I rarely feel it's rude when others speak another language in front of me...

[Locut0s]

It seems a lot of people feel it's rude when others speak their own language in front of others but I rarely feel this. There is ONE instance where I do and that's when my parents sometimes use Chinese to very OBVIOUSLY talk behind someone's back about things like the cost of something, that I find embarrassing. However I've noticed people are offended in much more benign cases like the staff of a store chating among themselves. People think they are being talked about but I've never been uncomfortable with this. Perhaps it comes from growing up in a household where we used 2 languages freely and interchangeably?

[cliffordu]

1. I only speak American English. American cursewords, mostly.

It REALLY fucking annoys me to have people talking around me, English, or not.

And, because I am so self centered, I automatically assume people speaking other languages are ridiculing me for not having enough couth, or that my fly is unzipped, or I look like their subnormal escaped brother in law, or some fucking thing.

If they laugh, I get REALLY pissed off.

[RebelOne]

2. I agree. When I lived in Miami, I worked for various companies,

and the Cuban-American women would speak Spanish to each other even though there would be a room full of English speaking American women. It would piss me off immensely. I considered it totally rude, but I did not complain because I did not wish to cause any damage to employee relations.

[pipi_k]

3. Doesn't usually

Bother me either

My DIL's parents are immigrants. When they're at my son's house, perhaps with a few more of the cousins, etc., they switch back and forth between Polish and English.

[Throd]

4. I love it when Mexicans say rude racist shit assuming I don't speak Spanish.

99% of the time they are talking about the same mundane things everyone else talks about, but in a few instances, I have overheard some pretty inflammatory things said about myself or others.

[a la izquierda]

5. I'm fluent Mexican Spanish and English.

It annoys the piss out of some people when I switch over to Spanish. Once, I was speaking with a girlfriend, and one of our colleagues said, "Isn't it so cute, you two have your own secret little language." I was not happy.
On the other hand, it sort of blows people away when I switch to Spanish. I'm pretty white (though I am part Spanish).

[Neoma]

17. One of my yoga instructors accidentally slipped into Spanish.

Someone said,"Are those real words?" Because white people can only know English?

[Rowdyboy]

6. The female owner of my favorite liquor store is Pakastani. She's often on the phone....

chattering away in her native dialect when I check out. She smiles, I smile, she gives me a total, I swipe my card and sign the receipt. Why should I be offended?

If she was speaking English I wouldn't be any more interested in her conversation nor offended. She's probably just giving her kids hell or talking to her husband.

[olddots]

7. what makes me mad is the "Americans" who barley speak one language

get frantic when other people can speak two languages .

[AsahinaKimi]

8. Honto ni?

iiyo!! subarashii ne!!! Locut0s san wa totemo yasashii desuyo!! Honto desu!!

[Locut0s]

10. I took a year of Japanese in High School and learned nothing :(...

I speak Mandarin without and accent (mother is Chinese), but have forgotten most of the vocabulary. It's embarrassing I could have learned enough Japanese during those HS classes to have had some fun. But I was lazy and stupid about some things at the time.

[AsahinaKimi]

20. its okay!

I said.. really? Its great, and you are very nice, really!

[nomorenomore08]

9. On the other hand, I get slightly embarrassed when people can speak/type decent English

as a second/third/whatever language. Considering I'm pretty much monolingual, aside from a small amount of Spanish.

[SwissTony]

11. Groetjes uit Nederland

If we're in another country, my wife and I will talk in Dutch but only if we want to say something we don't want other people to know e.g. how much money we have on us. Almost never about other people. Example of when we did...we were in Paris in May and some scruffy looking dude was watching me closely. He started to approach me. My wife warned me in Dutch, but I had already spotted him and was trying to avoid him. I was surrounded by 3 or 4 "unsavory" types. Turned out they were undercover Customs agents, carrying out (presumably) random checks.

The title means "Greetings from Holland".

[Locut0s]

12. Greetings! :D...

Yes our family has used Chinese in very similar circumstances as well, My parents will use Chinese to talk about the bill at a restaurant if they don't want others to hear some discussion about amounts, tips and the like.

[tanyev]

13. I had a roommate who was a school teacher.

It was a little private school that paid crap salary. So she signed up at a temp agency for summer work. They found her a long term position at a paper company in an older part of town. She came home one evening and told how she lectured everybody in the break room that it was rude for them to speak Spanish to each other. This was on their lunch break. Did I mention that this happened in San Antonio?

My reaction:

[sammytko]

16. I live in the area,I don't mind if people speak their native tongue

I do mind when people give me the eye roll when I have a hard time speaking Spanish. What's the big deal?

Heck, I like going to the Asian mani-pedi place because they don't expect you to make small talk.

You do your thing, they do theirs. You talk with your friend, they talk to their co-worker. If they laugh at your snaggle toed foot, who cares.

[CTyankee]

14. my grandson has fluent Italian as he was placed in a foreign language immersion school at age 5.

He looks more like a blue eyed, blond Swede so hearing him speak perfect Italian (with a Roman accent I am told since his teacher was from Rome) puzzles people. Occasionally, when he is with a few of his classmates, they will burst from perfect, unaccented American English into Italian (usually to talk some strategy at a game without the other kids knowing what they were up to!). It can be a little jarring to anyone watching this transpire on the playground...

[SwissTony]

15. I'm a Glaswegian born Australian.

I find it difficult to talk to other Scots without using my Glaswegian accent...it just kicks in. Despite the fact that I left Scotland in 1961 at the age of 10, I still have an accent that can scrape paint off walls. I've spoken with an Australian accent for many years and it comes as a shock to my Australian friends when I suddenly break into a Glaswegian accent.

[CTyankee]

19. I'm just the opposite. I was raised in Texas but left to go to college at age 17...

I went north and my Texas accent faded away. I couldn't regain it if I tried...

[Neoma]

18. The people at my favorite restaurant speaks Mandarin all the time.

On the phone and to customers who also speak Mandarin. They also translate our English speaking orders into Chinese characters for the cooks. Nothing wrong with that.

However my aunt and uncle who speaks Spanish, almost seems to purposely be rude about it. They use it like they're whispering...

[RebelOne]

21. My daughter is a teacher at a South Florida school,

which has many Hispanic students. They don't think she knows any Spanish. They are wrong because she has sent many students to the principal's office for using obscene Spanish language to her thinking she didn't know what they were saying. She grew up in Miami, FL, and knows quite a bit of Spanish, especially offensive words.

[alarimer]

22. Only if it's a work-related situation

And they're saying something about work. It would be rude to complain about your boss, say, in another language, right in front of him, for example. But people just chit-chatting, no I don't care about that.

If I'm in a work place where the majority language (or even a substantial minority) is something other than English, I will do my best to learn at least some of that language. It would be a good way to connect with coworkers or customers.

[eShirl]

23. mom-in-law and her mom used to speak French and dad-in-law couldn't

They'd have a long conversation, and one time in particular dad-in-law went in the next room and asked DH, who was a kid at the time, what they were saying? DH told his dad, "She said you have a tiny dick." Dad-in-law went back and told mom-in-law, "He said you were talking about that I have a tiny dick." Mom-in-law translated that for her mom, and they both sat there giggling. Dad-in-law, standing there while they giggled: "Well?"

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. My father was of Norwegian descent and married into my mother's family, which

drifted between German and English at family gatherings. (Some of the first generation were still alive at the time, and they had raised their children to speak German at home.)

Did my dad complain?

No, he learned German. Problem solved.

[REP]

24. I feel envy and admiration

My Spanish is decent; I speak enough Mandarin to make small talk (and find a bathroom) and can read several languages okay, but I'm only fluent in English. I really admire and am deeply envious of polyglots.

[Iggo]

25. That sounds about right

I speak fluent American English and I speak decent enough Spanish. I'm used to people switching back and forth between two languages. It doesn't bother me when someone else does it...even if I don't understand the one they slip into.

[ashling]

26. I am terrible at math,

but I don't think it is rude when someone can do complicated calculations in their head. Speaking another language is the same thing. I admire the fact that they can.

There were some rednecks where I used to work that would get all bent out of shape about people speaking Spanish around them. One of them who used terrible grammar said she thought that they ought to be shot. I told her that before she started shooting people who spoke Spanish she should probably learn to speak her own language properly.

[Earth_First]

27. This.

Many who are quick to draw assumptions and become 'offended' are often the worst offenders..

[antiquie]

29. Many nurseries

in SoCal in the early-mid eighties posted where employees could not miss it:
SPEAK SPANISH, GET PAID IN PESOS.

Sick and sad.

[noamnety]

28. I can't comprehend why people think it's rude.

"It's just polite for everyone to go out of their way to make it easy for me to eavesdrop on their private conversations!"

Some people don't grasp that eavesdropping is rude. Unavoidable sometimes, but rude to act like it's your right, and their obligation to make sure you're able.

We've turned into a whole country of NSA wannabees.

[MrScorpio]

30. My wife talks to me in Dutch out in public

We've never had anyone have a problem with it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

32. If you have ever lived in a foreign country, you know that it is simply easier

to speak to people from your native country in your native language.

I lived in Japan. Did I speak Japanese to other Americans?

When put that way, it sounds absurd, doesn't it?

So why shouldn't Latinos speak Spanish to other Latinos?