People love to talk behind others’ backs; you cannot deny it. You have likely done it yourself; it’s just a flaw that we all have. Yet, it also matters how you do that – some cases tend to be way nastier than others.
For example, talking about a person while you’re near them, but using a language they don’t understand. Or at least you hope they don’t. Because often enough stories of those folks understanding it happen. So, today, let’s jump in to read them, shall we?
More info: Reddit
#1
It’s happened a couple of times, but both were pleasant experiences.
On one of those we were abroad and we were at a farmers market. I was standing in front of a stall looking at stuff, my wife was to my right and two ladies to her right. The two ladies noticed my wife and started talking to each other about my wife’s eyes and how beautiful they thought she was. I was smiling as I was listening to their conversation and at some point I looked at them and they clicked that I was understanding them. They nudged each other that I knew what they were saying, smiled back and moved on.
Told my wife after they left and she was happy.
Image source: ManonegraCG, freepik
#2
Few years ago I was in Dubai and a small group of French tourists (mostly wannabe fashionistas) were taking pictures. At one point they complained that I was ruining the shots “y’a une pétasse en arrière plan” (there is a b***h in the background). I turned around and said désolée (sorry) in a sarcastic tone. Their faces immediately became red and they mumbled no no it’s fine.
Image source: WhenNightIsFalling, freepik
#3
I’m a jeweler, and sometimes do pop-up art shows, with a booth with my work on display/for sale. A German family was in my booth and they were all discussing my pieces amongst themselves. But it was all complimentary and really nice! So I didn’t feel the need to interrupt. They bought a bracelet (and did the transaction with me in English) and as they were leaving the booth I said “Tschüss!!” which is like, an informal way of saying goodbye, which you probably wouldn’t throw out there if you didn’t speak any German.
Their reaction was like (in German) “Bye!! –WAIT, what???” and suddenly they all ran back into the booth and were all over me, so excited!! I thanked them for all the sweet compliments and they couldn’t stop laughing. It was a super cute interaction!
Image source: bee-factory, senivpetro
#4
I had just sat down and ordered some Cevapi at a restaurant overlooking Zagreb’s central square, when a woman approaches me and asks in broken english if she and her family could have my table. I told her politely that I had just ordered and would be another 20 to 30 minutes, she quite rudely complained in Croatian that “These stupid, fat f*****g Americans had no respect for the locals and that she hoped I choked on my food” to which I reply in perfect Croatian (Thanks grandma) “Firstly I’m Australian and secondly you can f**k off into your mother’s 3 c***s” (people who know the language will get the translation haha) the look on her face was 👌.
Image source: FujiClimber2017, EyeEm
#5
Friend and I were sitting in a guest house common room and there was a Japanese gal and her boyfriend. The girl was making fun of my friend for not being able to use chopsticks while her boyfriend looked kind of embarrassed of her talking like that. Then I overheard him say something like wanting to ask us a question, but being too bad at English to try. I told him in Japanese that he can gladly ask his question in Japanese. His girlfriend did not look amused.
My friend and I did not address her earlier mocking. After getting into a bit of a chat with her boyfriend, my friend did, however, give the two of them little souveniers she brought from Germany. She said she felt petty and wanted to k**l her with kindness, lol.
Image source: Sipyloidea, freepik
#6
Not quite.
I’d been learning some Spanish on my own.
One of my new jobs was working with a woman who spoke Spanish (first day and being highly judged I found out later-whatever.) she was talking with someone on her phone in Spanish.
I didn’t understand a word and didn’t care.
At our next job someone asks how to say “how do you say..” in Spanish and I blurted out the response. Her face went pale.
Maybe she wasn’t talking s**t about me in last conversation, but the look was priceless!
Image source: 6moinaleakyboat
#7
In a movie theater before the movie started, they were talking in Polish wondering if my hair was real (blonde & very curly). They were talking about pulling on it to see (grown a*s women mind you). I promptly turned around and told them it was real and that there’d be problems if they touched it. They stopped talking after that.
Image source: Cutiecrusader2009, seventyfour
#8
I tried to sell gold at a family-run precious metals store where they (mom, dad, and son) didn’t realize I could understand them.
I heard their entire negotiation strategy as we haggled. Lol. They kept lowballing me, so I left their store and sold to a different one.
Image source: gneiss_gesture, EyeEm
#9
Our office had a maintenance guy who referred to me as “the pretty one” in Spanish. I didn’t let on for months that I spoke Spanish because quite frankly it was nice.
Image source: penalty-venture, fxquadro
#10
I was fixing a computer in the Mexican embassy a few years ago. There were some young women chatting in Spanish. I told them I spoke Spanish and they looked absolutely horrified. I don’t know what they were saying as I don’t actually speak Spanish.
Image source: metalmick, EyeEm
#11
I was once giving a tour of our facility to a group of foreign exchange university students from various countries. One of the students from the UK was asking various questions about aspects of the facility – like the wattage of the solar panels or the electrical consumption vs the brightness of the overhead lighting – that was not part of questions many people would ask, but would make sense if you looked at them from an engineering or environmental science perspective.
Two or three of the other students started talking amongst themselves in Mandarin about this suck-up and how they’d just like him to shut up when the English boy turned to them and ripped them a new a*****e in excellent Mandarin. That helped… for a while, until a few minutes later when I heard them start again, this time in a more obscure Chinese dialect (Foochow, to the curious) about how overly sensitive some people were and couldn’t the guide please just ignore that loudmouthed foreigner, when to my surprise and their mortification, the English boy turned around and ripped them another new one.
tl;dr – There are a couple of recent Xiamen University graduates walking around with three a******s.
Image source: Adingding90, Lifestylememory
#12
I’m the whitest of white girls, but I also spent a few years in East Africa and speak/understand Swahili pretty well. Little kids there loved to scream “mzungu jambo” (“white person” and a grammatically incorrect greeting that tourists mostly used) at me. Until I answered them in Swahili and suddenly got the deference-to-elders greeting they should have used all along.
Image source: DocBEsq, freepik
#13
I live in Washington, DC and between diplomats, armed forces/intel agency members, and tourists you can never tell who can understand what language.
This was a while back before smartphones. A small group of tourists were speaking among themselves trying to figure out how to get to a tourist site. A older, well-dressed African gentleman went up to them and helped them in their native language. I was waiting at the crosswalk next to him afterwards and asked what language they were speaking, he told me it was Russian and he was a diplomat from Nigeria and knew Russian from earlier in his career.
Image source: plsuh
#14
When I was working as a waitress, I think I was around 17, in a café mostly frequented by German tourists (I don’t speak German, so I spoke English to those tables and Czech to the few who weren’t tourists), a French couple came and ordered in English. I didn’t feel like speaking French that day, so I just let them struggle with English a bit. They were talking s**t about the food, the drinks, pretty much everything, which was funny because they acted like everything was fine when I checked on them. When they were paying, I said something like “thank you, have a nice day” in French, and the shock on their faces honestly made my day.
Image source: tryingnottoovershare, dotshock
#15
I was working in London, at the time I was working in a warehouse. I was on my way home on the underground after a night shift. So I was dirty, wearing baggy pants (it was a long time ago). And these 2 women started talking in Afrikaans about how dirty I was and how s**t I looked. When I got off the train I told them to enjoy the rest of their holiday.
Image source: Conatus80, freepik
#16
Yes, though it was something nice so I didn’t let on. She found out later that I could understand what she was saying and blushed quite profusely as it dawned on her that I had understood what she said to her friend before. We became a couple not long after that.
Image source: CumpyGrunt, The Yuri Arcurs Collection
#17
I used to hear it occasionally when I lived in Rio. I speak American English fluently and without a foreign accent. I also speak Portuguese with a Brazilian accent.
I’m very pale and skinny with dyed but natural looking golden copper hair. I’d hear people talking casually about how I was probably a gringa or tourist , etc. Nothing malicious 99% of the time but occasionally I’d hear comments about how I needed some feijoada and a day at the beach. 😅
One day I turned around and said:
“So, you want to give me a sunburn and gas?”
They were not expecting that. I laughed it off because they were looking very uncomfortable and eventually they started laughing too. It was a group of older ladies.
Image source: ItaloTuga_Gabi, marymarkevich
#18
Travelled to India in 2019 for what would turn out to be a harrowing ad filming job, among many of the tasks I had to learn on the fly was how to speak and understand Hindi.
Cut to 2 weeks ago, when one of my situationships needed help picking out a used car from a lot in Milton Keynes (UK). To my surprise towards the end of the sale the salesman starts to speak to his staff in Hindi about how they’re ripping her off, they don’t expect the car to make it back to London, and it doesn’t matter he forgot to fix a vital component. I was also surprised I still understood, but I guess something learnt during a period of stress sticks with you more than most.
After subtly gaining their background by talking to his son (The same area of India I learnt Hindi, incase the dialect was different and I misunderstood) I told the guy (In Hindi) I would greatly appreciate it if he would replace the broken component he was trying to stiff us with and drop the price as compensation for his dishonesty.
After a back and forth that cemented for him I knew exactly what he’d said, and made me feel like I’d just crushed his figurative balls in a vice, he dropped the price significantly, repaired the parts while we waited and apologised enough to make me sick of the word.
Our mechanic said it still shouldn’t have passed its MOT but was glad we got it for the low price.
Image source: Tar-Nuine, senivpetro
#19
😅 so I’m a German line cook working in Brussels, we have an open kitchen where I work so we can usually hear quite clearly what’s being talked about at the nearest tables.
Last week a group of around 10 German speaking customers sat at the table right next to my kitchen, and spent a huge part of their time criticizing “how spicy” and how “there’s too much seasoning” on my dishes (thrust it’s not like that, German people just have the most boring tastes), just before they left I walked passed them wishing them “Einen schönen Abend und Danke für ihre Meinung”.
Image source: Letsforbidadds, peoplecreations
#20
I was in a souq in the middle east, and one of the shopkeeps was talking some s**t about me (Caucasian woman) to the others nearby. The others weren’t saying much at all. I continued poking around, listening to the dude who was clearly bored and having some fun. He did have some items I wanted, but I was going to go with one of the others because he kept running his mouth.
One told me in English how much some perfume bottles were, and I responded in Arabic. *EVERYONE* went silent for a moment, and then everyone but that one shopkeep burst out laughing. One guy asked in Arabic how much Arabic I understood, and I glanced at the rude guy before responding that I understood quite well, thank you, and he cackled and ran off to bring us all some tea. The rest of the shopkeeps there announced that the a*****e would take 50% off everything in his stock for me. Which he did.
We all ended up being friendly after that 😁 And whenever I brought a friend, someone would tell them the story of how I started frequenting their part of the souq.
Image source: Flimsy_Fee8449, angel.nt.111
#21
Not me but my gran. She was evacuated from London to rural wales in the war, she was about 15. Spoke with a clearly south London accent. Some old ladies on the bus were talking badly about her, as the locals tended to do about the evacuees. Didn’t know my gran was raised by her Welsh grandmother and spoke it fluently. She told the old ladies off and walked off the bus with her head held high. She didn’t have much of a short term memory in her later years but still loved telling me that story.
Image source: Super_Ground9690
#22
He was walking by and said “why does this lady have so many plants?!” in Spanish, while I was crouched behind a bush, checking on my plants.
Image source: LadyDreamcatcher, freepik
#23
A white American friend spent time in southern China as a student where he learned to speak Hakka fluently. He was walking through Chinatown in NYC one day when he overheard two guys having a heated argument in Hakka. These guys were on the verge of getting in a physical altercation when my friend walked up and said something to the effect of, “what’s going on here?” in Hakka. They were so gobsmacked that they regained their cool, my friend chatted with both of them for a bit (they were deeply amused by his fluency), and everyone went on their way – fight averted.
Image source: FickleTeaTime, freepik
#24
I used to work as a hostess at a sports bar. A couple girls I had sat near the hostess stand were talking about me in our native language but I’m “Americanized” for our culture so they had no idea I was also their ethnicity. I don’t recall what they were saying because it was well over 10 years ago but it was definitely s**t talking. So when they were leaving, I said bye in our language. They both froze and stared at each other for a second before ducking their heads down and leaving. It was satisfying to see them feel so f*****g stupid.
Image source: Expensive-Ferret-956, Evgenymedia
#25
I was hiking and overheard a group arguing in Japanese whether to take the trail to a lake because the sign said it was two miles away. They were trying to figure out how far in kilometers and deciding if it was too far.
As I walked by, I said in Japanese “it’s .2 miles, not far”
One of them said “that man just spoke to me on Japanese!” And the rest of them said she was silly.
So I turned back and said “It’s 0.2 miles, less than 400 meters” and bowed and left.
Image source: GlassCharacter179, freepik
#26
I was living in London for awhile when a French group of Lyceen started criticising the British. Since I normally speak French, I went up to them and said basically don’t assume that there isn’t at least one person on the bus who doesn’t understand French. S**t, I was embarrassed by their lack of respect. They were too when I finished with them.
Image source: annablssv, Drazen Zigic
#27
When I was in Japan in an antique store and I asked how much the price was in broken Japanese (my understanding is better than my speaking) and the assistant told me. She then turned around to another employee and said “she can’t afford anything in here.” They both laughed but I said “I actually understood that” in Japanese, and walked out. Im sure they were both mortified but I wanted to cry I was so embarrassed!
Image source: LordDessik, senivpetro
#28
I, a white lady, lived in Ghana for a while for work, and picked up enough Twi to get by (exchange pleasantries, ask for directions, haggle for pineapple, etc). It’s pretty unusual to see foreigners in the town I was in, let alone ones who could speak Twi, and I guess word got around.
I was in line at this little shop one morning before work, probably buying some Nescafé or a snack, and the woman in line ahead of me was talking to the shopkeeper. Now I was off in my own little world, likely thinking about buying more pineapple for lunch, so I was only vaguely aware that the woman in front of me kept furtively looking back at me. Finally the shopkeeper stopped her and said, pointing at me, “She speaks Twi, you know.”
The woman’s eyes got huge and she started to stammer out an apology. Again, wasn’t paying attention, no idea what she said, but it obviously wasn’t nice, so I just pretended to graciously accept her apology. Then when I got to the front of the line I thanked the shopkeeper (in Twi) for having my back.
Image source: WhiskyTangoNovember
#29
Not a spectacular story, but this triggers a fun memory.
When I was a kid, we used to go to France for our summer holidays, in the middle of nowhere. Closest town was 6km, there was one neighbour that rented out their villa. As an only child, I was often alone with my parents during those holidays.
When I was 11 or 12, I was lucky. A family with a daughter my age rented the villa, and the daughter and I became friends fast. They were bilingual French/Dutch, I spoke Dutch, basic French and a little bit of English at the time. So most conversations were in Dutch.
At one point, the daughter’s 2 cousins (also our age, but boys) came to visit. I think they lived in South Africa and spoke English and French. Most conversations with them were in French, but they spoke a lot of English between them, especially if they didn’t want us to know what they were saying. It was all quite innocent, like talking about pranks they wanted to pull, kid’s stuff. Although I didn’t speak a lot of English, I could understand most of what they were saying.
At the end of their visit, I was in the swimming pool by myself, under a kind of fountain we created with a hose. One of the boys got in the water and asked “are you good?” To which I responded “yes”. His face was hilarious, you really saw the realisation hit him that I understood him and his brother all along, followed by a very embarrassed exclamation “you can understand us!?!”.
Image source: tine_reddit, freepik
#30
English is my maternal language, and I speak French and Romanian.
Once I was on a train next to a French family who were discussing how incredibly fat Americans were. At one point, I interjected with my most amerloc accent jokingly asking if they knew if the train had a dining cart and they died laughing. I’d lived in France for several years at that point and coincidentally was on my way back to fly the US for the first time in a long time… On my arrival back home, I realized they were right.
Another time I was in a coffee shop in Bucharesti and overheard a woman weighing options about two guys she was dating. The Romanian guy she said she really loved; the American guy she said was annoying, but had money and could help her get a US visa.
Image source: fulthrottlejazzhands, gstockstudio
#31
I was in China going walking towards an event with a crowd of people. There were a couple kids next to me that said in Chinese: “Look, there’s a foreigner”
I turned and looked at them and their eyes got huge, they asked if spoke Chinese and I said a little bit. We started chatting a bit.
As they were talking their mother came up from behind and asked them why they were talking to me, because I didn’t speak Chinese.
I then looked at her, and said in Chinese that I speak a little. She immediately had the same expreothey did.
Fun interaction.
Image source: hcmarlatt
#32
I was more on the opposite end of this, but I vividly remember this time from my childhood when my mum took me along for coffee with some of her friends (all Japanese). There was this white guy at the table next to us with a dog, and while they were nattering away about something, he lashed out with his foot at his dog. My mum and her friends obviously reacted in Japanese, calling him horrible and so on, and this guy randomly said–in perfect Japanese–“Don’t talk about other people like that. You don’t know what I’m going through.”
S**t was wild from start to finish lmao.
Image source: PowerhousePlayer
#33
I was climbing the Monument to the Battle of the Nations in Leipzig, Germany with a group of American students. Someone behind us was complaining in German about the “fat Americans going so slowly” so I replied back in German, “We’re not all so fat!” And it was true, we were a pretty fit group on the whole! .
Image source: NegativeSheepherder
#34
When I was 13 I was excited to hear Spanish. It was grown men sexualizing me. I had been hearing this in English since age 8 but it really made me sad when this happened and I was excited to use my new language skills.
Image source: Ladamadulcinea
#35
Checking some Hispanic women out at the register in a grocery store, they were talking about me in Spanish, and explicitly. Like they were talking about me s******y.
I counted back their change in Spanish.
One of them came back later and things happened.
Image source: otcconan, pch.vector
#36
A father told his daughter to avoid being in my way when I was in a very small convenience store with them. The language isn’t spoken where I live, and I was traveling within my country, so I was surprised to even hear it.
Mine isn’t as interesting as the others, though, more pragmatic!
Image source: guitarplex, pressfoto
#37
I live right at the border of two countries. While most people from my neighboring country speak our language only a few people in my country speak the neighboring country’s language. So once I went to a bakery in the other country with a friend of mine and our kids. It was about 20 minutes before closing time. My friend ordered all the stuff, in our language as she doesn’t speak the other one. Then her son had to take a s**t. There’s a toilet in the bakery for customers. As she went there with her son the woman behind the counter started saying stuff like: be careful it’s slippery. Don’t fall because the floor’s still wet from mopping… And so on. At first we thought she truly worried about the kid but later we realized she just didn’t want to clean the toilet again. Because as soon as they closed the door behind themselves she started ranting to her coworker how rude we are and how our kids are ill-bred. What a bunch of entitled a******s we are for using the bathroom she’d just cleaned, 20 minutes before closing time. So when my friend finally came back with her son I got up and told this lovely lady, perfectly in her language, that maybe she should remember it isn’t a secret language. It’s spoken by many millions of people and I am in fact a teacher for this exact language.
Image source: einfach_ych
#38
Yes on my last trip to Italy this Italian couple were arguing and i was watching them and snickering and the woman made a comment about nosey tourists so i clapped back at her and said sorry i thought this was performance art she told me to f**k off to hell and they just walked off.
Image source: BRKraggaza
#39
I lived in China for awhile. My ex is Chinese. Sometimes when he wasn’t with us people would start picking apart our kids features to decide if they were Chinese or not. I would answer in Chinese, “ Their dad’s Chinese.” They would quickly walk away. My ex thought I should tell them they were some Chinese leader’s love children but I never had the nerve.
Image source: eniels-mom
#40
Usually it’s nothing. Something like, “Why are they waiting at the light?” at a crosswalk or something. I did have one where some younger lab techs said “That one has a nice a*s,” and, “I’d hit it,” and general statements about my appearance while on break until I thanked them in their language as the elevator door closed.
Also had a guy once b***h that nobody from the US knows about the politics of their (not US) country. He was pissed when I knew more about not only his federal but state government as well than he did.
Generally, I approach it as, “I’m going to be friendly, but you need to learn to not assume, because it’ll get you in trouble.”.
Image source: Lovesquid28
#41
I found out my boyfriend (long ago) was cheating on me when his friends were discussing it in German. They immediately caught on that I knew what they were talking about by the look on my face. The one guy goes, “S**t, you know German don’t you?” I told him that I knew enough to understand. Needless to say, that guy quickly became my ex.
Image source: MAGarron
#42
This was about 6 or 7 years ago, i was in mexico at a restaurant with my brother in law, we always speak english together, he is mexican, i am not
Anyway, the place was packed, we were sitting at a table for 6 people and it was just the 2 of us, an elderly couple asked if they can sit with us, my brother in law said yes
So they sit down, the older gentleman looks at me and says
OG : hello
Me: hello
OG: do you like mexico
Me: yes i do
OG: good, do you like mexican people
Me: yes i do
OG: do you like mexican food
Me: yes
He looked at my brother in law and said
OG: Donde encontraste el gringo/ where did you find the american
BIL: El es mi cuñado y también habla español/ he is my brother in law and speaks spanish
He looked at me and said hola
Him and his wife did not say a word after that lol.
Image source: ElGuero93
#43
I was climbing down a mountain in Japan talking in French to my companion and a German girl behind us on the narrow path complained we were talking too slow. As she walked past when there was finally a spot for me to step aside to let them my companion told me what she said and I couldn’t help but exclaim „Achsoooo“ which is German for „oh I see!“.
Image source: NegotiationStatus727
#44
I was in Germany with my Mom visiting my Onkel. Mind you, I’m an American citizen, but German is my first language. I speak both fluently and daily. The three of us were on the bus coming back from my Onkels doctor appointment. I was saying something in English to my mom because the medical terminology escaped me for a minute. We hear these older teen/young adults that were sitting in front of us talking s**t about how I’m a dumb American and should get out of their country.
These f*****g morons decided to “show off” their English skills (English is still very commonly taught in school). Their English was BAD, like they must have been asleep in class bad. So I start correcting their English while speaking German. I then said I might be a dumb American, but at least I speak both languages fluently AND correctly.
Image source: wyntr86
#45
My husband accidentally stepped on an older gentleman‘s foot and heard him mutter “Pies de payaso “ clown feet in Spanish .
Image source: Flamingo83
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