Here is another extract from Frederick Moore’s The Balkan Trail about his time travelling through the Balkans in the early 1900s. (See here for some more information and context.)
An Italian official of the Ottoman Bank had taught himself English, and was enraptured when we arrived. It was with much pride that he addressed us at supper. But we did not recognise the language, and expressed in French our unfortunate ignorance of foreign tongues. ‘That is your own tongue,’ said the Italian; but even of this we understood not a word. The man drew a pencil from his pocket, and on the back of a letter wrote:
‘I am speaking English.’
We were astounded.
‘Perhaps I do not pronounce correctly,’ he wrote next. ‘I have learned the noble language from books.’
The hilarious Englishman gave the unhappy Italian his first lesson at once. He took the pencil, and wrote:
‘Always pronounce English as it is not spelt; spell it as it is not pronounced.’
The Italian was an earnest student, and soon[139] made progress. Before we left the hotel he was interpreting to the proprietor for us. One day the Englishman asked if there was any chicken on the bill of fare. The Italian conversed with the proprietor for a few minutes, and then informed us that there was ‘a kind of a chicken.’
‘What kind of a chicken?’ chirped the Englishman; and the special commissioner of the Daily News almost smiled.
‘It is a—what do you call it?—a goose, sir.’
(pp. 138-9)
Moore, Frederick Ferdinand, The Balkan Trail (London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1906), online at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62947.