Bilinguals Share Overhearing In Different Languages (r/AskReddit Top Posts | Reddit Stories)

people who speak a second language what have you overheard people saying about you when they thought you couldn't understand I was working construction white guy in Nashville only one on the site who spoke English the painters were talking about my man Bob's in Spanish sir in Spanish I yell back across the house they are still nicer than your sisters dead silence then roaring laughter I got greeted with a super enthusiastic RI III gringo every morning after that sat across from two German girls on a train they said I was seven spoke ten maybe eight stroke ten if he smiled more looks like his mother died or something smells nice though I told them my mother was fine I was in downtown Seattle on the ferry to Bainbridge Island sitting across from these two gorgeous Swedish girls they were talking about how good-looking I was for an American and were debating inviting me back to their hotel with them to party and show them a good time now I don't speak Swedish percent so this interpretation was based entirely on my imagination at a blackjack table in an Indian casino two Mexican dudes were kind of drunk and talking business big business of the Breaking Bad variety I kept my head down and mouth shut and pretended I didn't hear a goddamn word my mother was visiting hers in Prague and walked to her car with German plates some idiots were standing next to her car one said I can't wait to see how that stupid cow is going to get out of that parking spot and my mother answered well if the stupid cow got her car in there she's going to get it out of there too right I lived in western Africa where most 99% of white folks are visitors who don't stay long enough to learn the local language even though English is an official language most prefer their native tongue one day I left my cell phone in a taxi and had to chase it all the way to the taxi ranks out of breath I asked in English for my phone she said she had it and I had to pay what amounted to ten dollars I said no and she should give it to me I paid my fare her and the other driver started speaking fancy saying I should pay more maybe twenty dollars I had the money I was an American so I walk over to her slowly put my hand on her shoulder and say auntie oh she and me year brownie road went in and safe auntie hey whoa said it's in police inna Honea hey auntie because I'm a white guy you think I don't speak fancy your people say that a good name is better than riches yes all of the Kappas got quiet and turned to her she just held out my phone and I grabbed it and casually walked away to the LOLOL OS of all the other cabbies from that day whenever I took a cab in that town they called meets in far a good name I live in Japan and this happens quite a lot in to varying levels of insult I'll tell acute one I was at McDonald's perusing the menu board and the longer I stood there the more uncomfortable the staff became oh no no one speaks English we have to find the English menu sheet where is the English menu I told them no it's okay I'm just thinking they all side inaudible relief not in real life but I was once playing strong held to online to vote too apparently pretty much everyone on there was German anyway I'd greeted them in English so I guess they assumed I only spoke bad and so even though there's no allies only chat they felt comfortable talking about their plans with each other they discussed their strategies in German I'm the Stan German I did well that game I'm from American but I live in Japan and my friend came to visit last year while we were sitting at a counter at a sushi restaurant this Japanese older couple came in and sat in the seats next to us we were just looking at the menu and talking about what to order and I overhead the guy next to me talking to his wife saying I wonder if they're okay they probably can't read the menu should we do something maybe we should help it was actually kind of cute I just turned to them and politely said that there was no need but I appreciated the thought I sign but I'm not really skilled enough to speak English while I do it so I don't plus there was no need to I was the only hearing volunteer that night earlier this year I was a volunteer at a deaf event held in my town it was at a pool hall that was just open to the public as well as the people playing in the deaf competition I was actually shocked how often a hearing person would come in and say something rude and mean about us all signing away happily eventually I just got sick of it and told one group walking past I could still hear them and the looks on their faces were great to watch too old Japanese ladies in a sauna were talking about their knees and how she was about to marry a stupid American and was making a huge mistake finally one of them said something like there's other people in here maybe we should talk about this later to which the other responded what those two white girls yeah sure like they would understand my friend and I were only like 12 but we're in a Japanese immersion program when we left I said I hope you get the problems with your niece worked out a friend of mine and are both Americans were in Sweden riding a train to our apartment we were both fluent in Swedish but we were talking in English because it's easier to girls get on the train and sit across the aisle from us and they say in Swedish look at that guy my friend he's soo hot he looks like he works out has a nice beard I want him I need to have him my friend and I both played casual because we know that they'd be pretty embarrassed to fame you either ever spoke Swedish then my friend pulls out his phone and calls a friend of ours and in Swedish says something along the lines of hey just checking if things are still on tonight call me back when you get the chance see you later to her answering machine we sat there in silence for maybe five seconds until one of the girls says and he speaks Swedish how awkward then we made small talk for a bit with these girls until they ran off the train at the next stop kind of reversal here ex-girlfriend native Russian and her sister were bad-mouthing a fat American for wearing pajama pants and slippers in the grocery store in Russia as it turned out their Russian radar was a bit off that day because she turned around and replied back in pure Russian the equivalent of a few witches aren't paying for my clothes then shut your mouth they did I have the opposite problem everyone assume I speak their language in New York I have been asked for directions in Korea Chinese Japanese and Spanish Korean grocers and 7 - 11 Pakistanis all assume I speak their language for some reason I guess my slightly dark average ation looked blend in everywhere maybe not Northern Europe my dad's company was doing work in Iran back in the 80s when diplomatic relations started to deteriorate there was a lot of money in escrow waiting for a project completion they sent an American whose parents had been diplomats along on the project because he spoke Farsi while they were working two guards near them had been talking so the engineers asked the guy who spoke Farsi what was being said and he said he would tell them later when they got back to the hotel he explained how one guard had said let's just Hill them now and the other guard said no wait until they finish the job first they grabbed their sheet and hopped the next flight out of the country that night the next day the American Embassy was overrun starting the hostage crisis featured in the movie Argo not really talking about me but once I walked into the office of my high school to see the nurse because I was feeling sick the secretary made me wait there while she was talking to her friend in Spanish over the phone about how she didn't know she was pregnant when she got drunk a week ago back when I was working as a checkout supervisor at Kohl's and to handle a customer complaint return consisting of two older Macedonian woman and one of the woman's daughters was speaking to the daughter in English as the older Macedonian woman couldn't speak proper English after realizing that they were not going to get their way they proceeded to speak in Macedonian to each other hell I was too young to help them which means I'd be too stupid to be handling their issues and I was probably a delinquent who takes Droog us and we'll probably rob their person dtc responded to them in Macedonian saying that is no way to speak to your future son-in-law and gave them a wink the daughter laughed but they turned into prunes so many Romanian people feel the need to insult me and my children capital I of course insult them back and then after some homemade liquor we're best friends German here during my exchange year in Canada Caray back to be exact I went to the gym and that trainer talked to me in English because my French wasn't perfect time overheard some Kariba Kois girls mocking me for not speaking French stuff like oh look at me I speak English AHA haha ever heard the cliche of Canadians being so nice yeah that doesn't apply to Quebec I've heard multiple merchants telling each other to charge me more sometimes they say the price in English but when a local customer comes up they will say a lower price for the same item in the local language I used to live in Taiwan and for some reason the locals always like to discuss what country they think my group of friends are from we had a wide variety of english-speaking expats they really couldn't seem to wrap their minds around the fact we weren't all Americans but I also had the reverse experience my friend and I were on the bus standing in front of a seated elderly grandpa reading a Chinese newspaper and somehow my friend and I ended up talking very explicitly about our sexual history and background very graphic with personal preferences in that sort of thing we weren't too loud but we were definitely talking detailed descriptions and experiences in earnest for the majority of the 20 minute bus ride my friend gets off the bus and waves by to me as I live a few stops after her the second the bus starts moving again the grandpa put down his newspaper and says in perfect English so you two are both Americans I was dying as I had to make polite small talk for the next ten minutes with an elderly grandpa who clearly understood every single word coming out of our mouths I speak fairly fluent Spanish and work as a lifeguard in England while I was cleaning one of the changing rooms a bunch of Spanish guys got out of the pool and started getting changed and one of them watched me saying something along the lines of wow this guy has no idea how to do his job I walk near them and asked everything all right gentlemen shortly afterwards and he swiftly shut up most satisfying exchange ever my friend's dad speaks decent Japanese and was at work one day when two visiting Japanese businessmen entered the elevator he was in and started talking mad sheet about how stupid Americans were one of them said something along the lines of we have to learn English and the stupid [ __ ] referring to my friend's dad doesn't speak any Japanese my friend's dad pause for a few seconds then replied I speak a little enough to understand what you just said anyway he told me the look of horror on their faces was absolutely priceless when I worked as a cashier these two Russian men came through my line I told him have a great day and one of the men said to the other I wish I could take her with me I immediately made eye contact with the guy and said no he turned beet red and ran out of the store really fast his friend ended up carrying all their stuff laughing his as off I gotta admit it was pretty funny I am an American who at one point was fluent in French I was chatting with a friend klezmer band yes really after a concert went one of them turned to the other said in French hey isn't she pretty the other band member looked me over shrugged and simply said Mayer I bet you that was their weird form of good-cop bad-cop technique for picking up chicks I took French for like a month when I was 15 and even I would understand hey isn't she pretty in French not to mention man seems deliberate I am a cashier at the local supermarket one woman came in with her kids and as I was ringing her up I saw her grab something off the belt that she apparently did not want to pay for so she tells her kid in Spanish hurry put it in your pocket before she sees so just to be Rick I picked up the phone and told security what had happened in Spanish the look on her face was priceless it turned out to be a $30 bottle of vitamins or something along those lines my mom stopped by a local sushi restaurant later at night while she was waiting on a takeout order the chef started speaking Japanese and basically said give her the old fish we need to get rid of it no fresh fish for this hitch my mom overheard this and told them in fluent Japanese you should think twice about what you say give me fresh fish and I wanted free the chefs were dumbfounded and about their heads in shame and apologized profusely needless to say my mom walked out with some really good sushi my girlfriend worked in Japan for three years after college and is still fluent 25 years later we were once together in a Japanese food store in town and two young men maybe 16 or 17 said a couple of things back and forth in our arm and she turned and said something rapid-fire in Japanese at them whereupon their mood changed and they said something back with some venom and went away she told me I really didn't want to know what they had said or what she had said in return but I pressed the matter and she said that one of them had said she had a bj mouth to which she replied I certainly wouldn't have any trouble handling your 4-inches she was speaking German and told her husband he looked like a grandfather in the pants he tried on then she told him to ask me what I thought I gave him a thumbs up and said horse cheek net unhitched wine grouse Vater excellent and not like a grandfather they thought it was pretty funny but they still didn't buy the pants not exactly saying something about me but close enough for a did work I'm an EMT I am by no means fluent but I speak enough Spanish to get by a couple years ago I was transporting an elderly Latina woman to the ER and her two granddaughters came to keep her company they had an entire discussion about how one of them should ask me out how cute I was et CET see when we got to the ER and we were registering their grandmother I asked her to slide over into the hospital stretcher in Spanish they both blushed and then hid until I left I live in Japan and while my Japanese isn't fluent it's good enough I know when people are talking about me even while sitting right next to me sometimes I just glare at them other times I respond and make it super awkward go out for beers with my half Iranian friend who doesn't look Iranian weirdly and we always end up going to different food places a couple of times we left the place and he said those two guys behind the counter were Iranian and they we're complementing the girls tits in front of us and how feed duck her if she didn't look like a horse couple of times later we go back to the same place and I was having a shitty day and the same two guys are there turns out they were talking bad sheet about us this time and my friend collects our order and says thank you in Iranian and these two guys sheep themselves and we complain to the manager haven't seen them since I live in China and went a remote City up on the North Korean border had just got back from Pyongyang but that's irrelevant went into a litel corner shop than the Chinese people in there froze then started talking about how rare it is to see foreigners come to the city but how none of them ever understand any Chinese the little grandma who ran the shop tried to stop them talking about me but they just said it doesn't matter she has no idea anyway proceeded to chat with the cute grandma when I was paying and got to listen to the dead silence as I left big up Chinese grandma went to China for a holiday to visit fam was at a pretty crowded tourist attraction where behind me a beefy looking woman from an American tourist group was elbowing people out of the way and muttering under her breath she makes her way to me and proceeds to shoulder me to the side with the weight of a ducking prize so whilst scowling and spitting ducking stupid Chinese girl get the duck out of my way I just turned grabbed her by her hammy arm shoved myself back in front of her looked her in the eye and smiled dunking stupid white cracker rich get the duck out of my way tart she actually stopped in pure shock and I took that time to escape before she beat my skinny Chinese AZ to the ground [Music] you

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Id: 6SFlHOvGIis

Length: 19min 8sec (1148 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2020