaker and audience speak different languages, so you have to pause constantly to wait for the translator.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9FHU_WRc80

I speak English (British English), and French.

Angela Lansbury.