Spain-based Estonian actress goes viral with expat Brit clips
An Estonian actress and model living in Spain has become something of a celebrity there after producing a series of videos satirizing Britons, more specifically a particular type of woman-of-a-certain-age, who have lived in the country for decades but speak barely a word of the local language.
Bianka Randell uploaded the videos, in which she reads aloud British expat pronunciation of Spanish place names and other public information, to social media platform TikTok, with the videos going viral and getting over 10 million views in some cases, so far.
Randell says has also been invited on Spanish TV, says she regularly gets recognized in the street, and has garnered a lot of praise for her satire.
"I think the fact is that since not everyone in Spain speaks English as well as people do in Estonia, the joke may be that in reading out the place names, they hadn't come up with something showing how the [pronunciation] could be so incorrect," Randell told ETV current affairs show "Ringvaade suvel".
Randell noted that behind the videos, in which she adopts what she says is a British accent – more accurately a hybrid of Essex and northern English, and peppered with obscenities in the clips shown – lies the serious point of criticism of expats living in Spain for decades, who still can't speak a word of the local language, she says.
Randell added by contrast she has lived in Spain for 10 years, and was rapidly able to become fluent in Spanish.
She also had a stab at impersonating how she thought Britons might pronounce Russian and Estonian place names on the "Ringvaade suvel" episode, after some nudging by the host in that direction.
The original ETV broadcast is here and includes some of the TikTok clips.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
