Multilinguals Share The Cringeworthy Times They Understood A Conversation They Weren't Meant To

multi-link ills what sir they didn't realize I could understand their language story I've said this before it happened a while ago I went to a psychiatric emergency ward once and asked for help and if they were comfortable to speak English I understand Danish but have a hard time making myself understandable in it and didn't really feel like an idiot at a crucial time of my life I stayed there for four days without anyone realizing I knew what they were saying about me right in front of me two of the nurses thought I was cute one doctor thought I was lying all the time a patient thought I was a spy for the staff a lot happened in those four days it made my stay way more enjoyable than it should have been my wife is Indian and her family speaks Gujarati I've spent many years trying to pick it up and have found it to be very difficult as there are no great resources that I'm aware of to learn it you just have to listen and try to guess the context anyway over the years I've gotten pretty good and when my wife's aunt was visiting from Indians she went right into my wife about how much weight I'd gained and how bad my diet must be I understood every word and stopped her about two minutes into her aunt turns out it didn't stop her from continuing some workers at an airport restaurant were saying very inappropriate things about my sister in Spanish the women were criticizing her appearance arguing with the men who were saying very inappropriate observations about what she was wearing and what they would do to her I ordered in Spanish workers all went silent and looked stunned I asked detailed questions about the food / menu in Spanish so that they understood I knew everything they were saying I gave her my credit card but she never swiped it and a $40 epic meal was free so at the end of the day it was a win I only speak one language but was training this guy on until a few years ago and there were two French girls chatting in French and suddenly he got a huge smile and said merci to the girls one burst out laughing and the other one turned bright red turned out she was talking about how hot she found him I'm born to Russian immigrants whenever my family and I travel abroad we almost exclusively speak Russian and tend to get better attitudes from people when they don't think we are American tourists when I was 12 or so we were in a cafe in Belgium and a large group of twenty something guys walking my dad gets a worried look on his face drops his voice and says we are Americans right now he explained to me later that they were Chechen gang members at the time when check na was at war with Russia and Aunty Russian sentiments were extremely high happened to my wife when she worked at McDonald's she looks a little on the asian side but is from guatemala group of spanish-speaking people pay at the drive-through and try shortchanging her driver says he's a Mountie to China no safe car to that Dalmatian lady can't count wife takes the money and very politely says they are short in Spanish driver turns red while passengers couldn't stop laughing when I was in Romania as a Hungarian I went to buy some food in a small town I didn't know people in the restaurant were ethnic Hungarians so when I asked for my food in English the guy shouted a burger for the CEFR in Hungarian to the kitchen I was curious how it would end so I pretended I didn't understand when he got me my food and asked for double the price I said now in Hungarian you can give me that for normal price or I'm living it but I sure as hell ain't coming back to UM FS ever again I posted this on other threads before but I think it fits here I lived in Japan when I was little and read up Japanese in college so I didn't sound like a child when I spoke to solidify my new language skills I went to my hometown for about six weeks a summer in college it was a small town so most people remembered me or my family but some people I stayed with six weeks eleven families that at least wanted me to spend a night in their home were new to the area since we left 15 years or so earlier one of these families had a high school-aged son who wanted to borrow me for his high school's International Festival no problem I'd go and let other high schoolers practice their English with me and the carnival games and stuff however the guy apparently did not get the message that I spoke Japanese and proceeded to introduce me to all his friends as his girlfriend I let him have his moment for the night without leading him on but on the train ride back to his home he was talking to his friend in Japanese and I joined in on the conversation also in Japanese the embarrassment on his face was worth knowing all his friends thought I was his girlfriend I was a Mexican living in Germany with a Chinese school assigned rumors he claimed to not speak any English in my German wasn't good so we weren't able to communicate my German roommates then claimed he told them he didn't speak any German so I gather he wasn't a social I took three years of Mandarin in high school but I didn't try using it on him about three months in he and another Chinese student got off the bus at the same stop I did and we all walked together to our flat heard him talking about me and his friend laughing but held back once we got to our flat I opened the door and told them to please enter in Chinese I still remember his shocked face his friend later complimented my Chinese while a few weeks later my room and my Chinese was so bad that he couldn't understand me I seriously think he just wanted no contact with me possibly because he never followed the cleaning schedule I'll try to simplify this for non poker players but just know that eight speed sevens I was in Detroit and playing cards for a little higher stakes than I'm used to and this obnoxious group of Lebanese guys come to throw their money around they weren't good at all just bet big and bluffed a lot I took a stand with pocket eights and ran into a flop f4 tangel rainbow i called a big preflop raise of $50 for ways and you chubs all-in for four hundred and fifty dollars more every one fold around to me and I think for a bit his friend asked what he hosts against the rules in Arabic against another rule and he answers Saba Saba which means seven to seven I look out and say : tell him shokran thank you in Arabic imation so it was obviously unexpected the table erupts in laughter and he actually was a good sport about it he got roasted by his friends for the rest of the night and most of the people there just ended up taking their money anyway my husband grew up in multiple countries and though his English is pretty heavily accented it's a sort of unit NT fable hybrid of all the countries where he learned it in school he didn't move to the US until he was in his late twenties when we went for our wedding rings and in walks super-wide mae and my very latino looking then Finnick a it's a tiny little shop and the two proprietors begin to talk amongst themselves in hebrew one of my husband's first languages about how much they should charge the first says it should be at least six hundred and fifty dollars the second says tell him it will be seven hundred dollars at least maybe seven hundred and fifty dollars I can try that my husband sets in but with a smile I'll give you five hundred dollars they just froze and everyone laughed and we went into a more open negotiation we paid $600 and I think everyone was happy I was in New York and entered one of those electronic stores I asked the price of an item in English the guy at the counter turns to another guy who one allowed his talking items and asks in Hebrew how much he should charge I speak Hebrew so I'm following their dialog the guy on the ladder looks at me and notices that I'm following them with my eyes then he switches to Arabic I don't speak Arabic the counter guy tells me the price in English I say too expensive in Hebrew and leave I actually have a reverse story I had to act as if I didn't speak a language I was going back home after having studied for a while in Uppsala Sweden and during the time I spent there I had the occasion to learn quite a lot of Swedish anyways to go back back home I had to buy a train ticket to our Lander Airport from upsala central to get to my flight which was really early in the morning and I did so but bought my ticket with the company Society of Jesus statins John Berger however the first train that arrived at the station and that was going to the airport was a roll a plans local traffic different company train which I did not buy a ticket for worried that I would be late to the airport I still took the train thinking that they almost never check the tickets and thinking that my ticket might actually work for that company as well well they did check that day the controller asks me in Swedish for see the ticket so I hand it to him and he looks at me and says in Swedish wrong ticket so I decide to do the dumb tourist and I pointed to my passport and said in bad French accent sorry I don't speak Swedish and I explained I thought this ticket was the right one to go to the airport he immediately gave me my ticket back and said that it was okay but to check next time to buy the right ticket with the right company in English so I got off without any fine or anything like that because I faked not being able to speak Swedish I still feel bad about it today if the controller that met me the day is readying this I just want to say Tkach FR LT i live in Austria but my dad is from Reza all my Austrian aunts and uncles married a Brazilian my grandparents from my mother's side opened and lead a factory of our family company in Brazil that's why everyone was there but some eventually came back to Austria just like my mom with my dad me and my siblings were raised multilingual but live most of alive in Austria so once when I was around 10 my mom and me were on a tram in Vienna with my little brother who was around 2 at the time in a stroller and he starts crying really loudly then one Brazilian lady starts speaking really loudly and in an obnoxious tone something in the lines of well these European folks don't know how to treat their children with love how can someone be so cold and unaffectionate to a child as to let them scream without taking them out of the stroller and holding them we were standing bTW there was no seat big enough at the time where we could leave the stroller so I was getting worried we were doing something wrong I wanted to comfort my brother and get him out but my mom stopped me and really loudly said in Portuguese leave him it is too dangerous to take him out of a stroller while we are standing here and the tram is moving you could see the woman's face go from red to white and back to red get up and get out so fast at the next exit that we just started laughing and my brother ultimately calmed down not really exciting that I find it funny when I think back [Music]

Channel: BrainyDude

Views: 3,886,018

Rating: 4.8123417 out of 5

Keywords: reddit, multilinguals, language, story, conversation, askreddit, top posts, reddit top posts, best of reddit, r/, reddit cringe, top posts of all time, askreddit funny, top posts of r/, brainy memes

Id: NTKLRgkzrQE

Length: 11min 46sec (706 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/gewittergeist]

I'd love a link to the thread, the voice is really hard to listen to