'Cowboy outfit'?

Do you mean Saville Row? Harley Street is doctors.

Agreed on both [though Harley Street is almost a continuation of Saville Road ]

OK, I just know the names, I keep as far away from London as I can so not familiar with the geography.

Interesting- thanks. I'm guessing that, although you usually think in English, as soon as you're asking your brain to do two things at once (ie access speech centres and calculate maths) you revert to the more deeply ingrained language in order to make way for the other task. I am in awe.

One thing I always struggled with for some reason is reciting the alphabet aloud. I always switch to german about Q. No idea why, especially as english is my first language!

It is quite valuable to be able to spell things out in different languages.

I've often wondered if it's also to do with the fact that we tend to write numbers as symbols, so any language that uses the Roman alphabet will write numbers 12345 etc. I'm more likely to switch languages if I'm listening and writing down numbers e.g. if I'm taking down telephone numbers in another language I might become aware halfway through that as I'm writing the numbers, the word is appearing in my head in English, if that makes sense. If I'm writing the words out, it won't change but if I'm using the symbols, 5 looks/ feels like "five" to me even if I know that five = cinq = funf or whatever so I'll hear it in one language, write "5" and think "five" as I'm doing it.

Similarly I found counting dance steps and sequences aloud hard the first time I learnt salsa in France. I can still remember my first few classes trying to count it for partners as "1 2 3... 5 6 7" and ending up saying "1 2 3... 4 5 6... no... 5...wait... 1 2 3... 45 ... 6 ... hang on..." Feeling the beat and trying to name it in French utterly floored me. I ended up just saying "tak tak tak" (or however it's spelt - it was what the teacher said a lot) until I could feel the beat and the count aloud in French.

It's familiarity as much as anything. I can read a sum in French or German and do it in that language and telling the time is fine but it's those moments where you're beyond conscious thought that you're almost certainly going to think in a language that's as good as (one of) your native tongue(s). Same thing with swearing I suspect; you're not thinking about swearing if you hurt yourself, it just happens - the word sort of falls out of your mouth. And yes, the same thing again with the alphabet. You look at a letter "a" and you know what it's called, the word is just there in your head. Loads of people have difficulty with the alphabet, especially as the letters are often so similar but just not quite the same. At work I speak to people who have all sorts of different languages as their native tongues and the number of times I've heard E for India, A for England, W for Vietnam etc. I can spell things aloud in French and German but especially if I've been switching languages a lot, I might end up sounding more cautious that I would otherwise just to make sure I'm using the right alphabet all the way through!

Animal noises is a great game to play with people who speak different languages as well. I bet the Strictly pros have had that conversation at some point over the series. It's just one of those things that always happens! And yes, back to the original topic, I suspect that the pros will occasionally at least talk to each other in their own native languages when they're alone. As a group, their confidence in their English is really impressive.

Sorry, total languages geek! My username may have suddenly become clear to a few people after reading this post.

Can any of you write quickly in IPA? I can just about read it but struggle to write in it.

I suspect that there is little point in learning to write IPA as few people can read it.

Very true!

Although the HP phrase can be delivered with a satisfying amount of seething and plosives (that said, it's probably best if the dancers stick to shouting 'ole' in the Paso, and silent pouting in the tango!)

I used to find that on the radio, you can say things like a callsign in phonetics but it has much more impact if you also say the letters in the style of the language of the person you are speaking to.