gab test

We all know how embarrassing it can be when we’re having a one-on-one conversation with a loved one in public, only for a stranger to overhear what we say and possibly even chime in. But do you want to know what’s even more humiliating? When you’re intentionally speaking in a foreign language in public, assuming (and hoping) that nobody but the person you’re talking to will understand, but then later realizing that someone nearby does in fact understand? Yikes! At that point, you wish you would have just whispered or even kept your mouth shut, but now you just want to disappear.

If you know more than one language, you might understand the latter feeling. However, in the following stories, the roles are switched! The teller of each story is the one who overhears something that wasn’t meant for their ears to hear by someone who didn’t expect them to know their language, but sadly for them, they do understand. And to top it off, each of the storytellers makes it clear to the other party that they’ve heard everything they just said as they, too, are fluent or semi-fluent in their language. Whether they overheard the party talking about how “fat” and “ugly” they are or even about their little scheme to attempt to scam them, knowing another language definitely comes in handy for these narrators!

30. She Tried To Scam Us To Get Free Meals

How awful of this woman to teach her daughter how to be deceitful.

“I am a Macedonian living in Canada. My entire family speaks both English and Macedonian fluently.

My family owns a diner, and I am a server there.

So, one day, a lady and her daughter come in for a meal.

They sit down, and I take their order, and as I’m punching in their meal, I overhear the mother say to her daughter in Macedonian, ‘Watch, I’m going to get our meals for free.

I will complain about the food and say there was a hair in it.’ At this point, I do not say anything to them I just deliver the food and wait to see if they follow through with their plan.

I also told my brother (who works in the kitchen) what they were saying.

He made sure to put extra care into their food just to make sure they have absolutely nothing valid to complain about.

They ate most of their food, and sure enough, when I delivered the bill to them, the mother starts to complain, saying the food was disgusting, everything was undercooked, she found a hair in her dish…the complaints just kept coming.

Eventually, she said that there was no way she could pay for such horrible food.

It was perfect timing. At that second, my baba (grandmother) and dedo (grandfather) walked through the door to check on how the morning was going.

So, I waved said good morning to Baba and Dedo and proceeded to ask my grandparents how they were doing in Macedonian.

The mother and daughter’s faces turned completely red; they looked absolutely mortified and ashamed.

I turned back to them and said with a smirk on my face in Macedonian, ‘So, how will you be paying for your meal?’ The mother quietly took out her credit card, and both mother and daughter refused to make any eye contact with me.

Just to top it off, my brother is a big mouth, and as they were walking out the door, he yells in Macedonian, ‘Do not try this here again, you nasty, cheap cows.'” meowmix22

29. He Tried To Trick His Mom Into Letting Her Buy Him An M-Rated Game

“I worked at GameStop for about 2 and a half years, and even though this isn’t something I overheard per se, it’s definitely a pretty awesome part about being bilingual.

I worked in a store that was in a pretty low-income area of Texas that had a lot of Spanish-only speakers come through.

The following happened a LOT: 12- or 13-year-old Mexican kid brings an M-rated game with his mom or grandma who doesn’t speak a lick of English.

I look to the mom to ask if it’s ok that the game is rated M, and she looks at me blankly, and the child translates my question as ‘He’s asking if this is the game I want’ or something similarly harmless.

She looks to me and nods, so I just ask her the same question in Spanish.

I let her know what’s in the game, that the game is intended only for adults, and she then leaves the store without the game and the obvious intent of punishing her child for trying to trick her into buying him an M-rated game.

No one expects the 6’5″ white guy to speak fluent Spanish.

Justice.” dubblechrisp

Another User Comments:

“No one expects a resident of Texas to understand Spanish? Come on.” special2plumsfor1

28. The McDonald’s Employee Called Me Fat In Spanish, So I Got Free Food

“Army brat here. White male, born and raised in South America.

Fluent in English and Spanish.

I was at a McDonald’s years ago when they were introducing the Angus burgers.

I went in to try one. They were running a promotion that said if the employee doesn’t offer you an Angus Burger, you can have one for free.

When I ordered one, they didn’t offer me one. So, I jokingly said I’d like a free one since they didn’t offer me one.

The cashier was a little belligerent with me, so I asked to speak with the manager.

When the manager came over, the cashier told her, in Spanish, ‘This fat pig just wants something else to shove in his face.’

At this point, the manager asked what she could do to help me.

I said, in English, ‘According to your promotion, I was going to ask for a free Angus Burger since your employee didn’t offer me one; however, now I’m going to ask for my entire meal for free and perhaps some remedial training for your employee.’ The manager looked puzzled, ‘Why is that?’ she asked.

‘Porque yo entendi todo que ella dijo’ (‘Because I understood everything she said’).

The manager and cashier were stunned. The cashier lowered her head and made an awkward backward walk away from the counter.

The manager simply said, ‘Allow me to take care of that for you, and yes, I’ll be speaking with her about this immediately.’

I did get the meal to go, with an additional Angus Burger, free of charge.

I also had a couple of coupons for free meals thrown in.

I ended up giving the free Angus Burger and cards to a homeless person out front.

No idea what became of the cashier, as I never went back to that, or any, McDonald’s.” seosemcro

27. They Believed Tourists Didn’t Belong In “Their” City

“Me and my husband had this happen to us when we were dating.

He’s born and bred Parisian and has never lived anywhere else but is half Norwegian and looks very Nordic.

When he speaks English, he has a flat, Norwegian accent instead of French thanks to his mom.

I’m an American.

Anyway, we were waiting for takeout at a restaurant one night and discussing something in English to each other.

Apparently we were in the way of these girls behind us because they started speaking in French about how people come to Paris and just do whatever the **** they want without concern about real Parisians, how we’re ***** *************tourists, etc., just being total *****s about ‘foreigners in their city.’

My husband turned around and said in the snootiest Parisian accent he could muster, ‘Considering your sh*tty Marseillais accent, I’d say you’re the one that doesn’t belong in my city.’

I’ve never seen someone go white so fast.” 2354PK

26. They Assumed We Were Deaf

“In high school, my best friend and I took 3 years of American sign language.

One of our assignments was to spend a whole weekend not verbally talking but to use sign language instead to understand how hard/frustrating the hearing world can be for those that are hearing impaired/deaf.

If another person didn’t sign, we could use paper and pencil to convey our message.

We went to an outlet mall on a Friday evening for a couple of hours shopping, ordering food, and walking around.

At one point, these two guys start following us around. We could plainly hear them making fun of us from a few feet behind us and mocking how deaf people make sounds.

We tried to ignore them, but after about 20 minutes in a store and hearing them, we walked up to them.

We didn’t say anything until we got close enough to speak at a normal level, and I took my pad of paper out and wrote down, ‘Why are you following us?’ He smiled and said we were pretty (but since we couldn’t speak, we just looked at him confused).

I stared at him for a minute, kind of smiled and looked him in the eyes and said, ‘I know that that’s *******, and we both heard you making fun of us the entire time.’

At this point, his turned bright red, and I continued and said, ‘For one, if you think we’re pretty, then following us around is just creepy, so maybe you could stop that.

And two, just people it may seem like people speak another language doesn’t mean that they aren’t bilingual.

Maybe next time you could just not be an ***** and leave people alone.’

The look on his face as we walked away had us laughing for the rest of the night.” aivdrawdeegreog

25. She Told Her Son That If I Try To Punish Him For Touching Our Turtle, To Pretend He Didn’t Speak English

Joke’s on them; he already knew their language!

“I speak fluent Chinese and volunteered to protect a threatened species, Hawaiian Green Sea Turtles on the North Shore of Oahu.

The turtles always sleep on that beach after they gorge on seaweed, so the spot is frequented by busloads of tourists.

We put ropes around the turtles to stop people from doing dumb *** to them and answer questions about the species and the area.

One day, a busload of Chinese tourists roll-up. I explain that the turtles are protected by law and can’t be touch and go into my turtle info spiel.

One little Chinese boy asks his mom: ‘Can I touch it?’ His mom replies, ‘Yes.

If he yells at you, just pretend you don’t speak English.’

I watch him sprint over the rope and start slapping the turtle’s shell.

The turtle, his name is Kahuna-Nui, lazily looks up, and I say, with desperation, ‘Ni zhen baoqian, ta chi xiao nan hai – Careful, he eats little boys!’ The kid ran back to his mom crying, and I tell her, ‘Zhu ni hao de fangjian – Have a nice vacation.'” Daguerrotypewriter

24. She Bad Mouthed My Work Performance, So I Slowed My Pace

“I’m Puerto Rican, but I tend to look Indian whenever I let my hair grow out and let my ****** hair become rather unkempt.

(Thanks, Taino genes!)

I used to work at a big red retail store years ago, and I remember a time where I heard an older mom start complaining to her son that I’m putting in too many items in her bags and that I’m not double bagging them.

She then muttered:

‘Stay in school so you don’t end up like this guy.’

Now, I had only done around three bags.

She probably had another 20-25 items to go. I slowed my pace down and gently began to insert one item into two bags.

Every. Single. Item.

She starts complaining that I’m too slow and she has places to be, so I slow down even more.

I gently checked for the barcode and made sure that her bags were inserted perfectly into her cart.

Finally, she insisted that I can just do one item at a time.

I tell her, no, I want to do this right, in Spanish: ‘Quiero hacer esto bien.’

She paused and her son just stared at her while she comprehended what was happening.

From there, she just nodded her head as I scanned back to normal.

She became deathly silent for the rest of the transaction. Cash or credit? No response.

Do you want a red card? No response.

Have a good day? I got a, ‘Listen…I’m…’ She didn’t even finish, she just paused and walked away while her poor son didn’t know what to do.” Reddit user

Another User Comments:

“‘Listen…I’m…’

Saying sorry is an existential threat to some people.” throwawayplsremember

Reply:

“That’s an actual thing! Admitting one’s wrongdoing causes cognitive dissonance.

We always look for ways, for our own mental peace, to blame others or the situation.

When others make a mess, it’s THEIR fault, but when we do it, we blame everything and everyone but ourselves – this is called ‘the fundamental attribution error.’

Source: I’m majoring in psychology!” Captain Cortes

23. They Bashed Me For Being A White Girl Working At A Japanese Grocery Store

“I’m one of the whitest girls I know (half-ish Norwegian decent), and I speak Japanese.

I used to work at a Japanese grocery store, and at that time, I was the only white person; others were Japanese, Korean, and Chinese.

There were these two older Japanese ladies that came into my line.

I normally don’t speak Japanese to older ladies because my experience with old Japanese ladies that live in America is that they have a complex about speaking Japanese to non-Japanese (like they’re really proud of their English, or they just feel weird about it, which is fine).

So, I was scanning their ***, and one lady says to the other, ‘Why’d they let a white girl work here? This is a Japanese grocery store.’ And the other lady says, ‘Yeah, she’s really out of place here’ and then they laughed.

So, I just looked at the first lady dead in the eye and said, in Japanese, ‘I can actually understand everything you’re saying, so I’d be more careful with the words you use’ or something along those lines.

The ladies’ faces turned bright red and responded in Japanese, ‘I’m so sorry’ and then tried to save themselves by going off, ‘Tour Japanese is so good.

Oh wow, can’t believe it’ and just praising me. I didn’t really care cause I sorta knew were they were coming from, but it was still America, and it was the way they said it which p*ssed me off.” kyarorin

22. I May Have Albinism, But I Speak Fluent Spanish

That was sure a plot twist for them.

“I’ve got a few of these. But instead, I’ll give you a positive experience I’ve had quite a few times that’s still somewhat relevant to your question.

My name’s Juan. I’m United States born. My family’s from Mexico.

I have albinism.

Long story short, for those that don’t know, albinism is a genetic disorder (leaving out the science) that causes you to look like a white person regardless of race.

My first language is Spanish. But you’d never guess that by looking at me.

And I went out of my way as a kid to get rid of my Spanish speaking accent when I speak English due to how bothersome people were during my formatives.

My skin is pale, my hair’s almost white, my eyes are a somewhat grayed out bluish.

I walk into a Mexican restaurant with a brown friend who’s half Arab, half white and tall.

He’s easy to confuse for a Mexican or a black guy, so, you know: Dominican.

My tall friend goes to order first. The cashier tries talking to him in Spanish, only to realize he’s not understanding.

He has a quick laugh, apologizes and quickly switches to English.

My turn to order. He speaks to me in English, and I start ordering in Spanish.

The confused look on this poor man’s face just had his expectations subverted twice made my day.

On top of that, a lady in line behind me put her hand around my arm and asked where I learned to speak such beautiful Spanish.

I told her I’d been learning it for many years and had been speaking it most of my life.

She then asked what my name was; I said, ‘Juan,’ and quickly told her my mother has a sense of humor.

Sorry for writing a ****** essay, but you gotta write with the homies.” NosyNoSee

21. They Called Him A *********, But He Decided To Be The Bigger Person

“My father-in-law is Moroccan but has lived 30+ years in Finland and is completely fluent in 4 languages (including Finnish).

He traveled a lot for business selling air conditioning units.

Once, whilst on a connecting flight within the states, he overheard two young Finnish girls on holiday talking to each other about which one would have to sit in the middle seat next to ‘the **********.’ They spent the flight being incredibly rude about my polite father-in-law who bit his tongue.

It was only until they got onto the terminal bus that he gave up his seat to one of the girls and said in Finnish, ‘You can have my seat.

After hearing you, I have decided to stop being a ********** and start selling air conditioning units.’ He says they were absolutely mortified.” SuomiBob

20. He Referred To Me As A Cow

This “cow” knows Spanish too!

“I was shopping once, leaning over into the dairy case when I heard this dude say (in Spanish) to his buddy, ‘Aren’t you going to get some milk?’ His buddy replied, ‘Yeah, when this ****** cow gets out of my way.”

I whirled around and stuck my finger in his face and very angrily spat, in Spanish, ‘Watch your mouth! You never know who is going to understand you!’

The guy was floored.

He apologized about 10 times, and I managed to continue to look angry even though I found the whole thing very funny.

I mean, in his defense, I was totally in his way and I was about 100 pounds heavier than I am now, and I was wearing a cow suit.

Okay, I lied about the cow suit part. But the rest is true.

I just want to add for all those people who always think people who speak other languages are talking about you.

I’ve spoken Spanish for 22 years. I live in an area where it is a very common language, and this is the only time I have ever heard anyone talking about me.” MrsHorrible

19. She Called Me Fat While I Was Going Through Treatment For An Eating Disorder

“I’m a German major, and while I wouldn’t consider myself fluent (reading Goethe is about as hard as reading Shakespeare), I’m pretty dang good with my street vocab.

I was on the bus coming back from classes, and I grabbed a slice of veggie pizza from one of the food places where they box it up in a slice-sized box.

You’re permitted to carry food on the bus as long as it’s boxed, so I wasn’t breaking any rules, but you could kind of smell it.

The stop after I got on, a girl gets on the bus right next to me.

As soon as she sits down, she pulls out her phone, dials, and starts having a conversation about how sh*tty her day was…in German.

As she was next to me, I couldn’t help but overhear.

It was pretty standard awful-day stuff until she starts to say, ‘And now I’m stuck next to this fat American girl with a smelly piece of pizza.

It’s so gross.’

I should clarify that, at the time, I was undergoing treatment for an eating disorder.

I had just managed to get myself out of the underweight range and into the normal range, and I was very sensitive about my weight.

Needless to say, I was p*ssed off. When we got to my stop, I turned to her and said, ‘Entschuldigung, könnten Sie aufstehen?’ (‘Excuse me, could you stand up?’–in unnecessarily formal speech from one college student to another).

She turned bright red and didn’t move until I added, ‘Oh, and I’m sorry the smell of my pizza bothered you,’ in my best polite-formal German.

I’ve run into her since, and she has yet to be able to look me in the eye after the incident.

Edited to clarify language issues. For those who aren’t familiar, German has varying degrees of politeness in how you can phrase things–kind of like English, but more extreme.

Among students at various levels of study, you usually use less formal speech because you’re kind of like comrades in arms (at least, this is how it was explained to me).

By being as formal as I could, I was trying to prove a point.” Reddit user

Another User Comments:

“I have experienced this.

Europeans will use any excuse to call Americans fat, even when they’re fatter than us.

Well done.” cheapshinythings

18. Yes, I Have A Leg Injury, And No, It’s Not Because I’m A Dumb American

“I’m an American, but my dad and his family are from Switzerland, so I had to learn some languages other than English if I wanted to keep up with my grandparents and cousins’ conversations.

I’ve got pretty poor with my French but good enough that I can still listen in on other people’s conversations.

But, I was never expecting to be able to use this skill or surprise anybody’s secret conversation since I live in Texas.

But lo and behold, one day I was out shopping with a couple of friends – one who also speaks French and German.

I’m disabled from an accident that deformed my left leg – it’s pretty obvious, and people do tend to stare, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go around covered up in pants all the time.

It’s too d*mn hot here!

At lunch, we overheard a mom talking with her son at the table next to us.

The boy was about 7 or 8 years old and was totally fixated on my leg and the leg brace I wear – just typical kid curiosity, and I was probably one of the few disabled people he’s seen.

The little boy was asking his mom what happened, why that girl’s leg all messed up, why does she have to wear that brace.

The mom then starts talking crap about Americans and tells the boy I probably lost it in the war while killing a bunch of helpless people.

She then goes on about how Americans are unhealthy, dumb, and should stay out of other people’s business.

My friend had gotten up to go to the restroom and came back and just casually asked how the meal was – in French.

I answered her back, and the mom looked mortified as it dawned on her I had heard the whole conversation.

I wasn’t rude, but I did take the opportunity to tell the boy – who was legitimately concerned.

I explained that I was injured in an accident, but I’d be okay.

So, I got to surprise someone being a jerk and got to show a little boy that disabled people are just regular people, so win-win.” calypso_cane

Another User Comments:

“I think you may have also saved the boy from believing everything his mother says or at least got him to start questioning her words.

I don’t think many people have that breakthrough at such an age, and it’s good that he had it so early with a parent like that.” SHPLUMBO

17. They Weren’t The Only Greeks On Campus

“When I was studying in England for three years, I’d come across a mysteriously ginormous number of Greeks.

There was one point where every single time I’d go outside, I’d overhear at least two groups speaking Greek to each other, so the conversations I overheard tend to get jumbled together.

However, I remember this couple who were walking along in the same direction I was taking, and I remember hearing them badmouth every.

single. thing. and person. they came across. for a whopping ten whole minutes.

That includes English customs, people’s appearances, fashion sense, way of walking, way of talking, and around the end, they started criticizing me and the way I looked and walked and how clumsy and unfashionable and dirty and stupid I looked, and without skipping a beat, I turned and asked one for the time in Greek.

When he told me, I said to him, ‘You know, there’s more than two thousand Greek students in this city and about a thousand more Greeks around, so I’d watch what I said from now on because not all of them will refrain from breaking your face like I’ve been doing for ten minutes now,’ and I then boarded a random stopping bus to avoid a silly retort which could escalate into a fight.

Lucky me, it took me faster to my university.” DeSaad

16. They Called Me Disgusting For Eating Cotton Candy, So I Told Them Where To Get Some In Their Language

How ironic that they bash her for eating cotton candy, only to want some of their own as well.

“I was at Six Flags, and my friends walked ahead of me ’cause I wanted to buy us all some cotton candy.

I got in line at the same roller coaster (I think it was Nitro), but they were already far ahead of me, so I was stuck with a massive ball of cotton candy and naturally started eating some of it.

Little did I know, there was a group of French tourists (university students by the looks of it) right in front of me, and when they turned around and saw me eating the cotton candy, they looked shocked and appalled.

They turned to each other and started saying, in French, how disgusting they thought I was and how unhealthy Americans are (this was the Six Flags in New Jersey).

At some point in the conversation, they decided that they wanted some but to split (they thought I was eating the giant ball all by myself)– but they didn’t know where to get it.

The look of horror on their faces at how rude they had been was priceless when I directed them to the nearest place to purchase carnival snacks.

A small, squeaky ‘Merci’ came from the girl of their group who hadn’t been smack-talking.

I’m not completely fluent in French, but I do understand most of what I hear– these situations actually occur a lot, especially when I go more North and start running into French Canadians.

Turns out people are rude no matter how ‘worldly’ you may think they are.” Reddit user

15. Don’t Let My Dark Features Deceive You

“I was born in Ukraine, and English is my 4th language, after Ukrainian, Russian, and Polish.

That being said, I am very Americanized since I’ve lived in Brooklyn for about 17 years now and definitely didn’t look very Eastern European at the time because I was really tan and had dark hair and dark brown eyes.

I got on the train in Brooklyn and sat across from these 2 girls who started talking about me in Russian and I guess they didn’t realize that I could understand what they were saying.

The first girl said that she really liked my shoes and then her friend began to go on and on about how she’s crazy and that they’re the ugliest shoes she’s ever seen, then she went on to call my entire outfit ugly.

She eventually began to talk *** about my hair and my appearance in general while her friend just sat there and giggled.

I decided this would be a good time to call my mom, and as soon as she picked up, I immediately began speaking with her in Russian and told her about how dumb and dumber have been talking about me for the last 5 minutes not realizing that I understood everything they were saying.

The girls looked MORTIFIED, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone turn a shade of red that deep.

They were quiet until the next stop, and as soon as we got to the station, they got up and moved to another cart.” kko5062

14. They Thought We Were Shoplifters

The mom’s response is epic!

“My grandparents are from Poland.

I was raised by a Polish nanny, and needless to say, my family speaks Polish but are clearly American and do not have accents.

When I was a kid, my family went to the grand canyon when we stopped on the aide of the road for a pitstop at a highway store called, ‘Breakfast, Lunch, and Computers’ (which in itself is absurd).

The store had all sorts of trinkets, and with the big family we were (6 kids and 2 parents), we immediately spread out and started looking around.

The whole time, the shopkeeper was eyeing us down. After about two minutes, he turns to his wife and says in Polish to his wife, ‘Follow them, so they don’t steal anything.’

My mom turns to them, looks them in the eye and says right back in Polish, ‘Your *** is not worth stealing!

They were floored.” philthadelphia

13. They Insulted Me Because I Mistook Their Italian Heritage As Portuguese, But I Got The Last Laugh

“I’m half-Spanish and speak it fluently, although my red hair among other things prevents me from really looking it.

When I was in France once at a beach, I was chilling with some of my friends and there were these two older women sitting in front of us, being really loud and obnoxious as usual.

My friends asked me what they were saying, and I had no idea, not knowing the language.

It sounded to me like Italian, so I simply explained to my friends that I didn’t speak it.

Well, the women in front of us heard me say it, and let’s just say that they weren’t too pleased.

As it turned out, they were speaking Portuguese. Being called Italian was a huge insult to them, and they turned around to me and started yelling at me and getting all mad for confusing this.

After all this, they turned back and continued to talk loudly.

Now, the kicker is that Portuguese and Spanish are similar enough that I could understand what they were saying next.

They started talking about how ignorant Americans are and how they need to teach these kids some respect.

Well, I walked right up to these women and tore them a new ***** each, explaining that I was Spanish thank you very much and that maybe they needed to learn some respect themselves.

Felt good man. Felt good.” Jobboman

12. The “Fat, Dumb, Tourist American”

“I was waiting in line with my sister to take a boat tour in California, and ahead of us was a group of 5-6 German-speaking people.

The wait to board the boat was long, and they got to talking.

At first, it was about how nice the weather was, and then it turned to how annoying Americans can be, especially overweight, dumb, tourist Americans.

They cracked a couple of jokes having to do with American stereotypes.

While this was happening, the line started moving, and people started boarding the boat.

But the group was too wrapped up in their own jokes to realize it.

So, I finally turned around to them, and in fluent German, asked if they were part of the tour and if they were getting on the boat.

They stopped dead in their joking tracks and said yes. So, I replied that they had better get a move on because the ‘dumb, overweight, American tourist’ standing right behind them wanted to get on the boat too.

They all looked really embarrassed.” teknogeek78

Another User Comments:

“It really ****** bothers me when people visit America from other countries as tourists and complain about Americans.

In any other country, it would be considered incredibly rude, but for some reason, ribbing on Americans in their own country is ok… If you don’t like Americans, maybe California isn’t the place for you.

Source: am Australian.” rootfairy

11. Some Texans Do Know French, You Know

“I live in Austin, Texas and was visiting the state’s flagship Texas history museum.

If you’re not familiar, Texans are very proud of Texas history and the fact that this place was an independent country for about ten years in the 1840s.

Anyway, I was in the museum and heard some people speaking French.

I thought that was odd because you almost never hear people speaking French in Texas.

So, I sidled over and began to eavesdrop. They were all making fun of everyone in the museum, calling them ‘bêtes’ (stupid and beastly) for being so interested in their state’s history and so proud of it.

This went on and on for what must have been about five minutes or more, and I’m just listening as they ridicule my fellow Texans.

I happened to be wearing a Texas shirt, so I made my move.

I just went up to them and asked the time in French.

They paused for a bit, but one of them eventually answered, and I thanked them and walked away.

The look on one of their faces, in particular, was priceless.” BandarSeriBegawan

10. The Translator Told The Doctor That I Was “Faking” My Pain

That translator needs to be fired.

“I’m white but reasonably fluent in Korean. When I went to an orthopedist in Korea for elbow pain, a translator was provided by the hospital, and I figured I might as well talk through him in case there was any specific medical terminology I didn’t know.

After describing my symptoms and a brief physical exam where I was visibly in pain, the translator told the doctor that he thought I was only pretending.

The thing was, he was doing an absolutely terrible job of translating even prior to that, so I quickly responded, ‘And you’re only pretending to know English’ (in Korean).

The doc actually cracked a smile, and the translator spent the rest of my visit sitting in his seat without saying a single word.” Tbone456

Another User Comments:

“I hope you reported this to the hospital, so some person who doesn’t speak Korean doesn’t get stuck with this translator.

It might have serious health consequences.” RainbowDarter

9. They Made Fun Of Our Sign Language, But Little Did They Know We Could Still Hear

“Once, I was in sitting in a restaurant with my mom, and we were signing back and forth.

(Neither she nor I are deaf; she learned the language, and I grew up signing with her.)

I notice that the women sitting in the booth next to us are closely watching our conversation.

One of them, really loudly, finally goes, ‘Wow, what a poor little deaf family.

It’s sad to see what the world’s coming to these days, but I wish they’d find somewhere else to do their hand signals.’

Now, I was fine to let them think whatever they wanted, but my mom, just as we were leaving, stepped over to their table and said, ‘Despite your assumptions, we’re not deaf.

In fact, as you can probably tell by now, I can hear just fine.

So, may I suggest you stop talking and actually consider your surroundings before you stuff your foot even further down your throat? Thanks so much, and have a wonderful evening.’

With that, we left the building.” TheOccasionalTachyon

8. She Didn’t Like That We Adopted A Chinese Girl

“My wife and I adopted a little girl from China.

To get her, we flew to Beijing and spent two and a half weeks in three different cities while taking a little cultural tour, picking her up, and filling out gobs of paperwork.

We spent a couple of years prior to picking up some Mandarin, not enough to be fluent, but enough to get around and order food.

Anyway, we’ve had our girl for a couple of days, and we walked over to Walmart (yes, Walmart) in Zhengzhou to pick up some food and toddler stuff when a 20-something Chinese woman sees us and walks past.

At this point, we were used to all the stares, points and occasional dirty looks from locals as a group of Americans wandered around with Chinese babies.

This woman doubles back, smiles sweetly, pinches our daughter’s cheek, and says, ‘Ni bu xihuan ni de mama, ma?’

This works out to, ‘You don’t like your mom, do you?’ Took a second to sink in, but my wife whipped around and says in rough Mandarin, ‘Oh, yes she does.'” f0rkboy

7. I Made Him Cook Dinner

“I worked at a school with a large population of Chinese students.

I’m fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese. I, however, speak to the students in English because their parents paid for a full American immersion experience, and they ain’t never gonna learn English if they knew they could speak Chinese to a teacher.

(I am aware of the horrific grammar in the last sentence.

It was there for a dramatic effect. Also, it’s how I generally talk.)

Anyway, those kids have no idea whether I speak Chinese.

I let them on, not responding to the first few hilarious instances, so they think I have no idea what they’re talking about.

And whenever non-Chinese-speaking students ask me if I knew what two kids were talking about in Chinese I’d just say ‘boys and shoes’ as a default—even if those Chinese kids were straight guys—which added to the deception.

So, basically, for years, I’ve overheard a whole bunch of kids who think they have perfect privacy from teachers talking about relationships, b*tching about teachers, cursing the *** out of each other and such.

A couple of months before I quit the job, I was on a camping trip with a bunch of students.

One of the Chinese kids was attempting to impress these two Chinese girls by b*tching about camping food and how everything’s dirty in Chinese.

I looked at him, handed him my 20″ stainless steel skillet, a cooler of meat, pointed towards the fire and said, in Chinese, ‘Then why don’t you cook dinner and do the dishes tonight?’

His face was, of course, hilarious.

But the best part was that he (along with the two girls and the fact that I meticulously measure out and pack themed spice mixes for camping trips) figured out how to actually cook some delicious dinner.

REALLY impressed the ladies and pretty much everyone else.” Reddit user

6. They Thought We Were Too Good To Shop At Their Store

Needless to say, they didn’t get a sale from them.

“I was in a discount clothing store outside of Camden, NJ, with my sister.

While I am distinctly low-income, I try not to look it, and so my sister and I must have seemed like we were upper-middle-class brats as we picked over the clothes and commented on the worth of various items of poor quality, (A nearly see-through long-sleeve shirt being sold in winter was supposedly worth $20.

We scoffed.), as well as praised good ones. We were there to shop, and the observations we made were quiet and for our own conversation.

A pair of Hispanic women who worked for the store was in the same section and took turns coming closer to eavesdrop and then regrouping to mutter about us in Spanish things like ‘Spoiled gringa b********.’ ‘They think they deserve better than us?’ ‘Why can’t they shop at some fancy gringa store and leave us alone?’

I gently encouraged my sister to leave the store, not wanting to stay where we were not welcome.

As we were leaving the section, we detoured closer to them, and they smiled big fake smiles at us with dead eyes.

I smiled back, and said, ‘Sean ustedes que nos podemos oir, y compredemos lo que ustedes digan? Y ustedes ses preguntan porque nos no van a comprar nada.’ (You (pl) know that we can hear, and understand what you (pl) say? And you (pl) wonder why we aren’t going to buy anything.)

My sister and I left then, and I told her in the car what had happened.

(She doesn’t speak Spanish.)” falsestone

5. She Thought I Was Handsome, So I Told Her She Was Pretty

“I’m a white guy who has been living in Singapore for the last two years.

I speak fluent Mandarin. I hear a lot of people talking about me, but one of the cutest moments was as I was walking out of the train, an older lady looked up at me in shock and said, ‘Wow, handsome man” to her friend in Mandarin.

I replied, ‘Wow, pretty woman’ as we walked by each other.

It couldn’t have lasted longer than a few seconds.

The last thing I saw was her blushing and her friend laughing at her as the doors closed.” HonestEthan

Another User Comments:

“After reading some cringe-worthy ones, this one is absolutely beautiful!” HaziqahP

4. They Didn’t Expect Her To Ring Them Up In French

“My sister was working in a store, and this french woman and her mother come in.

The mother is absolutely trashing everything… ‘Look at this cheap stuff.

How can they get away with selling it?,’ ‘typical American trash,’ ‘I would never bring this back…’ blah blah blah.

My sister, who is fluent in French, hears this but thinks nothing of it since the stuff in the store was pretty trashy.

Then, Mama Francais decides to start trashing my sister, saying all types of terrible, mean things she wouldn’t repeat to me.

When they get to the counter, my sister rings them up completely in French.

After asking them how they were doing and if that would be all (all in french), the daughter, who sounded like she was in her 20s, asked my sister how long she had been studying French, and she replied, ‘Quinze ans’ or whatever it is that means 15 years.

The mother ran out of the store, crying in embarrassment, and the daughter kept on trying to console, and my sister kept on a sh*t-eating grin and never stopped speaking French.” MoreSteakLessFanta

3. The Nail Salon Staff Were Talking Horrible About Us, So We Left Without Tipping

I would have done the same thing.

“My friend’s mom is from Vietnam, but her dad is from the States and is white.

For whatever reason, my friend looks like a typical White brunette girl but speaks Vietnamese with her mom’s side of the family all the time and is fluent.

So, one day, we got off school. We went to a Catholic high school and walked over to a nail salon a few blocks away to get our nails done.

The ladies running the salon were speaking Vietnamese and according to my friend were talking crap about us the entire time we were there.

They were talking about how rich we must be and how ‘These little white girls can probably sleep with whoever they want and get ahead.’

I was completely oblivious to this the entire time, but as we were about to pay, my friend told me all the terrible things they were saying, so we didn’t tip them.

We started to leave, and one of the workers said something about how the rich white girls couldn’t even afford to tip.

My friend turned around and yelled at them in perfect Vietnamese about how if they expect their business to stay open, they shouldn’t talk badly about their customers in front of their faces.

I didn’t understand a word of it, but the workers were in utter shock and sheepishly apologized to the both of us.” antonjad

2. She Thought We Were “Bad People” That Took People’s Jobs

“Family owned a business on a beach right outside of a French town.

None of us spoke French, but a great friend of mine was French and came to work with us for years.

One of the local townspeople came up to order fries to go while their child walked into the candy/toy store part where my buddy was working.

The kid asked for a toy in English, and the parent responded in French, ‘No, these are bad people.

They take jobs from the community and won’t hire locals.’

My buddy interrupted her and said no, that my family was great people, and he did not appreciate her telling her kid flat out lies (all in perfect French).

The woman turned beet red and waited outside for her food.

My buddy told my dad what happened, and my dad explained very nicely how we had to bid on the business and have a business plan, and that there were 5 offers, 4 from the city and only one from the town who only offered 12k for the building, equipment and the 3 acres of property it sits on.

She was kind of shocked at how it all worked. We gave her the fries for free for the hassle of listening to us, but apparently she told the story, and we started getting local business for the first time in over a decade.” anxietysufferingfool

1. The Stinky-Footed Italian Women

“Back in 06, I was backpacking through Europe with a buddy, and we ended up staying at this one particular hostel in Berlin.

Considering we were on a budget, we’d almost always stayed in the dorms.

This one particular night, it was me and him and this group of gorgeous Italian girls staying in the dorm.

We just happened to be returning to the room at the same time and immediately started with the small talk.

Now I was born and raised in Canada, but I have an Italian background — that being said, the girls assumed we spoke English and would often break out into Italian.

They started talking about how my buddy and I were really nice and that perhaps we’d ask them to go for drinks.

Immediately after that conversation, they began talking to each other about how badly their feet stunk and that they were praying to God we wouldn’t notice.

At this, I started laughing at myself, and when they asked, I simply responded with, ‘Soooooo, you ladies got stinky feet, eh?’ They were mortified.

I just laughed and told them not to worry about it.

We ended up all heading out and had a pretty kick-a** night!” riula

Knowing a foreign language can definitely come in handy, but in the case of using a different language to talk bad about other people or even trying to take advantage of people who you think don’t know your language, not so much.

As a little word of caution for multilingual, be careful of what you say, even while speaking in a foreign tongue!