I was thinking about that when I was dropping my 6 year old off at some hobbies earlier - it’s pretty much expected to have learned how to ride a bicycle before starting school, and it massively expands the area you can go to by yourself. When she went to school by bicycle she can easily make a detour via a shop to spend some pocket money before coming home, while by foot that’d be rather time consuming.

Quite a lot of friends from outside of Europe either can’t ride a bicycle, or were learning it as adult after moving here, though.

edit: the high number of replies mentioning “swimming” made me realize that I had that filed as a basic skill pretty much everybody has - probably due to swimming lessons being a mandatory part of school education here.

  • ExLisper@linux.communityEnglish
    251·
    1 year ago

    Yes and no. Of course if you’re applauding someone like during a speech or something it doesn’t really matter how you clap. But if you’re watching live music (especially flamenco but not only) and you’re trying to ‘accompany’ the musicians it does. You often see tourist clapping to some music and not only can’t they keep the rhythm they also don’t make any sound. Spaniards usually just know how to keep the rhythm, can do complex patterns, can ‘double’ the claps* and can make them sound nice. If you hit your palms the right way they make this strong snapping sound. Spaniards just know how to do it, for them that’s clapping. I had to learn.