Bilinguals Overhearing The Funniest Things (r/AskReddit)

bilinguals of Reddit what's your funniest story of people not knowing you speak their language most people don't realize that I speak Spanish fluently I was in Mexico with my husband on vacation we went a restaurant they gave us a menu with the side in English facing up I flipped it over and the exact same menu was printed on the back in Spanish except the prices were about half that of the English version I ordered our meals and Spanish just in case it counted towards the discount now that's trashy a friend of mine once jokingly asked to waitress in Chinese if he could have a secret Chinese menu he got it kind of the other way when I was younger my family and I German went to Greece and in a store my grandpa started talking about how expensive that stuff there was and how cheap it looked then my mom found something she liked and the store owner came over to help her in German oh no I was shopping and two people approached me and asked if the store had ice-cream packages in English I guided them to it as I was heading there myself once they got it they instantly started talking Swedish extremely poorly Swedish is my native language and said how impolite I had been for not simply telling them and had felt like I was forced to leave them there I replied in Swedish I was heading here myself so why the hell would I simply tell you where it is both turned pale grab the ice cream and hurried off and yes this was in Sweden there's literally no reason for them to assume I'd not speak Swedish some Japanese cashiers had a conversation deciding if my wife's red hair was natural as we walked away I told the mid was dyed but not to tell my wife that I know I was standing at a crosswalk in a little Japanese town when a girl commented to her friend that this foreigner has really nice eyelashes and she wanted to borrow them I thanked her for the compliment and she turned beetroot I'm not bilingual but can understand quite a bit of Spanish and speak a limited amount I was at a Quincey Nura with a friend and was having a really bad anxiety day one of the middle-aged men sitting at the same table as us was out like talking about me in Spanish saying I had crazy eyes and how there was something wrong with me my friend told him I could understand him and he just went quiet opposite of topic I am by no means a fluent ASL signer but once my local bar tried to introduce me to death old man I started with a simple hell are you nothing in response I figured he didn't want to talk I simply signed have a nice night absolutely nothing in response come to find out do does not death doesn't know a leg of sign just does it to get attention and drinks schmuck once I was at the local public house with my two roommates and one of them who majored in ASL in college noticed an older gentleman who came in and sat at the corner of the bar she told us that he's deaf she could just see it in the way he was looking around and his general demeanor and behavior now he hadn't ordered a drink I guess he was a regular because he walked in and they brought him a drink so myself in the third roommate are not convinced that he is deaf but she insists that she is going to go over and say hi so my roommate goes over and taps him on the shoulder and proceeded to have like an hour-long conversation in sign language with this guy his face lit up like nothing I've ever seen it was so heartwarming and nice I an Englishman work in a bar in the South of France we get a lot of tourists who naturally can't speak a word of French through a lot speak English as their go-to language regardless of their country of origin maybe two months ago I had an English lady order at the bar which was quiet at the time for a big bottle of water pretty standard request except we only sell bottles of water up to fifty centiliters or alternatively offered tap water for free after offering her either of these options in perfect English because via no I'm English she proceeded with the stereotypical razor voice slow talking and speaking with her hands sherrard her big gestures with her hands the size of big BOTS tle proceeds to pretend to unscrew a cap off of bottle water a rare drinks through her imaginary bottle of water so I gave her a shot of gin instead her husband found it hilarious he also recognized him in Italy I was from the UK but letter played out maybe not haha funny moreover oMG we are so dumb sometimes moment my friend's son knows fluent Spanish but his wife so when he brought his wife's minivan in to get a detailed the people cleaning it were all going on and on about how stupid and dirty this guy's and how he should make his kids clean the van instead then they went on about how cheap Americans are and they probably wouldn't even get at it for all the hard work when they were done he went right over to thank them and let them know how much he appreciated the job they did and gave them a tick all in Spanish so they knew he had heard every word they said my mum who speaks four languages including Spanish had this exact same scenario happen just with two mates from a cleaning service she reacted exactly the same way did nothing till the end tip them graciously and gave them a long monologue in perfect Spanish about what a fantastic job they did my wife Norwegian speaks eleven languages at varying levels of proficiency and have a few good stories best ones from her time studying in Prague she went out with some Czech friends all girls they ended up in a bar at a table next to a group of Norwegian guys that were on a weekend party trip the guys were somewhat drunk and of course immediately started flirting with my wife and her friends in the typical heavily accented English spoken by Norwegians while Furtick they discussed among themselves the various physical attributes of each girl how [ __ ] they were how they perform in bed what they do to them later that night in graphical detail I'm so getting laid comments and so on my wife translated everything into Czech for her friends a lot of fun was had at both tables the Czechs got more and more flirty as the Norwegians bought drinks got older and became more and more certain they'd all actually get laid after several hours when the girls decided rather abruptly to end the evening the Norwegian guys were a bit confused as the girls all got so cold so quickly then my wife said in Norwegian nice meeting you guys good luck watch them all turn blood red and left mine is more wholesome I worked at a department store in this one shift I encountered a sweet but confused old man with a strong French accent trying to ask me a question in English I just asked if it would be easier for me to speak French in French of course and he smiled very wide most people in our area only speak English so he was glad someone was able to help him in his native language I used to work in a country pub in the middle of England and occasionally we'd get guests from Switzerland so I'd always offer to speak to them in Swiss German it's not always needed but they tip better than anyone else plus the look on the locals faces when they see you suddenly speaking gobbledygook is always funny one of them legitimately looked at his pint in surprise I mean I live in Canada and I'm half french-canadian so lots but the best was kind of the reverse my dad yelled out to me in the middle of a crowded grocery store that he was bleeding from my bottom and have to go to the bathroom in French thinking no one would understand like three people turned around with horrified WTF faces as he walked away I just shrugged what can you do guy has him our hides and no sense of shame not my fault now we all have to live with this image was at the theater waiting for the play to begin in my city Salle Paulo Brazil and those teenage girls next to us were making fun of everyone around them in French I was quiet until they started to talk about my mother they were talking about nothing much just a general appearance but in an unflattering way my mom speaks no French but I do a broken French but I do she got really confused when I turned to her ran said loud and clear sets files chrome and key personnel iesous comprised canards which means these girls believe that no one can understand them idiots they went blue purple red they were not French but they were smart asses who thought they were the only people in Sao Paulo that spoke French and nobody messes with my mama Spanish speaker here was with my family ordering food at a Mexican restaurant and the waiter in training was telling his senior that he was worried that his English wasn't good enough and he wasn't ready to try I told him not to worry I spoke Spanish and would help translate from my monolingual mother he got excited and thanked me I ended up chatting with him for a while and told him to not get discouraged if I could learn Spanish in Mexico he could learn English in the US and people would be more willing to help than he might think good on you I work occasionally with Eastern Europeans and I'm constantly trying to reassure them about their English I am honestly in or of anyone who has command of more than one language my family is Greek however why have an aunt that lives in Germany she was visiting Greece one time and she went to the jewelry store with her husband where they both spoke to the staff in English they were looking at rings when my aunt wiped I nose in a tissue one of the girls working there thought she was trying to steal her ring and tells the other girl working there I think she just put a ring in her tissue keep an eye on her my aunt turns to her and goes I blew my nose would you want me to show you my boogers was at a market in Thailand just as the store owner is handing me my purchase a tourist walks up and starts randomly educating me on bartering I'd never met this person before but they insist on showing me how it's done so he's Varg inning away and drives the owner down to about half price with a smug look he says and that's how it's done I didn't have the heart to tell him I paid a tenth of what he did just by speaking politely using rudimentary Thai I like this story my boyfriend and I went to Japan and stood out like the pair of hugely tall white folk we are literally no one expects foreigners to speak Japanese here bTW when just hanging out waiting to cross a street a kid holding his mum's hand just stared at my six foot plus boyfriend and said to his mouth Wow foreigners are amazing aren't they we nearly died of laughter later but there are tons of encounters like this negotiating with vendors in Turkey as they babbled amongst each other trying to rip me off I'd make a super lowball offer in Turkish the look on their faces was gold and this happened often usually I got the deal as they was super-embarrassed american who lived there two years took turkish 101 102 classes when I arrived I'm Norwegian but was in vacation in London was on the way out the subway and waiting for a lift standing with my girlfriend we overhear two girls behind me talking about me and Swedish that I understood and how hot I was in that they would definitely go out with them if I asked and how my girlfriend was not in my league and that I did not know how hot I was when the lifts arrived I turned around and thanked them in Norwegian for the compliments but that my girlfriend was far better looking than both of them they decide to not get on the list with us I'm a white as they come American from the Midwest I absolutely do not look like I speak any languages besides English you know the stereotypical stupid American and thinks if I just speak English really I slowly and loudly everyone will suddenly understand me but I've actually studied quite a few languages including Chinese Mandarin Korean Japanese French Spanish German and Italian but again I really don't look like I understand any of them I found the best thing to do is to keep her vacant expression on my face whenever people are talking around me like I don't have a clue what's being said one time I was in Seoul just sitting outside relaxing I had about 15 minutes before I had to go back inside and keep working and I was just enjoying the day there were several Korean men standing around not too far from me smoking laughing and talking so I started listening him they were talking about the fat stupid American man sitting near them lots of insults and making fun of my character intelligence and looks I didn't let on that I understood a word of what they were saying I just sat there minding my own business and if any of them looked at me I just smiled at them when it was time for me to go back inside to work I walked past the man in Korean tell them that not all Americans were as stupid as they seemed to think the look on their faces when they learned I had been listening to everything they were saying about was one that still makes me smile when I remember it [Music] [Laughter] 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Id: NOPsaMnf4W0

Length: 15min 28sec (928 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 09 2019