Hearing People Talk About You In A Language You Speak (r/AskReddit)

people who speak a second language what have you overheard people saying about you when they thought you couldn't understand I witnessed some serious crap go down a black family was eating dinner in a restaurant they kept looking two tables over at a Spanish table the black mom looked more and more mad finally she walked over got down on one knee and in a stern yet not loud voice started going off a mile a minute in perfect Spanish she didn't stop for a solid minute the look on the Spanish family's face was of absolutely shock and horror afterwards nothing was said and she went back to her table with a slight grin I come to find out she was a college professor who taught Spanish and the Spanish family kept making racist comments about their blacks ever as well as the black family in questioned rules for living in Florida one never assumed someone can speak Spanish two never assumed someone can't speak Spanish one evening I called an uber driven by Abdul Latif mr. Adel receive an Egyptian was nice enough at the start but then took a phone call from an Arabic speaking friend of his and started complaining very colorfully about his day he eventually finished his rant by stating that he would head home after he takes this one last bad Arabic slur in his car home I of course didn't drop the ruse and pretended that my uber driver didn't just loudly and quite needlessly insult me to this random person on the phone when we finally arrived he told me to have a nice evening so I told him the gist of which is good night i shat and walked away putting on my best display of being highly offended even though I was dying from laughter on the inside after seeing the look on his face weeks later I took another uber driven by mr. bad ray an Iraqi he seemed like he had a lot of trouble with English over the phone so I started the ride off by greeting him in Arabic he was quickly at ease and was surprised that I spoke Arabic so fluently for a white American I explained I was only half Egyptian and that was probably why I didn't look like your stereotypical middle Easterner he laughed and said it reminded him of a story his Egyptian friend also an uber driver told him about the time he picked up this white guy that turned out to speak perfect Arabic I asked him his friend's name it was Abdul Latif me and two other friends one American one German were in rural town Philippines we were getting out of a cab and unloading our bags when the cabbies buddy pulls over next to us and they start chatting in the local language buddy whoa foreigners how much did you get off then cabbie usual 80 pesos buddy no way I would have charged them at least double me I think 80 pesos is quite fair don't you his jaw dropped and he awkwardly drove away I learned enough to get by but I deliberately keep it to myself just for moments like these it was really sweet actually two teenage boys do you think that's a real lie colour I don't know ask her ask her what if they're contacts I don't know how to say contacts in English do you know okay 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 oh I wonder if they are 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 needs but I appreciated the thought 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 crap about how stupid Americans were one of them said something along the lines that we have to learn English and this stupid butthole referring to my friend's dad doesn't speak any Japanese my friend's dad paused 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 I get to pull this one once a month at least my favorite was when they brought along an inter to the meeting and were saying very different things among each other than the negotiation stance they were relaying in English so at one point I just switched to Japanese I live in China and went to a remote city up on the North Korean border had just got back from Pyongyang but that's irrelevant went into a little corner shop in 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 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 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 Russian 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 if you be aren't paying for my clothes and shut your mouths they did I worked at a popular theme park in Florida at the international restaurant area every day I would ride the bus and not hear a single English conversation one day two French exchange workers sat on either side of me continuing their chat about their evening plans I tried to ignore them but found myself ping-ponging my glance to whichever one was talking they apparently caught this girl one do you think he understands us girl to know he is an American worker you can tell this from uniforms they are too stupid me yes I am American but I'm not stupid silence 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 yearand 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 si had set when we got to the iron 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 my family is deaf but my parents are the type that don't let their deafness slow them down we were up for an upgrade for our phones through Sprint and went in to get our new phones of course my dad had done all the research with me and we scoured the internet for as much information as possible phone upgrades are needlessly complicated these days when we started talking to the Sprint rep she had a trainee badge she started telling us all about leasing a new phone versus owning one ounce right it was according to her speech a great deal if we were to go through with this fees would increase our monthly payments by 100 bucks so my father declined but they went back and forth on the note pad for a while and I maintained my distance occasionally telling my dad that leasing is BS and we should stick with what the upgrade used to mean the poor trainee brought in her supervisor and they continued to discuss terms I try to interpret for my parents but they generally don't let me needless to say this whole process took much longer than it should have and eventually there were three employees surrounding my dad watching what he was writing and discussing among themselves how to phrase things and how to get him to just pay more how does he know all this does one of our signs say that I started to get a little frustrated with how they kept trying to get him to move from earning phones to leasing and they started to get nasty with their comments as there were no other guests in the store I stopped him signed there saying really not nice stuff and are clearly trying to cheat us he thanked them for their time we walked down the sidewalk and switched to another provider that now has provided upgrades with no hassle oh and I made sure to translate what he said and their faces as we left almost made the whole thing worth it 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 might 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 or was signing away happily eventually I just got sick of it and told one group walking past I could still hear em and the looks on their faces were great to watch 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 judgment when I worked as a cashier these two Russian men came through my line I told them 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 a guy and said number he turned beet red then ran out of the store really fast his friend ended up carrying all their stuff laughing his butt off I got her admit it was pretty funny 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 so many Romanian people feel the need to insult me and my children I of course insulted them back and then after some homemade liquor we're best friends I'm a Macedonian speaker living in Michigan I was at the mall and overheard two Macedonian women talking about a man buying a bunch of socks what they said was something along the lines of why is that crazy black man buying so many socks the guy responded in Macedonian I'm buying these socks to send to my brothers in Macedonia they got so fricking red in the face it was unbelievable two old Japanese ladies in a sauna were talking about their niece 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 and my friend and I were only like 12 but were in a Japanese immersion program when we left I said I hope you get the problems with your niece worked out 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 have 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 and that sort of thing we weren't too loud but we were definitely talking detailed descriptions and experience he is an earnest for the majority of the 20 minute bus ride my friend gets off the bus and waves bye 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 10 minutes with an elderly grandpa who clearly understood every single word coming out of our mouths if 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 walked near them and asked - everything all right gentlemen shortly afterwards and he swiftly shut up most satisfying exchange ever 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 in two young men maybe 16 or 17 said a couple of things back and forth in our aisle 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 did I press 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 four inches I am an American who at one point was fluent in French I was chatting with a French klezmer band yes really after a concert when 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 met 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 many things overheard but my favorite moment was early on when I first moved to Japan in 1994 waiting on the train platform in a rural village when a mother and her young son come through the gate immediately the son grabs of her mother's hand and tells her in Japanese that they have to be careful of me that I'm a dangerous foreigner he promised to protect her but he was hiding behind her we had a long wait eventually he decided he could creep closer still muttering under his breath about the foreigner so I muttered back I love Japanese children they're delicious he ran screaming I did not feel bad about it I lived in Japan for two years and went to the doctor to get a medical certificate for the flu he stuck a swab up my nose turned to his colleague and said he's got a big nose doesn't he I called him out and said in Japanese oh my nose is big is it and he calmly turned back to me and said sudhi suni yes it is in this context I scold doc talking about my sickness zero frisch's given LeMay oh my long-haired uncle was standing in line to pay for his groceries when he overheard two women speaking German behind him long haired pig he should get his hair cut without missing a beat he turned around and asked in German do you have scissors I speak some Spanish and in college most of the staff working in the cafeteria was Hispanic I was at the salad bar while two women were restocking it and I heard them talking about my friend she is so pretty one said the other said yes great boobs too not gonna lie they were right on the money I was at McDonald's so they could be forgiven for thinking I'm a tourist man Hey look there's a foreigner you like foreigners write your number on this woman looks I like handsome foreigners man haha his hair looks like a helmet right laughed my blood off I've never heard someone talking about me but I overheard an awkward conversation in a gas station between two Hispanic guys it went like this hey man how are you doing oh hey yeah I'm good what are you doing oh nothing really want to go hang out oh I can't um I've got plans Oh what are you doing I'm um going to my grandma's house oh okay hey did you change your phone number I keep trying to call you oh yeah uh my phone has been acting up hey I gotta go it was painfully obvious that the second guy didn't want to be friends with the first guy but guy one wasn't picking up any hints I am a native Polish speaker living his Australia it was Christmas Eve and I had not yet bought my girlfriend a present I went to one of our malls which is open 24 hours on Christmas Eve and decided to do some shopping the queues were ridiculous everywhere but I decided to go to the Tiffany & Company store as I had little idea what to buy my so I was in line to ask for assistance with an item it was a pen that was on display I was in line for a good ten minutes when a yuppie posh expensively dressed entitled polish speaking couple are within earshot and I overheard this honey let's not wait in this queue and cut in front of this guy referring to me and slowly they inched closer and closer in front of me and sort of merge with the queue I thought I'd let them wait with me for a bit before I said anything especially because they were praising themselves on how clever they are for jumping the queue after about 5 10 minutes when they were well and truly in front of me I thought back to my old days living in the gray Communists flats blocks of 90s Poland and thought of how I would have reacted to this situation back then I put on my Warsaw Ghetto attitude and said eh why co kurwa Mac translating roughly - and what the Frick do you suppose this is they looked at me with shock as I directed them to the back of the queue I've always hated the wealthy Polish migrants they have weak souls sat across from two German girls on a train they said I was seven stroked ten maybe eight stroked ten if he smiled more looks like his mother died or something smells nice though I told them my mother was fine not in real life but I was once playing stronghold 2 online - V - apparently pretty much everyone on there was German anyway I'd greeted them in English so I guess they assumed I only spoke that and so even though there's no allies only chat they felt comfortable talking about their plans with each other they discussed their strategy as in German I understand German I did well that gang 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 were complimenting the girl's boobs in front of us and how Theed freaked her if she didn't look like a horse you have spotted this beautiful tasty sea of bacon you can have as much as you want as long as you subscribe in the next 22 seconds if you are new to the channel you can subscribe I publish new videos every day until then check another video or don't either way have a great day you magnificent people

Channel: Updoot Everything

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Id: iEzSMoz4SUk

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 21 2019