People Talk About Their Awkward Moments Being Multilingual
72. Arrogant Family Didn't Know My Cousin Speaks More Than 6 Languages
“My cousin, who speaks a multitude of languages (6+ but not sure which), was visiting family in Australia and they all decided to venture out for a meal.
After being seated at their table and getting their starters out of the way my cousin picked up on the table next to them making some very rude comments towards my family’s table in German. Considering that my cousin had worked for many years as a translator between firms for German and English business operations she politely turned towards the rude individuals and requested that they stop.
Ashamed and abashed they apologized profusely and even sent over a bottle of expensive wine to the table as an apology.
Following the arrival of the bottle of wine, there was a brief respite where my family was able to carry on with their meal, however, the party of rude individuals could not contain themselves and were very much determined to continue to make comments but this time in Spanish.
Even going so far as to make comments about how British people rarely speak more than two languages. Unfortunately for them, this was another language in which my cousin is fluent and the scenario played out very much in the same way for them.
You would think at this point that perhaps they had learned their lesson and would stop trying to make snarky comments about my family gathering.
Especially considering the apologetic bottle of wine and verbal apology. However, the routine had to play itself out for the third time, in yet another language, before they would decide to pay for their meal and go elsewhere to complain about my family in peace.”
71. Guy In The Mall Thanked Us For The Compliments
“I’ve been on both ends as a deaf person myself.
On one side: This one time the cashiers at a store realized I was deaf, and so started talking to each other about me when they thought I wasn’t looking… they also didn’t know I had my hearing aids and could lipread. Their comments weren’t anything too negative, it was mostly the typical comments about deaf people by people who were completely clueless about how deafness worked. When I brought my stuff to the checkout I kindly reminded them that it’s a pretty bad idea to talk about somebody thinking that they can’t understand what you’re talking about… because the chances are that they do in fact understand what you’re talking about.
The look on their faces was completely classic.
On the other side: One time my best friend and I were people watching at the mall, and we randomly started rating the men around us. In sign language, of course. There was this one dude sitting near us and we start rating his looks and his body. I said that he looked like he had a nice butt and that his eyes were really beautiful, with the color of the deep ocean.
So I rated him a 10/10. Then he came over to us and then told us in sign language: ‘Thanks for the compliments, ladies. you really made my day, haha.’ We were both so shocked and embarrassed. Heh.”
70. Talkative Woman Compared Me To Her Man
“I’m fluent in Spanish and was in a bank line in Lima the capital of a South American City and these two early middle-aged women were in front of me having a mostly quiet chat. One was telling the other about this new young guy at work she was sleeping with and describing all the crazy fun they were having, going into detail about all sorts of stuff.
The other wanted to know what he looked like and she was kind of describing him badly, and she kinda did a sly look around the bank, waited a few seconds, and said in Spanish: ‘he looks like this guy behind us, but with blonde hair, much better looking and a much better dresser.’ She did a good job of not gesturing towards me when she said it, but it didn’t stop me from hearing it.
So she goes back to discussing details about hooking up with him at work and they don’t notice the line has moved, and so without a warning throat clear I just say: ‘we all love the details back here but can you move forward?’
She went white as a ghost and they didn’t really talk for the rest of the wait, it was hilarious.”
69. French-Speaking Girl At The Other Table Teased My Partner's Dress
“My significant other and I live in Ottawa, Canada. I grew up speaking French my whole life, and she knows enough to understand others speaking. We were in a restaurant, which was relatively empty except for us and another very French couple at a table nearby (close enough to hear their conversation).
Eventually, the other girl started talking about my significant other’s clothing, saying things like ‘mauvais choix’ (bad choice). I suspect they were visiting from Quebec and just didn’t realize that most people here speak a bit of French, but as we were leaving, I turned to them and said ‘bonne journée!’ (‘good day!’) The look on her face still pops into my head occasionally and it makes everything feel right in the world.”
68. Ask The Person First If He Can Speak Spanish
“Cable Guy here. Being a white guy, most people don’t realize that I know how to speak and write in Spanish. I run into so many situations where I can run under the radar and just do my job without someone knowing that I can understand them completely. Every once in a while I subtly let them know that I can understand them.
I was doing an installation at a house where the family ‘only spoke Spanish’ and the order requested for a Spanish-speaking tech.
I showed up to the door, the husband opened the door, and automatically assumed that I couldn’t speak Spanish. His English was near perfect and he greeted me, showed me around, and where he wanted everything. He let me do my work as he walked into the other room where his buddy was and automatically started talking trash about me.
‘I can’t believe they sent a white guy who can’t speak Spanish.
I specifically told them to send someone who can speak Spanish so I didn’t have to deal with this nonsense. He’s going to be super lazy and not do the job right. I bet the jerk is going to expect a tip after doing a bad job and I’ll have to fix it myself’ -the dude went on and on the entire time I was there, talking trash the entire time.
At the end of the appointment, I was annoyed. I didn’t show it, but he thought it was funny to talk trash in front of me, the smile on his face while acting like he wasn’t saying anything about me… so I looked at him, told him in Spanish ‘your installation is done. If you have any questions you can call the company yourself and they’ll be able to get someone who speaks Spanish to help you.’
He looked at me with a shocked expression, so I continued, ‘next time you should ask if the person can speak Spanish before talking trash.’ His buddy hit the floor laughing as I left the customer standing there feeling like a jerk.”
67. Japanese Kid Hides His Book In His Bag
“When I was teaching kids in Japan, I would only respond with ‘English only’ to their Japanese, I did this for a few reasons:
- To make them think I didn’t speak Japanese.
- To make them use English more.
- So I could scare the crap out of them once I decided to speak Japanese.
Some kid in English school didn’t do his homework, when I asked him for it, he told me in English that he had ‘forgotten’ his book. He then turns to his classmate and says in Japanese that his book is in his bag and he didn’t do his homework because he couldn’t be bothered. I said nothing.
Come to the end of the class, his mother is waiting in the reception, along with my Japanese manager, so I tell the manager in English that he didn’t do his homework, I hear the conversation between kid and mom – with him giving the same ‘forgot’ nonsense.
So, I just say in perfect Japanese ‘Why are you saying you forgot the book? When I asked you in the class, you told the other student that it was in your bag and you didn’t do the homework, because you couldn’t be bothered. I’m sorry, didn’t you know that I could understand Japanese?’
Mom opens the bag, finds the book, smacks the kid in the head with the book, and tells him to sit in the reception to do his homework. Kid cries. All is good.”
66. German-Speaking Women Got Lost Finding The Art Gallery
“My mum’s a linguist and speaks about 15 languages fluently and as such, I picked up a couple along the way. Most of my childhood was spent in Germany so I have a firm grasp of the language… which doesn’t really seem to match my appearance.
I’m a 6’3, 220lbs, black man, who speaks German. Now, this isn’t too uncommon a sight in Germany, but in North America, I’m a unicorn.
So I was standing at the bus stop one day in the heart of downtown Toronto and there were these two 60-something-year-old German ladies who were not having a good time. They were trying to find the Art Gallery and were fed up with the fact that they were having such a bad time navigating because their English-speaking children had left them alone for the day.
I didn’t have anything particularly important planned for that day, so I turned to them and said something to the effect of ‘You know, our city has a lot to offer if you know where to look. Would you two like me to show you where the Gallery is, and a couple of places you can get lunch along the way.’
They nearly fainted. They were sooooo happy that they found someone who spoke German and couldn’t stop taking pictures with me to show their family ‘the guy that saved their day’.
I walked them to the Gallery and gave them a bit of an impromptu walking/bus tour along the way. That was the day I gained two Omas.”
65. They Say I'm Unqualified Because I'm Not Chinese
“I once interviewed for a part-time school holiday job, together with a good friend of mine. My friend is Chinese, the majority race of the country I live in. I, however, am quite clearly not.
The first thing the HR manager says when he sees me is ‘We need someone who speaks Mandarin’, a criterion not stated anywhere in the employment ad, and which subtly translates to ‘Chinese candidates preferred’.
My friend, while ethnically Chinese, speaks little to no Mandarin. I, on the other hand, speak it rather fluently.
Probably as a test, the HR manager decides to field our questions in Mandarin, clearly intent on cutting me out of the interview.
My friend turns pale, as he stumbles along to answer the question posed in whatever halting Mandarin he can scrape together.
The manager then turns to me, rather arrogantly, waiting for my reply.
It gave me great joy to tell him straight to his face ‘Thank you for the opportunity, but clearly I am not the right candidate you are looking for to fill this position since I am not Chinese’ in crisp fluent Mandarin.
The look of bewilderment on his face was priceless.”
64. Mom Got Annoyed And Exclaimed "Excuse Me" In Spanish
“My family is Cuban, but we look very white. In 2007, I was on a cruise with my parents, and we were sitting next to a Venezuelan couple on the open-air deck ordering food. The woman was looking at my parents, and loudly said in Spanish:
‘He’s so OLD!
Why would a young woman like her marry him? Do you think the child is theirs?’
Her husband replies ‘No, probably he is the father’s. He’s too old to be the woman’s. Too ugly too.’
My mother got very upset and just said ‘Excuse me’ in Spanish. The woman’s face turned white and she started apologizing profusely. While my mother was telling them off, my dad was laughing his butt off.
For the record, my parents are ~3 years apart. My dad is only three years older, he just looks ancient. At the time, my mother was 47 and my father was 50.”
63. Dad Explained Why Americans Have A Hard Time Speaking Foreign Languages
“I’m from the US and when I was 11 my family went to France for a couple of weeks. My dad was a very smart man. He graduated college when he was 18 and had a love for languages.
He was fluent in French, Spanish, and German and he lived in France for a year or two. He came back to the US and taught French for a few years before getting his JD and PharmD. He was constantly trying to teach us French whenever he could when we were little.
He kept in touch with his French professor from college and when we were in France we stayed with them in St. Hilaire de Riez.
They had a small party with some of their friends and everyone sat around talking and drinking wine. As much as he tried to teach us French, we could only do as much as ordering food and reading restaurant menus and such, so everyone was talking in English except for one man’s wife that was there and didn’t speak English. The hosts were translating most things for her.
At one point, the man says something in French like ‘Americans don’t value things like learning foreign languages.’ Not knowing my dad spoke French. My dad looks at him and in French replies something along the lines of ‘You’re right, lots of Americans aren’t introduced to foreign languages until they are older and already out of the prime time of their life to start learning.’ And that is why he started teaching his kids French as early as possible and even why he brought his kids to France, hoping that we’d gain an appreciation for another language and culture.
I didn’t know what the guy had said or what my dad had said until after we left, but I remember the look on the guy’s face and how he was clearly apologizing repeatedly. The host laughed too and explained my dad’s history with French and his education. To say the man was embarrassed would be an understatement.
Friday will be 13 years since my dad passed away at 55 years old.
He was such an awesome person and loved by everyone he met. He would never take offense to something even like that guy. He was from a tiny southern town in the middle of nowhere and grew up with nothing and worked his butt off to get where he was in life. Cancer is a jerk.”
62. My Friend Shocked Everyone With Her Korean Speech
“I lived in South Korea for three years, but I never learned too much of the language.
A friend of mine is 100% Korean but is very tall and was educated in America and New Zealand so she has an American accent. Her co-teachers at her school all assumed she couldn’t speak Korean so they would talk trash about her constantly while she would listen on and feel terrible. She said nothing for a whole year until she had to speak at the end-of-year ceremony.
The school offered her someone to translate but she refused and in front of 800 or so students and faculty members she delivered her address in perfect Korean. She subtly called out the coworkers that had spent an entire year calling her a foreign pig. Apparently one started crying from the shame of it. I wish I had got to see that.”
61. Spanish Couple Called Me Names
“While I’m Spanish, I don’t quite look like the stereotypical Spaniard: light skin color, blonde-ish, green eyes…
When I was living in London I got into several situations like that. The top one was on the tube back home. I think there was a football game (Chelsea – Barcelona) and this couple was going to the stadium and I was standing just beside them.
The tube had a hard stop and I accidentally fell a bit over one of them. I apologized in English as I didn’t realize they were Spaniards too.
They started talking to each other saying ‘this stupid fat idiot nearly smashed in the ground’ and things of the sort for almost 5 minutes.
When they left the tube and he looked at me one last time laughing I told him in perfect Spanish ‘enjoy the game, you little piece of work’.
His face going pale as the doors were closing was enough satisfaction for a week.”
Another User Comments:
“I have so many stories with tourists on the tube. In French, it’s usually guys making inappropriate comments. I usually let them know that London is the 4th/5th largest french speaking city in the world (over 1mil) and that they should assume most people around them understand.
In Russian, it’s middle-aged women dissing my dress style (jeans and band tees). Great fun to compliment them on whatever designer clothing they’re wearing in Russian. I’ve gotten VERY passive-aggressive with my responses Ahah.” grelondee
60. Staff In The Taco Shop Talks About Their Customers
“Went to a taco shop with my SO; the kind that has half the menu in Spanish, and the other half in English. Only two people there spoke English. SO is Hispanic, but doesn’t speak Spanish. I’m Jewish, but I studied Spanish for 5yrs, and am quite fluent.
We order to-go and are sitting and waiting for our food. We’re right by the kitchen, so I can hear what people are saying in there.
My ears perk up when I hear ‘gringa’ (foreign girl) (I’m the only white woman in there), so I, of course, start listening.
At full speaking volume, I hear these two ladies talking about how a nice Mexican boy doesn’t need to be going out with ‘a skinny white witch’, and how it’s embarrassing that we’re together. Now, at this point, we’ve been waiting on our food for about 25min.
I see one of the ladies walking out, so I go ask her, in Spanish, if our to-go order would be ready soon.
If she had a tail, it would’ve been tucked between her legs. She very quietly said ‘I’ll go check’ while not daring to make eye contact. I’ve never seen someone get so sheepish.
The kicker? They messed up our order. I went back and told them that maybe if they spent less time talking about their customers, and focused more on their order, I wouldn’t have had to wait so long for my food to be wrong; all in Spanish.
Petty? Maybe. Still felt good. I get enough crap about being a mixed-race couple from my own family, I don’t need it from strangers.”
59. Taxi Driver Thought He Caught Another Gullible Foreigner
“I’m American, but I’m fluent in Russian. One time while I was living in Russia I had just gotten off of a flight at an airport in Moscow when I was approached by some taxi drivers. Judging by my American appearance they were rattling off prices in English and one persistent man convinced me to go ride with him. I only responded in English to him, and he was getting excited, thinking he caught another gullible foreigner.
Once we got to his taxi he told me his price, which was about 5 times more rubles than I would normally spend. Only then did I speak in Russian. I told him, ‘Are you insane? Do you think I’ve never ridden in a taxi here in Russia before? Good luck finding another customer.’ He blushed and panicked, then offered me a ride for a third of the original offer.
I just walked away and a nearby taxi driver who thought our exchange was comical offered me a much better fare.”
58. I Heard The Chefs Complaining And It Was Amusing
“We were in a Korean sushi shop in Toronto and this guy, three obnoxious children, and a woman who was as likable as Buster’s mom in Arrested Development came in. It was busy and they ordered one of those giant boats despite the waitress explaining that it was a ton of food for like 12 people and would take a while because they were busy.
This group insisted on ordering it than complaining that ‘Japanese people were supposed to be efficient.’ I thought we must be on some secret game show because it was too ridiculous to be real life. Then the guy said he didn’t care for fish and didn’t realize it would be so fishy.
Anyway, I am white and speak Korean and I could hear the chefs in the back complaining.
One was like ‘he doesn’t like fish’ in Korean and the other guy totally serious and deadpan jokes ‘oh he wants more ice too, but he doesn’t like water.’
I lose it and choke on my soda and everyone looks at me and I am like ‘I’m okay’ laughing and the waiters are looking like ‘oh god she is wasted’ so I said in Korean ‘no-no, continue!
It’s interesting!’ Then they erupt in laughter. It was just a great moment.”
57. I'm English, My German Is Bad
“I am a white man from the UK, and whilst visiting Berlin was sat on the S-Bahn facing an older (also white) lady.
On the other side of the carriage, there were 4 gentlemen who were clearly eastern European/middle eastern.
I think they were speaking Turkish but I’m not sure.
The lady turns to me and says in German, something along the lines of ‘Beschämend, innen Deutschland sprechen wir Deutsch’ (Shameful, In Germany, we Speak German). Loud enough they were supposed to hear, clearly looking for me to agree with her.
To which I replied in my very broken German ‘Ich bin English, mein Deutsch ist sehr schlecht’ or I’m English, my German is very bad.
Her face went bright red.”
56. Stranger Helped The Couple In The Train
“I was riding the metro in Montreal and my car was pretty quiet except for a family presumably on vacation from the States. They were having a very loud conversation (in English) about how they were a bit lost. The wife was demanding that the husband ask someone on the train for help but he was refusing because he only knew a couple of French words and no one would understand him.
Little did they know that probably a third of Montrealers are Anglophone or Allophone and that most of the Francophones on the metro that day would have at least understood a simple request for directions.
Finally, the husband walks over to someone in the car to ask for help. Before he can get two words out, the person, who would have heard their entire previous conversation, responded in perfect English: ‘The next stop is the one you want…’ The whole car snickered a little bit as the realization washed over the family that maybe people in Montreal speak a bit more English than they realized.”
55. Insult My Brother And Dad? He'll Become A Jerk To You
“This happened to my brother and father while they were traveling. Some dude walks up to my brother, thinking he is a local, and starts talking to him in Farsi. When he realized my brother didn’t understand, he started saying really rude things about him and my dad being stupid. My dad (fluent in Farsi) comes over and rips this b******e a second one.
The dude feigned being apologetic and made excuses for his attitude. As he was walking away, he started muttering more foul things about them, but in Turkish this time. Dad speaks Turkish as well, and proceeds to rip him a third b******e.”
54. Grandma Called Out The Mean Women In The Bus
“I was on a tour bus with my grandmother going to a luau in Hawaii, my grandmother spoke fluent Italian as both her parents were Italian immigrants.
Two young women behind us were speaking to each other in Italian, probably assuming none of the other tourists could understand them. My grandmother told me (I don’t speak but a few words in Italian) that they were insulting everyone on the bus. She let it go for a while but just kept getting angrier and angrier as the ride went on. Finally, she turned around and told them off, telling them they should be ashamed of themselves for being so rude.
They looked so embarrassed and apologized to her profusely. Getting told off by a grandmother on a tour bus was not what they expected.”
53. Employee Was Glad I Knew Sign Language
“Hearing girl here.
I was looking for something in Target and asked an employee for help. She was busy stocking shelves and I kept trying to verbally get her attention. When she finally noticed me she mouthed, ‘I’m Deaf.’
I set my stuff down to free up my hands, introduced myself, and asked her where I could find what I was looking for in American Sign Language. Her face completely lit up, and I’ll never forget it.
Communication is major for Deaf people because they are unfortunately often excluded from the hearing world, which is probably why this lady reacted the way she did.
Though this was minor, it made a huge impact on me. This instance made me fall in love with sign language all over again and realize how communication is a basic human right that many people do not have or have limited access to.”
52. Middle Schoolers Didn't Know I Speak German
“Was in Germany, and a middle school teacher asked me to come in as a guest for one of her English classes.
The teacher introduced me, I said hi, and that I was from the U.S. and happy to be in their class.
The teacher said ‘So do you have any questions in English for an American? What do you think an American is like?’
One of the kids near the front says in german, kind of under his breath but definitely loud enough that most of the class can hear, ‘fat and stupid!’
The kids laugh, the teacher turns bright red. I don’t know what to do, so I just say ‘Of course, many Americans can speak German’ in German.
The kid almost pooped himself. He looked like a baby deer that had wandered onstage at a Beyonce concert.
I thought he was just being a jerk and had intended for me to understand what he was saying.
Apparently, though he actually hadn’t thought through that an American in Germany in their language class might actually speak their language.”
51. Four Days In The Emergency Ward And Everyone Has An Impression Of Me
“I went to a psychiatric emergency ward once and asked for help and if they were comfortable to speak English.
I understand Danish but have a hard time making myself understandable in it and didn’t really feel like looking like an idiot at a crucial time of my life.
I stayed there for 4 days without anyone realizing I knew what they were saying about me right in front of me.
2 of the nurses thought I was cute.
1 doctor thought I was lying all the time.
A patient thought I was a spy for the staff.
A lot happened in those 4 days.
It made my stay way more enjoyable than it should have been.”
50. Jerk Greek Woman In The Bus Listened To Me And My Mom Talk
“A lady on the bus was being a jerk and slagging people off in Greek until she got to me. She was being excessively nasty about my chipped nail varnish, I don’t know maybe she was having a bad day.
As soon as I clocked it I turned around and looked her dead in the eye with my very Greek face and she stopped. She then sat in the seat in front of me where I sat and called my mom, also Greek. I had a conversation with my mom for the duration of the bus journey about the rude lady who slagged my nails off because she thought I couldn’t understand Greek.
It was delicious.”
49. Uncle And His Sister Pulled A Prank In A Restaurant
“We had a large family reunion dinner at a restaurant and we were all sharing stories. My funny Uncle was telling us how he used to pretend he was deaf and his sister would translate. To prove it, he asked the waitress to get the manager. When he came over, my Uncle started signing to him… with made-up and exaggerated gestures. My Aunt told him that the food was good and the server was excellent… all the while the manager just smiled and nodded. When they were done ‘talking’, the manager said in sign language, he spoke ASL and knew it was nonsense.
We blew up laughing and my Uncle’s face turned beet red.”
48. We Greeted The Hilarious Family "Goodnight" In Cantonese
“I was in a hotel elevator with my wife in Osaka Japan. The Miyako Mariott to be exact. It is a popular hotel for tourists. We were going up the elevator to our room on the 54th floor? It’s a high hotel. In the elevator with us is a Chinese family that speaks Cantonese.
They must have assumed we were Japanese or some other type of Asian because they started to tease their pre-teen daughter about how badly she needed to take a dump. They were laughing and the mother was teasing her about how ‘I can almost see it coming out!’ Our floor came first and when it did I turned to them and said ‘goodnight’ in Cantonese.
Their faces were priceless and we got out of the elevator. My wife called me a jerk while laughing her butt off. Then we got back to our rooms and took a dump too.”
47. Laugh At My Hair? Joke's Now On You
“I was in an elevator going back up to my apartment after working out some two years ago and I had a man bun at that time. There were 6 other guys in the elevator speaking Arabic so I just listened as I usually do.
Then, one of the guys goes, ‘Haha. Look at this guy’s hair. It’s ridiculous.’
I turn around and respond, ‘You want to say that again?’
The five other dudes proceed to die of laughter with one of them screaming, ‘I knew you were Arab! I knew you were Arab!’
I ended up laughing alongside them to their one friend who felt super awkward.”
46. Dad Responded To The Girl Who Called Him "Big Fat Guy"
“My family and I went to Sri Lanka for two weeks to see where my mom grew up and general beach stuff. For some reason, we were like the only people in the hotel we were staying at aside from a wedding party that left a day after we got there.
A few days in there was another family staying there, I believe from Suriname and we were all chilling at the pool and decided to play a game of water polo against each other.
Things got exciting and one of the daughters yelled out something in Dutch like ‘go for the big fat guy!’ My Dutch dad replied ‘what big fat guy?’ And everybody laughed.
Just a simple story but it was pretty sweet.”
45. Mom Called Out The Jerk Boys On The Plane
“My family and I were flying to Greece from Houston to visit family, and two groups are also on this 10hr flight: student ambassador middle/high schoolers, mostly girls, from the US, and a youth male Greek soccer team.
And of course, they were all sitting by us with their chaperones at the other end of the plane.
The boys are hitting on and flirting with these girls about 2-4 yrs younger than them, all over each other. They moved seats so they can sit with the girls, and they were so loud and obnoxious the whole plane was annoyed.
The boys were also talking amongst themselves in Greek.
My mother speaks fluently from years of Greek school and many a summer raised in the Peloponnese hillside.
At some point, while all 3 of us are just sitting there reading, sleeping, trying to watch the tiny tv at the front of the plane and listen to these kids constantly talking, my mother jumps up and goes over to the group and says:
‘These boys are calling you fat and stupid.
They also think American girls are so easy. By the way, he (she points at the one guy who was the most all over this one girl) is 18. They have girls waiting for them in the terminal. Now shut up so I can sleep.’
They all shuffled back to their appropriate seats, silent. Best flight ever after that.
I love my mom.”
44. Think I'm Invading Your Party? I Have Every Right To Be Here
“Back in 2010, I was at the Hmong New Year in St. Paul/Minneapolis with my family where this happened. This event is pretty big and there used to be literally thousands of Hmong people there, it’s an event where we basically celebrate our heritage.
I am Hmong (Southeast Asian), but I look like I’m Hispanic just to give you some background.
Anyways, I had to go to the bathroom because y’know, I’m only human and all. When I went to go wash my hands, these two older guys (probably about 35-40) come in and as soon as they see me, they say something (in Hmong) along the lines of, ‘These d**n Mexicans thinking they can come to our New Year.
Maybe we should call the cops to take him back home to Mexico, hahahahahaha.’
Well, in comes my cousin by sheer luck so I ask him in Hmong, ‘Hey, where did you guys go? Last time I saw you guys was at the ball-tossing area (it’s this weird courting activity that involves throwing a tennis ball/softball while flirting).’ We end our very short conversation and then as I was exiting the bathroom, I made absolutely sure that I gave the most judgemental look ever to those two men.
It worked like a charm and you could tell by their facial expressions that they knew they messed up.”
43. Arrogant Mom Thinks I Want To Sit Next To Her Daughter
“I’m Brazilian and was flying to Rio from Atlanta. There were these two very attractive girls with their mother speaking English very fluently and one of them had their seat right next to mine. We exchanged some courtesy in English as I just assumed they were American and so did they.
They were Brazilian-Americans and so did not have an accent. I started speaking English from a young age so as long as I don’t talk too much I can go unnoticed.
So they start putting their carry on luggage in the bin overhead and the mother says to her daughters, in Portuguese:
‘Poor thing, he thinks I’ll let one of you sit next to him.’
So I just turn to her and say, in Portuguese:
‘Don’t worry, ma’am, I’m just being polite. I do have a significant other and it’ll be a pleasure to share this flight with you.’
She just went: ‘oh.’
And then she sat there in silence for the whole flight.”
42. Cousin's Ability To Speak Japanese Paid Off
“My cousin is a big white guy who studied for 2 years in Japan during college.
He worked for one of the heads of Honda America for a few years. When the head guy learned that he spoke Japanese, he would make sure my cousin was in all the meetings and phone conferences with the Japanese branch. My cousin would listen to everything the Japanese would be saying to each other and report it to his boss during breaks. As such the boss looked like a psychic to the Japanese because after the break he would address their concerns without being prompted. The boss made mad bonuses every quarter and always funneled a bunch of that to my cousin.”
41. Hate Foreigners? We Can Understand What You're Saying
“I was with my French friend in a corner shop when he was visiting me in Manchester, UK. His English is really bad so we were speaking french. 2 guys were behind us in the queue, my friend told me he wanted to try and speak English to the guy on the till so I let him. He asked for something in broken English and the till guy didn’t understand him so he asked him to repeat.
At this point, the guys behind us were getting frustrated and one of them said ‘g*****n foreigners, they should just go home to where they came from.’ I turned around and told them I am home, and he was trying his best and told them they were jerks. The 2nd guy seemed embarrassed like he didn’t share the same views though.
I don’t understand people like that at all.
They go to Spain on holiday and speak English to everyone and when someone visits their country and try to speak it’s still not good enough.”
40. We Had A Great Time With The Restaurant Owner In Japan
“I recently went to Japan for my first ever international trip and was totally prepared to have to struggle through all my day-to-day interactions in Japanese but was surprised at how widespread even a basic understanding of English is over there.
Everyone assumes you won’t speak any Japanese at all so they stick to as much English as they’re comfortable with or you basically just play charades.
At a restaurant in Kobe, the waitress was practically fluent in English so we chatted a while and it came up that I’m studying Japanese so we had a little small talk and she was impressed. Then the owner came over to talk but wasn’t as confident in his English so he had the waitress translate.
He was asking all these questions about where we’d been so far, where we were staying, how we liked everything if we’d been down to Kobe Port yet, etc. It was simple enough that I understood 100% without her translation, and the waitress could tell. Finally, she says to him, in Japanese ‘By the way, he understands what you’re saying.’ His eyes practically bugged out of his head and he got SUPER excited and asked if we wouldn’t mind waiting 30 minutes for him to close up and send everyone home.
So, I wait, he closes everything up and we all end up hanging out that night. He drove us around the city, bought us drinks, even drove back to the Airbnb. Japan is amazing.”
39. Dental Patient Tried To Lie About His Age
“So I was working at a dental clinic in Germany, and these 2 guys walk in and start speaking in Arabic, not knowing that both I and my supervisor can understand it.
The first guy (actual patient) is nervously telling his friend that this would never work, and his friend is telling him to shut up and play along, so the supervisor and I try to figure out what kinda game they’re trying to play. Apparently, they were trying to lie about the patient’s age to get his dental treatment done for free; (I don’t know how that worked, I was just an intern) unlucky for him, his teeth told the truth (you can’t fake being 16 when your wisdom teeth are ALL THE WAY out.)
So I and my supervisor shut up about it, and I’m in actual pain trying to hold back from laughing as the friend is convincing the patient that we’re idiots who don’t speak Arabic and can’t understand their trick. Of course, until I can’t anymore and decide to discuss the case with my supervisor. Right there in front of them. In Arabic.
I have never seen someone turn so many different colors so fast.”
38. Safari Visitors Speak My Native Language
“Flemish guy here. Working as a safari guide in the Kruger area, South Africa.
One time, my boss asks me to go pick a family of 4 up at the Klaserie reserve gate, do an afternoon game drive with them, and drop them off again afterward. This was very uncommon; normally we only do game drives with people who book a room in our own lodge on the reserve.
So I pick them up, introduce myself and go over the rules, all in English. They reply in English, or at least: the dad does, and normally I can pick up straight away if it’s someone from France, Belgium, Holland, or Germany. But his English was Oxford English. So I thought; English people. Off we went!
10 minutes into the game drive I hear them speak in Flemish, and not only that, IN MY OWN DIALECT.
Side note; every Flemish town has a dialect, we can hear what region/province other Flemish people are from, and if from the same region, we can often even pinpoint the exact little town or community they are from.
Oooh, I was going to have fun with these folks! Found a few nice animal sightings, spoke English all the time, but then one sentence to the next switched to their exact dialect.
I thought; now they’re going to be surprised! But nope… we all kept chatting in Flemish now. Only 20 minutes later, the daughter, maybe 10 years old, goes ‘wait a minute; he speaks Flemish!’
After all, had a good laugh, I asked them where they were from. They literally lived one street away from me. It’s a small world, folks!”
37. I Heard How They're Going To Negotiate
“So I don’t speak Spanish fluently, but I understand it just fine.
I used to sell cars in Houston and as you can imagine, we had a lot of bilingual Spanish speakers come to buy cars from us. They never asked if my super clean-cut white guy self spoke Spanish, so I never told them I did.
It was fun to have a couple that would speak English to me and Spanish to each other. They would literally tell each other everything like how much they wanted to pay and their negotiating tactics… They would say things like, ‘if he offers to take $500 off let’s do it, but I’m going to ask for $1000’.
So once they said yes, inevitably one would ask the other a product question in Spanish and I’d jump in and answer in English. The looks on their faces when they have that ‘a-ha’ moment were priceless.
Side note: I used my powers for good too… Like me (only the other way around), many Spanish speakers understand English just fine but don’t speak it well.
I’ve done entire car deals where I spoke English and they spoke Spanish with no issues and they became happy customers.”
36. Make Fun Of My Friend? Apologize In English
“My stepmother grew up in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. She looks Italian and white. She has an olive skin tone, and since she is only a quarter Japanese, she doesn’t look like she is from any East Asian-speaking country.
One day she and some friends went to get their nails (both hands and feet) done at a salon for some ‘girl time’.
The ladies who were doing the work were speaking fluent Japanese and were mostly gossiping about men and other things until they got to the feet part of said procedure.
My stepmother’s friend is a little overweight, and she doesn’t have a runway model style of feet. Well, the ladies who work at the salon are just starting to make fun of her in Japanese.
Laughing and giggling; enjoying themselves in someone else’s misfortune and looks.
My stepmother said she let this go on for too long. It was about 5 minutes of them talking trash before my stepmother replied in Japanese:
‘I didn’t realize that we needed to look like princesses to get service here.’ (Something along those lines).
The ladies stopped and looked at my stepmother with extreme guilt.
They apologized in English and were silent the remainder of the time my stepmother and her friends were there.”
35. Spanish Girl Has Got The Hots For Me
“I teach English (to adults) as a summer job and this happens quite a lot to me. Most of my colleagues are monolingual and as a pale ginger guy, nobody expects me to speak Spanish.
Most of the time it’s pretty boring stuff, but occasionally there’s some juicy gossip – a worrying number of them seem completely fine with lying to their partners back home.
Sometimes I’ll hear a story or joke from one of the students and then use it in an example of an exercise later in the week, which always confuses them.
I tend to be roughly the same age as most of my students (I’m 22) and despite being an average-looking man, a lot of them seem to find me attractive. Guess it’s the whole teacher thing or maybe gingers are exotic to them, don’t really know.
Anyway, on my last day of work at one school, this Spanish girl (she was 21) was talking about me to her friend on the phone while I was setting up the lesson. She was going into quite some detail about what she wanted to do with me, assuming that I wouldn’t understand. I carried on with what I was doing without reacting, waited for her to hang up, and said, in Spanish, ‘come and find me after class and we can arrange something.'”
34. No One Messes With My Aunt
“Story 1: My friend and I were sharing a cab with two girls we didn’t know. Just decided to share a taxi with them, because it was a long way and we wanted to save some funds. They started speaking Swedish not knowing my friend is also Finnish Swede (her mother language is Swedish, she has been in a Swedish school, but is Finn and speaks Finnish fluently).
I understand Swedish but I was too wasted to care. Suddenly she texts me:
‘They are planning to leave us with the bill.’
I texted that we should tell the driver so my friend just said:
‘These girls will pay half of this before they leave.’
He got the hint and didn’t open the doors before they paid.
Story 2: I was in an airport with my aunt.
She had broken her leg so she was in a wheelchair, but because we were going on a beach holiday, we decided not to cancel it. Now my aunt has lived in Germany and speaks the language fluently, I’ve lived there too so I understand it well, but I’m not fluent. We speak Finnish, something just to pass the time when a flight attendant asks us to go on the plane first. This middle-aged man turns to her wife and says in German:
‘I don’t think disabled people should be allowed on planes.’
My aunt, who is a true baddie, asks me to stop, (I was pushing her wheelchair) turns to the man, and says in perfect German:
‘I’m sorry sir, but I broke my leg and didn’t want to cancel my holiday plans. You are being incredibly offensive towards handicapped people and I feel sorry for your wife.
Have a nice flight.’
He turned red, couldn’t even say anything to us, and just looked away. His wife looked mortified.
Story 3: So the same aunt and I were shopping in Berlin, we were visiting her oldest son, my cousin. I want to point out, she’s always really polite and nice unless you are rude to her. Then she stands her ground. We are looking through some clothes and again speaking Finnish.
We hear a really frustrated middle-aged woman say to her friend:
‘I can’t believe how rude they are, I want to look at those clothes too, they’ve been at it forever. I don’t have time for this.’
We were at H&M! She could have looked at something else and come back after a few minutes. We weren’t blocking her, just looking for my size and sometimes it takes a minute.
My aunt turns to her and says politely:
‘Oh, go ahead then, doesn’t look like you have the same size anyway. We can wait.’
She took one of the shirts and just left really embarrassed.
Story 4: Had two boys come from Russia, they had a way of using Russian as their own secret language. They clearly talked about this one 4th grader, I didn’t understand a word, but they kept looking at her and then talking to each other.
They were in 3rd grade. So this girl listens for a while and I didn’t get involved, because I knew she had guts. I kind of hoped she would put an end to it because we suspected the boys said really bad things about teachers and other students. We had talked about it, but they denied it, and we don’t speak Russian, so we just had to believe them and explain our school language is Finnish.
The girl later told me she said to those boys:
‘I’m Russian and you are being really rude. You should not talk like that about other people.’
I just remember how the boys stopped and ran away. I praised her when she told me because she handled it really well. These situations are so common that I’m just wondering how often I miss them because I can’t know every language there is.
Especially when I and my cousin (aunt’s child) are partying in Germany, we speak Finnish of course, a lot of guys comment on our appearance. Usually, we just let it slide, but when confronted, usually those guys just apologize and say they didn’t mean anything bad which I believe. We just do it because it’s kind of fun.”
33. Janitor Revealed My Partner's Secret
“Was walking to class with my significant other when we ran into the janitor who also happened to work with my girl at Home Depot.
They greeted each other in Spanish and then the janitor asked in Spanish ‘is he the same one or the other one?’ She looked at me knowing I knew what she said and tried to laugh it off.
As that happened we both walked into an elevator together because we were heading to Spanish class together. When we got in the elevator I got annoyed and questioned her.
She seemed to be just as surprised as I was about the whole situation and claimed she didn’t know why she would say that. No, I didn’t break up with her and we’ve been going out for over a year now. I assume it’s because a couple of weeks prior, we ran into this same janitor who had seen me with my girl for the first time and said something about how I was cute.
A couple of weeks later with a beard and haircut, she probably forgot what I looked like so I blamed it on that. Nevertheless, was wary about the whole thing and she has even questioned why I never thought more about it. The gut feeling I guess.”
32. Pulled Off The Most Advanced French Words I Knew To Shock Ladies At The Other Table
“I speak a beginner’s amount of French from taking it in university. When I was in Paris with my partner, we were sitting at a restaurant called ‘L’as du Falafel’ (SO GOOD).
Like many European restaurants, the tables are in close quarters.
My partner and I are chatting away in English, and when our food arrived we began taking pictures to send to his mom because it is freaking delicious and the most beautiful plate I have ever laid eyes on.
Two older French ladies sitting next to us started side-eyeing us as we did this. Though I couldn’t fully understand them because only beginner French, they were laughing and clearly talking about us kids and our phones, ‘Ils sont ridicules!’ (They are ridiculous!)
While I don’t know exactly what they were saying and wasn’t offended at all I still thought it would be funny if they THOUGHT I could understand. So at the next chance in our conversation, I said something in French to my man. I can’t remember exactly what it was, very simple stuff, but in the past tense (which is basically as far as my education took me) to take them by surprise.
It worked, they stopped talking instantly and looked a little shocked.”
31. We Have Canadian Passports But Speak French
“Being Canadian I speak English and French. Years ago I was posted to Germany with the Canadian military. My friend came to visit me and we booked a trip through a German travel agency to France. So we got onto a bus full of Germans and off we went. When we arrived at the hotel in France we were all lined up to check in.
My friend and I were near the end of the line.
As the line slowly progressed the two French hotel staff members who were checking us in and speaking German to the tourists started speaking in a lower voice to one another – and they were bad-mouthing all of us tourists in French. I could hear them speaking and understood every word. They were saying things about how Germans only drink beer and eat sausages and do not appreciate fine French food and wine or culture.
How Germans are loud and other non-complementary things. My friend and I were smiling at each other listening to all of this.
When we got to the front of the line they asked, in German, for our passports. We handed them our Canadian passports and I asked them, in French, if they could recommend a good French restaurant that had a nice wine list. Oh, and could they also recommend a museum nearby.
They looked at us, the girl turned red and then mumbled something about a restaurant around the corner and a museum a few streets over. I thanked them in French, took our key, and left them standing there looking flustered.”
30. They Should Have Asked Me Earlier
“I was at a barbershop, while I was receiving what seemed like the longest hair massage ever. Two teenage girls (barbers) were complimenting my eyes and being all shy about it.
At one point one of them said: ‘ask him out.’ To which the other girl said ‘nooooo I’m scared and my dad will be so mad at me cause he’s not from our country.’
All this time I was just trying to keep a straight face and act like I couldn’t understand, was really interested in how it would play out. More compliments followed.
In the end, the girl didn’t ask me out but was very friendly when she told me how much I had to pay. I thanked her perfectly accentless in Turkish.
She asked me ‘are you Turkish?????’
I said ‘yep’ in Turkish again.
Both the girls ran to the back screaming after which angry big mustache typical old Turkish guy walked out and said: 17 euro please in the angriest way possible.”
29. Traveling Friend Said Goodbye In German
“A friend of mine was visiting my country for a few days from Italy. He was staying in a hostel dorm that happened to have a group of German tourists sharing it.
He said anytime he was back in the dorm he would hear them laughing and making fun of him in German.
Little did they know he speaks fluent German.
He stayed quiet for the few days he was there and remained perfectly pleasant, speaking English to them when they had conversations but otherwise keeping to himself. On the last day as he was leaving the dorm he turned to the group to say goodbye and added ‘I hope you all enjoy the rest of your trip’ in German to them.
He said the look on their faces was priceless when they realized he’d understood everything they’d been saying about him.”
28. Got Called Out For Being A Foreigner In My Own Country
“I’m half Chinese, quarter English, quarter Irish, and was born and raised in London – I don’t look particularly British (or indeed Chinese), but I definitely look ‘foreign’.
In the wake of Brexit, I happened to be on the phone with my mother (Chinese) while on the train commuting into work, so I was speaking Mandarin.
While on the phone to her, I overheard some little jerk grumbling about ‘the d**n Chinese in this country, Brexit borders immigrants, taking our jobs stealing our benefits rarararararagrgghhhh’ or whatever – but an offensive word came into it a couple of times, too. Clearly, this man had been emboldened by the vote to leave the EU and felt justified in airing his racism, feeling there were lots of like-minded others.
English very much being my first language, I turned to him and just said, ‘you what mate?’ in my clearly-from-south-London accent. At this point, he immediately started to backpedal and said I was ‘alright’ because I was ‘one of us’, whatever that meant.
So I got called out for being a foreigner in my own country, which is both amusing and sad.”
27. "Say Fromage!"
“So I went to France with my friends over the summer for this school trip.
One night we went to a guinguette, think of it as a restaurant with a dance floor if you don’t know what it is. We were easily identifiable as American, especially the girls (they tell by the shoes) and these kids who were no more than 8 years old decided to make fun of us (thinking we didn’t speak French). After calling us a few names and such, we spoke French to them, and their faces just turned to ones of pure horror!
They apologized immediately and we started conversing with them. They asked us whether we were from New York or LA as apparently, those were the only cities Americans could be from! They didn’t understand at all that there was a Midwest section, much fewer cities in Wisconsin! When we took a picture with them, we told them to say ‘Fromage’ (French for cheese) and they got sooo confused!
It was a good night.”
26. I Just Pretended I Could Understand Them
“One language person here but I’ve got a funny story. I worked with a group of Korean students when working on my degree. We worked in a catering kitchen. I used to listen to them talk all the time and would try and laugh when they laughed. They would notice and give me weird looks. One day they were building about 5000 box lunches.
I was working across from them on the hotline. One of them was placing bread, the next was on protein, next was lettuce, tomato, and cheese. The guy who was placing the cheese ran out and went to go get more. He walked to the cheese cooler but couldn’t find any cheddar.
About a minute before he looked, I noticed a new hire grab the cheddar and return it to the meat cabinet.
Now, they all spoke Korean at work but when he went to the one in charge I knew he was asking where the cheddar was. She walked him over to the cheese cabinet and also found that it was gone. In English, I say, ‘Miji, the cheddar is in the far cabinet next to the roast beef’ then I pretend that I’m not watching them.
She walked to the meat cabinet, pulled out the cheese, and yelled to me, ‘Do you speak Korean?’ ‘No,’ I say. ‘How did you know what he asked for?’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about Miji…’ After all of that, they would switch to English when I was in the kitchen.”
25. I Acted Like I Had Known Arabic Since I Was A Child
“My dad’s side of the family can speak fluent Arabic.
My father never had the patience or temper to teach me the language, and my mother was from Quebec and couldn’t speak it herself, so I was always left out of family conversations that would switch to Arabic, as I only knew English and French.
While away at university I took classes in Arabic and can then read, write and speak intermediate Arabic. I was excited to show off my new skill to my family but kept my mouth shut when I realized how (when my father wasn’t around) my cousins, aunts and uncles would blatantly insult my mother and me, right in front of us and they have been doing it for years.
So when I finally decided to speak up, I acted as if I had known Arabic since I was a child as if I was building up a case of all they have said throughout the years, and I saw the fear within their eyes. I do not talk to them to this day, even though they send their apologies to this day. I’ve never told my mother about the incident, but I’m sure they are treating her with more respect now.”
24. They Thought People In Belgium Can't Speak English
“I’m a native English speaker who grew up in Belgium. We were at the train station taking a family member on a day trip to Bruges. Standing in the main hall of the station up walk these two American women wearing their giant backpacks looking like they’re going to climb Everest or something.
American1 says: ‘This is my favorite country.’
American2: ‘Why’s that?’
American1: ‘Because no one here speaks English so you can say whatever you want!’
American1 then starts shouting in a giant echo chamber of concrete and marble curses, etc.
Now, sure, some native Belgians don’t speak great English, but most have been taking English classes since first grade. Not to mention Brussels is the Capital of the EU, so most people are fluent and many people are native English speakers.
And even besides that, non-English speakers in Europe tend to use English swear words in conversation even in their native tongues.
So I’m standing just a few meters from her and all I can manage to say is: ‘Actually most people here speak English.’ I was probably 8 or 9 and I genuinely just wanted to be helpful and keep them from continuing to make fools of themselves.
The look on their faces was priceless. Embarrassment, disappointment, confusion, and defeat all in one.”
23. They Didn't Know That We Have Lots Of Relatives In Germany
“My brother was visiting the USA with his orchestra.
The mum of three girls of the orchestra came along as it was a youth orchestra, and they needed adults along. They were staying with different families every few days, kind of an exchange program.
The mum was in the car with one of her daughters, my brother, and the hosting family, complaining that the car was smelling of cat pee, with her daughter agreeing, and talking trash about the family in German while being totally polite and like ‘yeah everything is great so nice to meet you’ a few moments earlier.
At some point, the mum of the American family turned around and just said ‘Oh, and by the way, we have lots of relatives from Germany’ in German.”
22. I Thanked Them For The Compliments
“Well, I’m an African-American guy in Tennessee with a big afro and deep voice. That being said, I’ve been teaching myself Russian for the past few years. I’m not fluent yet, but I’m getting better. My boxing coach of 4 years was Russian and spoke it to me often enough.
So, I work at a small wine and spirits store downtown in my city. Because of the location, most tourists who stay at the local Sheraton and Marriott come to visit us because we are so close. Elvis week some time ago brings in people from all over so we always get tourists. These two Russian guys come in. I show them the Talisker Storm and they decide to take a look around for a while.
I poured them some wine samples we had out as well and reassured them I’d help them find whatever they wanted.
As they were walking around they were saying in Russian how nice the store was and how nice I was. The taller one even complimented my hair lol. They brought up the Talisker to the counter and I gave them a discount. The taller guy asked why and I responded in Russian ‘Because you like my hair.’ They both turned super red and started laughing saying I’m awesome.
Then we went by the growler station and they started telling me about Russia while we drank Ghost River. Good times.”
21. Talk About Us In The Elevator? I'll Leave You With A Memory
“I’m Eurasian, live in HK and I basically look white to everyone here. I’ve been here since I was a year old, attended a local school for almost all of primary so I was fluent in Cantonese.
When I was around 7/8 years old, I was in Sogo, which was this huge 10 story department store in Causeway Bay, with my dad (who was from the UK and spoke zero Cantonese).
We were on our way to the 6th floor which was where all the toys were (still is to this day).
We decided to take the elevator up and we shared it with these 4 teenage boys. As we went up I could hear them talking about us, basically calling us ‘filthy white devils’ and how we should go back home. I turned around, glared at them, and just as we were about to leave I let out the NASTIEST fart of all time, silent and EXTREMELY deadly.
Proceeded to leave the elevator and as the doors were about to close I said ‘EAT MY POO’ in Cantonese. I’ll never forget the mortified expressions on their faces. Let alone having to inhale what is basically Sauron’s soul in the form of a fart.
My dad asked me what happened, I told him, got two new Gundams. Nuff said.”
20. They Were Surprised I'm Fluent In Bahasa
“I’m half Indonesian. I was born and lived there for quite some time before I moved to the States.
I was on vacation in Jakarta this past summer, visiting family and catching up with old friends.
I went out one night with an old friend I was extremely close with. Let’s call her Y. I took her to the movies, had dinner, and we spent a good amount of time at the arcades. We linked up with our old clique afterward.
When I dropped her home, her mom was at the door.
I got out of the car to greet her and show them some respect. As soon as she sees me, she says, in English, ‘Hello! My name is X, I’m Y’s mother. Did you guys have fun?’ Afterward, she starts whispering to her daughter. I was able to hear a bit of it and realized they were speaking in conversational Bahasa. I overheard the lines, ‘Ini cowok yang kamu bilang, ya?
Kalian sudah pacaran?’ Which translates as ‘Is this the boy you were talking about? Are you guys together now?’ Her daughter just blushes in embarrassment, hugs me, and says good night to me as she assumes I’m about to leave.
Before I leave, I say good night, and I just let out this line, ‘Terima kasih, Ibu. Selamat malam. Semoga saya dan Y bisa ketemu lagi minggu depan sebelom saya balik ke America.’ Which translates to ‘Thank you, ma’am.
Good night! Hope your daughter and I can meet up again next week before I have to head back to the States.’
Her jaw just dropped, she was extremely surprised and realized that I understood what she was saying to her daughter; her daughter was just laughing at her. She hits me up later that night saying her mom was still not over the fact that I am fluent in Bahasa.
She then confesses her feelings to me.”
19. We Speak English, Just Not To You
“American living in Paris. My partner and I had just purchased a yellow lab puppy, probably 10 weeks old. Painfully cute. We are walking home from the pet store and she ducks into a grocery leaving me on the corner holding the puppy. A group of American tourists walk by and comment, ‘He is just doing that to pick up girls.’ Um, no my girl is in the store.
Many times on the metro I’d overhear Americans talking like no one else understood them. Like actually talking about someone next to them. Saw one girl get called out by a Parisian for trash-talking her. ‘Little girl, almost everyone on this train knows what you are saying. We speak English, just not to you.’ This is true, if you try and butcher French most will switch to English.
Traveling with a group to Moscow we were mistaken for French just based on how we were dressed. For a t-shirt, shorts, and sandals type of American (not that day) that was a proud moment.”
18. Laugh About The Guy In Front Of Me? I'll Call You Out
“I’m a white guy that speaks Spanish. I was in line at a fast-food restaurant once and the workers behind the counter were all speaking Spanish. They were making fun of the guy in front of me.
He was a bigger guy and he ordered a good amount of food. They were mocking him for being so fat and eating at their place and all laughing and having a great time.
When I got my food I told one of the workers that I didn’t think it was funny what they were saying about the guy. The look on her face was awesome.
They had felt so protected in their little bubble that no dumb gringos (foreigner) could ever possibly speak Spanish and that had burst for her at that moment. I hope from then on each of those workers thought more about what they said in Spanish in public.
It’s not an uncommon language here in the U.S. and more and more people than you would think are speaking Spanish and learning it.”
17. Mom Doesn't Tolerate Rude Employees
“My mom is half Filipino, half Chinese, and we lived in Hong Kong for most of my childhood before we came to North America, so we’re all fluent in Cantonese. One day, my mom was trying to send money to relatives back in Asia through Western Union. The teller at the desk was a portly Chinese man. My mother had an argument with the man because he was trying to charge her some arbitrary ‘convenience fee’ of $10 that she has never been charged for before.
They fight over it for a while in English, going back and forth.
Eventually, another employee comes, and asks the teller my mom was arguing with ‘What’s going on?’ In Cantonese. The teller proceeds to say ‘this stupid idiot refuses to pay me, I can’t get her chubby butt out of here’. At this point my mom is livid. She takes a deep, breathes, and calmly answers ‘well maybe I’d leave if you let me send money to my family, and stop charging me extra so you can buy lunch for YOUR chubby butt.’ Both employees’ cheeks turn red and suddenly become extremely nice, groveling and praising my mom’s fluency in Cantonese and nervously laughing and repeating ‘we didn’t know you were Chinese!’ over and over.
The convenience fee suddenly disappeared.”
16. Rude Clerks Just Lost A Sale
“I was born and raised in Panama City, Panama. My Mom is 100% Panamanian and my dad is 100% white from Maryland. So two different ends of the spectrum. Anyways, we were shopping in one of the major malls in Panama City, I was about 10 at the time. My dad took my little brother and me to shop in the mall. My dad was in the US army at the time and he had an old school mustache and the balding to go with it.
Blue eyes and blonde hair as well.
The country at that time (1994) was still bitter and ill-willed towards Americans/White people. So we went into a toy shop and my dad wanted to buy us some stuff. In Panama, if you show your passport, you don’t pay the National tax. Well, we went to the front desk and the item was 25$, and the older woman clerk said it was 50$.
She clearly was trying to play us and pocket some coins. My dad says in English ‘I thought it was 25$?’ The clerk says, ‘Yes but there’s tax and an import on it as well.’ So my father says ‘I have my passport, doesn’t that exclude it?’ (Mind you, he’s old school and gentleman-like.) The clerk says, ‘let me get the manager’.
So the manager comes and they start talking in Spanish and I’ll never forget this, they say in Spanish ‘This is just another ‘gringo’ who has come here to ruin our country. Charge him the 50$ and don’t give him the discount. He can go eat dirt.’
My dad speaks Spanish, English, and German fluently (Army Intel). He says back in Spanish while smiling ‘That’s fine, I’ll get my son’s toys somewhere else.
I don’t need to be stolen from by thieves who are cowards. Have a good day and may saint Mary bless you.’ They got super red and just froze. My dad yanked our hands and we left.
My dad had a soul-eating grin on his face. It was an awesome moment.”
15. I Impressed The Passengers With My Ability To Speak Different Languages
“I’m a white American woman, and after college, I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, first in Mali, then in Senegal. We had to learn the local languages of our sites, so although I wasn’t fluent, I definitely was advanced enough in both sites’ languages (Bambara in Mali; Pulaar/Fula in Senegal).
I happened to be in a public transit car in an area of Senegal close to Mali, with 5 Senegalese men (including the driver) and a Malian man. The Malian man didn’t seem to speak any Pulaar, and as we got nearer to his intended stop, he kept trying to tell the driver that, to no response. Clearly, no one else in that car understood his Bambara (national language of Mali).
As a young woman traveling alone, I tended to keep to myself but felt bad for the Malian who was clearly not able to communicate with anyone else in the car. I finally had to act as a translator between him and the driver. The other passengers got such a kick out of it, that the only person in this car who could speak both countries’ local languages was the young white American girl.”
14. You Don't Like White Boys? I Don't Either
“I went to school in Miami, I’m Cuban but I look really white. I got kicked out of my class and sent to an ESOL (English Second Language) class (they do everything in Spanish while ‘learning English’). I was sitting in the middle of three girls who were deeeeeep in conversation in Spanish.
When I sat down they all kind of hushed for a second, then the cute girl to my left says in Spanish ‘Is he new?’ The girl to my right says ‘No, I’ve seen him before.’ The chubby girl behind me says ‘Aye, he’s cute I wish he was new.’ Left and right giggle. Right says ‘Noexy thinks he’s cute, she’s staring!’ Left says ‘Stop talking, you think so too.’ Chubby girl taps me on the shoulder and in broken English says ‘What is jour name?’ I said ‘OP.’ (My real name is veeeery not Cuban) so left says in Spanish ‘I don’t really like white boys.’ So I said in Spanish, ‘Me too I’m more into Spanish girls,’ and I looked at the girl on the left.”
13. Plan To Charge Me Extra? I'll Get This For Free
“Native English speaker but also speak Swedish and understand Finnish well. Went to a shop in Helsinki and heard some conversations at the register. I was speaking in English which seemed to annoy the person there as their English wasn’t that good and I was looking for something specific.
After a lot of back and forth, I heard the person at the register complain about me and tell the other guy he was going to charge me extra.
I decided to have a little fun with them for this. Made them look for objects that I knew they’d have to look for first. Ended up asking for the manager, explaining the story, and got what I asked for free.
Although I must say that this is the only case of bad service in Helsinki I had. Usually, the people there are very nice and polite.
Being in the Nordics is always a pleasure.”
12. Korean Vendor Heard Me Speak Fluent Korean
“I’m half Korean half American but look entirely Hispanic. Work for the family business (clothing stores) and at the time was working as a buyer in our company office. One day in strolls a vendor for a meeting with my uncle (CEO of the company) and I didn’t pay him much mind as he wasn’t a vendor of mine.
Nevertheless, the vendor says some rude comments about me directly to one of my Korean coworkers. Never tried to hide the fact of what he was saying… And clearly within earshot of me. I say nothing. The vendor goes into meeting with uncle and, of course, a few minutes into the meeting, I enter his office and address him formally in perfect Korean as an uncle.
At which point, the vendor turns an interesting color of ashen grey/green. Well worth it lol.”
11. Spanish Friend Protected My Fiancé From Ignorant Man
“My fiancee and I were on holiday with one of my best friends and his Spanish significant other. My friend got ill during the holiday and my fiancee and his girl went down to the hotel bar to get him some warm milk and honey which would apparently help.
On the way back up to his room, my fiancee and my friend’s partner were in a lift with a young couple. The young man in the couple said to his partner ‘you see, the English even take drinks to their room from the bar.’ Obviously, my fiancee didn’t understand a word, but our fiery Spanish friend did. She begins to barricade the man with Spanish abuse, telling him that she is taking a drink to her sick partner and that this man is what’s wrong with people in this world.
There is more to this story but that’s the gist.”
10. I Said "Excuse Me" In Thai
“I’m a white dude who grew up in Thailand, so I have a fair grasp of the Thai language. My story takes place at a cafe in Doha where I was based for a month for work and on my day off I was having a relaxing afternoon smoking and eating lamb kebabs when these two Thai girls who work for Qatar Airways sat down at the table next to me and proceeded to gossip about everybody there, myself included. They talked about whether I was attractive and if they would hook up with me or not.
I let them keep going and shortly after getting the check I stood up in a way that made it so one of them was blocking my way and I said in Thai ‘excuse me, ma’am, could you scoot over just a bit I have to go somewhere. Have a great day though and thanks for considering to sleep with me.’ They were in total shock.
Some random white dude speaking Thai to them at a cafe in Doha. Priceless.”
9. I Offered Talkative Grandmas Help
“So I grew up speaking several languages, my mother is French so I speak french with her, my father is Spanish so we speak Spanish together, my significant other is Brazilian (and I am too) so we speak Portuguese together and we live in Switzerland in the german (swiss-german) part so I also speak those two.
Now you need to know that Switzerland can be pretty, what I call, ‘passive racist’ so you will almost never hear a racist slur being thrown around but you will have those really annoying eyes judging you. Now I lived most of my life in Switzerland and I am even a swiss citizen and consider myself swiss.
Now to the real story; I was on the train (like every good swiss story) and talking to my parents over the phone switching between French and Spanish (note that french is a national language in Switzerland too, but that doesn’t seem to matter to some here) so I was just having my normal conversation while these two old women across my seats were looking at me with those judging eyes as if someone farted loudly in a crowded train.
After some minutes they started chit-chatting together in swiss german (any german knows that swiss german is something totally different from german) how those foreigners are just too much and they are everywhere now and so on, your average ‘screw foreigners thing’. I wasn’t paying too much attention but understood clearly that they were talking about me, they went on for like 10 more minutes until I finished my talk.
I pretended to be on my phone and listening to music while I was actually listening to what they were saying after all those passive racist comments. Turns out they were doing some ‘retired peops train trip’ around switzi things and they didn’t know where they had to change stations next.
As I spend my weeks traveling Switzerland by train I slowly know the whole network by heart.
You know where this is heading… So after some more minutes of ‘confused grandmas not knowing where they are going’ talks I put on my strongest swiss mountain dialect (no non-swiss person can do that) and told them very politely in swiss German if they needed help because I thought they had to go out at station XYZ which was soon. Their faces immediately went into ‘oh shoot waddup’ mode, but grandma style and they very awkwardly said that indeed they think they need to go there but don’t know why.
I then proceeded by telling them where to go and that if they take this train they will have a beautiful view over our small lil’ villages in the mountains etc basically bragging with my basic local geography knowledge to really push that ‘I’m from here’ vibe. They then awkwardly thanked me and kept quiet until we arrived at the stop I told them to go off”
8. Noisy Dad Called Me A Lowlife
“Last summer I was on vacation in Florence at a resort. A lot of different people from other European countries visited there as well. I myself am from the Netherlands but the people I’m about to mention were a family from Belgium. I walked past the garden of their house, just coming from the pool. Back then my hair was blue, and I have a face with over 10 piercings, and large stretched ears.
And the mother of the family mentioned in a rather loud voice how disgusted she is with people like me. The father agreed and said out loud that he would disown his kids (who were also present) if they’d do this kind of stuff because people like me are lowlifes, up to no good, etc.
Then one of the kids, the son, told the dad that I could hear them (because I was looking at them by now with a bit of an angry look).
The father assured that I couldn’t understand so it was okay. Then the daughter said, ‘she’s dutch, she helped me get some ice cream yesterday and I talked with her’. The parents then looked at me again and quickly turned away, didn’t dare to look at me each time I encountered them for the rest of the time I was there.”
7. Disrespectful Driver Gets Called Out For Being A Jerk
“So, after the long and grueling flight including connections from Miami to Athens, (Greece) I arrived in my home country.
While waiting at the carousel waiting for my luggage I realized it would never come out of those black rubber flaps. Not the first or last time this would happen on a Trans Atlantic flight for me, but I talked to the desk attendant who was designated for the job and found out I had three days in Athens before I would get my luggage.
I had three reasons for being in Greece. The first a wedding, the second being a doctor’s visit, the last being the beach. I wasn’t going to buy another suit, for the wedding or swimming, so I just bought some cheap clothes intended for tourists decorated with ‘I love Athens’ and Greek flags. I’m also a big fan of hats, so I bought one that matches my shirt, mainly because all the hats matched all the shirts.
The next day as I caught a cab to go to a clinic to get some b***d tests I got a call from a friend back in the States. I had my headphones in and conversed as I handed the driver a Google maps printout of the clinic’s location.
At some point in the drive, he must have assumed I was a tourist, as I did fit the bill, and he reached over to turn the meter off.
I had an idea of what was going on but didn’t say anything. As we stopped in front of the clinic the gentleman turned around and spoke in broken English, ‘This will be thirty-six euro.’ The trip was really worth about seven. I told my friend, ‘I’ll call you back, I have to pay for this cab.’ As I put my phone away and looked up to the cabby I responded in perfect Greek ‘Look here jerk face, I’m not going to pay thirty Euros for a walk that would’ve taken five minutes.
I’m not paying for anything.’ And promptly walked out the cab, into the clinic, and up the stairs.
As you can imagine this cabby was not in the best of shape so he couldn’t follow so close up the stairs. He barged into the waiting room full of elderly people and children. I was among them reading as he began to scream at me calling me a crook.
I told the nurse who rushed into the room that we would need the police to come and test this man’s sobriety and he quickly became silent. I stood up and walked over to the melon-shaped man and exclaimed, ‘People like you, who treat newcomers to our nation with such disrespect and thievery, are the reason they do not come back. You should be ashamed to treat people who leave their country and bring money into our economy like that.
Get out of my sight.’ He waddled out of the clinic and found the elevator down.”
6. Being Trilingual Is Exciting
“Trilingual here, I have one for all three languages actually.
ASL: was on a bus in Missouri when a deaf man sat behind me. We sat in silence for a little while until he brought up his text-to-speech app to ask my name. I introduced myself and asked if he was deaf in Sign Language.
He got really excited at that, so it is a favorite memory of mine.
Korean: many occurrences. I’m currently studying abroad in Korea and cute little ajummas (middle-aged/married women) will say Hi to me in Korean, so I’ll follow up by saying hi, have you been well? They are always so shocked, I love it. Also ordering food. There is a Kimbap place I regular and I will chat with the workers in there in Korean, on-lookers are shaken y’all.
English: this is one I didn’t think I’d ever get. I’m a white girl from Texas but I’ve been told by several people I look European, so just a few days ago I got someone, from San Antonio in fact, being surprised I speak English. Anyways I helped him figure out the subway system and that’s about it.”
5. Talk Trash In Front Of Us? My Friend Knows Mandarin, You Know
“My senior year we had a load of foreign exchange students for whatever reason.
From all over, Japan, China, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Bulgaria, etc. And we had this group of Chinese jerks that did nothing but trash-talks us Americans, in front of us. My buddy being a little typical white American was actually fluent in Chinese and mandarin but of course, they didn’t know.
He and his sister spent a few years in China for their family’s business.
He kept all this pretty secret and just told us what jerks they were. One day they started trash-talking his sister in front of us as she walked by. (She was a heavier girl with a heart of gold.) And my buddy went over and laid into them in perfect Chinese/Mandarin. I will never forget the look on their faces as they realized he understood everything they said about everyone for weeks prior.
After that, they stayed quiet at lunch and avoided him at all costs.”
4. Random Guy Wants To Practice His English On Me
“I rode my bicycle around Hokkaido, Japan this summer and camped or stayed at riders’ hostels most of the time. A lot of Japanese people do this, but not many foreigners, so I got a lot of people coming up to say hi and ask about my trip. They’d usually exhaust their English pretty quick, so I’d switch to Japanese and continue the conversation that way.
I had just gotten back to Wakkanai (the northernmost city in Japan) after visiting some nearby islands and staying at the same hostel I stayed at two days before, so a lot of the people recognized me, but a guy showed up after I left. We started chatting in English, he tells me he’s a few months into walking around Japan (~11,000km, takes about two years).
He’s doing his best, so I stick to English since I figured he wanted to practice. Eventually, he couldn’t figure out how to say something and started talking to himself in Japanese to try and work it out. I went ahead and answered his question in Japanese to make it easier for him.
He gawks at me and all the other people in the hostel are laughing at him because they already knew I speak Japanese.
He started laughing too, and we went to get drinks and hung out for the rest of the evening.”
3. I Got Swarmed By A Group Of Japanese People
“I’m a British dude who speaks a moderate amount of Japanese. (Big shout out to my teacher Hazuki)
Back in 2013, I visited a place in the UK known as the Lake District, it pretty much describes itself – a big mountainous region full of lakes (some real, some artificial).
There’s this one town called Windermere which has (amongst other attractions) the Beatrix Potter museum ‘The World of Beatrix Potter.’ This museum is all about the titular British author, her life, and her characters.
One character, in particular, Peter Rabbit, is super popular in Japan, and many Japanese visit the museum every year (in fact if you visit the museum’s website you’ll see Japanese is one of the selectable languages.)
While most of the museum’s signs are multilingual the shop is completely in English.
Inside the shop, there’s one of those funky coin press things (you know the ones where you insert a low-value coin, turn a wheel and it flattens the coin with an image relating to the venue.)
My significant other of the time really wanted one of these novelty pieces of crap so we waited in line – in front of us was a Japanese family (dad, mom, and 2 young daughters) who were trying to use the machine, except they had no clue how to use it. The kids were inserting a coin and turning the handle but the image was all distorted.
The mother was getting agitated as she saw we were waiting and didn’t want to be a bother so she told the kids to give up – they looked so upset and it broke my heart!!
When I got to the machine I saw that the handle had to be in a certain position to start with for the coin press to work correctly. (Basically, there were 4 different images and if you started to turn the handle in the wrong place it would combine the images in a horrible mess)
The kids and father were still standing kinda close so I turned in their direction and said (in Japanese) ‘excuse me – are you Japanese?’ The kids froze and the dad looked startled but he quickly nodded ‘yes yes – can you speak Japanese??’ I replied: ‘Yes a little – will you allow me to show you how to use the machine?’ ‘Yes yes please!!’ He said.
So I demonstrated to the kiddies how to select the image they wanted (surprise surprise it was Peter Rabbit) and then they pressed their coin and were super happy. The eldest one (maybe 11?) thanked me in Japanese and the dad prompted the little ‘un to do the same too. He himself said ‘sank you’.
We had a brief chat but my significant other was getting antsy so we said our goodbyes and went on our way.
I saw him talking to his wife and pointing our way as we left.
Later on in town, we got absolutely mobbed by Japanese tourists – turns out they were part of a tour group and they all wanted to have chat! It was a bit overwhelming but funny too.
I taught many Japanese people British curse words that day…”
2. I've Gotten Myself Into A Few Awkward Situations
“I’m Pakistani American and lived in Shanghai, China for five years.
I have TONS of these stories. Here are a few.
Story 1: I was in line somewhere with my best friend while in Shanghai and she’s a tall, beautiful, Belarusian woman. These two old Chinese women tried to cut in front of us and we told them politely in English that the line ended further back. They gave us a stink eye and instead cut behind us and started talking about how these ‘foreigner women’ were here to ruin their society and we should at least learn their language if we wanted to live there.
We waited until we were about to leave to turn around and tell them, in mandarin, that we were only here for school and it’s not polite to talk about people behind their backs. The old Chinese man behind them threw his head back in laughter as we left.
Story 2: Another time I was on the last train of the night alone with my headphones in but no music (keeps weirdos away).
And there was a little boy with his dad sitting across from me and this little boy was just straight out staring at me. He eventually asks his dad if I’m an ‘India person’ and his dad says I don’t know probably. Why don’t you ask her? And he said he’s too shy and his English was bad. His dad encouraged him to at least try to say hello.
I took my headphones out at this point and smiled at the boy. He hid behind his dad and waved and said hello. I said hi and waited for him. He eventually asked me if I was from India. I laughed and responded in mandarin that no, I was from America. The boy turned three shades of red and hid behind his dad again. The dad laughed and continued in half English and half mandarin to ask if my parents were from Bangladesh and I told him Pakistan and we talked about how his company does business there.
Eventually, the boy tried to whisper something to his dad and I told him he could ask me, I’m not that scary. He then shyly asks if he could touch my skin. I said sure and held out my hand. He then rubbed the back of my hand and was shocked the color didn’t come off. His dad was mortified but I laughed and assured them I wasn’t offended and then my stop came and I left. Side note: that was the third time the skin thing had happened.
Story 3: A couple of times since I’ve come home and have been working retail, Chinese women will talk about how what I’m selling isn’t good quality and I’ll join in and tell them they’re right and they shouldn’t pay that much for the item. They’re embarrassed and then delighted.
Story 4: Another time I was on a flight from Cali to Texas with my mom. Guy next to me is this dude who looks about my age and is reading a medical book.
My mom starts commenting about how he’s good-looking and probably a doctor and maybe I should get his number. And the whole time I’m like mom shut up please he looks brown. And my mom’s like nahhhh. Well, mom falls asleep and I just start talking to him about his book. He’s a doctor and needs to renew his license and I tell him I just quit med school and he laughs and says I’m desi (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) parents’ nightmare.
And I’m like oh… where are your parents from? And he says Bangladesh but he understands Hindi. SO HE TOTALLY HEARD MY MOM AND UNDERSTOOD HER.
I’m like I’m so sorry my mother is this way and he just laughs it off. My mom then wakes up as we’re getting off the plane and she’s like wow his green eyes are gorgeous and he finally responds and tells her thank you so much.
I’m trying to disappear into thin air and my mom then gets over her momentary shock to ask if I got his number and I should invite him over for tea tonight. I could not get off that plane fast enough.”
1. My Boss Didn't Know I Was Eavesdropping On His Private Conversations
“I am a barely-there American francophone. I don’t get much opportunity to practice the language, so I understand it better than I speak it, which ain’t by much.
My boss is French-Algerian, but I didn’t make much mention of my crappy language skills when he hired me. During my first week on the job, I realized that whenever his wife would call, he would hold the conversation entirely in French rather than excuse himself to have a private call. No need to worry about privacy if nobody knows what you’re saying, I suppose.
I did my best not to pay much attention, but I learned in that week that:
- His wife was coming out the other side of a massive emotional breakdown.
- She was incredibly lonely in our town, as they had moved 19 times in 12 years and friends were hard to come by.
- He was doing a great job of being supportive, but getting frustrated.
I waited a while to say anything, as I didn’t want to intrude, and it sure wasn’t anything that he or his wife had invited me into knowingly.
But one day when he was having a very tough time, I volunteered my own story of mental health struggles, describing what I had been through and how hard it was to show gratitude to those helping me, even though I was forever in their debt. I accidentally mentioned his wife at the end. Everything clicked, and the look on his face was half anger, but half ‘good job, boy’.
I apologized for not telling him that I knew my way around French. He forgave me.
Now we hold French conversations whenever our users at work are being complete idiots. It’s very freeing.”
