Stop pretending you don't speak English.

[Gurndigarn]

my dad does not speak French but the person kept speaking French. My dad repeated to the guy that he could not speak French and would be unable to help him.

Then the SC, replies, in PERFECT ENGLISH: "well fine, I'll take my business somewhere else!"

WTF?? Why not just speak english from the beginning.

If you're in North America, there are a fair number of French Quebecians who try to use language as a way of trying to avoid contamination/assimilation by the rest of the continent. They may understand English, but refuse to sully their lips with it.

[Ironclad Alibi]

If you're in North America, there are a fair number of French Quebecians who try to use language as a way of trying to avoid contamination/assimilation by the rest of the continent. They may understand English, but refuse to sully their lips with it.

A friend of mine ran into that problem once. So he started talking to them in Hungarian. All of a sudden they could speak English.

[solidmetalgear19]

As far as this goes, I believe in the idea that if one moves to my country (or any country where English is primarily spoken) Then that person should be obligated to learn the language of the country.

On the flip side, If I go to a foreign country, then I should take steps to learn that country's language.

Other than that, I don't feel like I should have to accomodate anyone who can't understand me.

[MadMike]

Something like that happened on the cruise ship once. My wife and I were doing a round of mini golf. We were on the green, when suddenly a ball sailed right past us. Some kid had just played, despite the fact we were still playing the hole. And his stupid mother was standing right there letting him. My wife tried to say something to her, but the twit pretended she didn't speak english. My wife wasn't buying it for a second.

[imakemistakestoo]

My daughter took two years of Spanish in high school but doesn't remember a lot of it. She did know someone that did speak Spanish and through them she learned a lot of swear words and derogatory remarks and seems to be able to remember all that with no problems lol.
She went shopping one day and when she came back and told me what had happen I couldn't help but laugh. She told me a group of Hispanic men were there and every time she passed them they would say something to her. She let it go a couple of times and made it look like she didn't know what they were saying. The third time she went past them and they said something she said something back to them in Spanish. I asked her what she said and she told me I didn't want to know but the looks that came over their faces were a Kodack moment. She said they shut up in a hell of a hurry and moved away from where she was.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

If you're in North America, there are a fair number of French Quebecians who try to use language as a way of trying to avoid contamination/assimilation by the rest of the continent. They may understand English, but refuse to sully their lips with it.

Yeah the described events happened in Canada and in fact I grew up in Ottawa, right across the river from Quebec, so you are probably spot on.

[AlmightyALT]

I live in Japan and once I went on a trip to Tokyo with a few friends. There were four Western-looking people, and an Asian guy. Every time we would go somewhere the Japanese people would speak Japanese to the Asian guy, who's a Chinese-Canadian! Then they would totally surprised when the German girl in our group would break out her fluent Japanese. We laughed a lot that day.

[Blckroses]

The video rental store I used to work at was in a area of town with a high Hispanic population. I had this woman come in one time and ask me "tu habla Espanol?" to which I said no, she then proceeded to talk to me in perfect English. I hated that. The people who honstly didn't speak English would attempt to communicate, I would use my limited Spanish vocabulary and they would use their limited English vocabulary and we would meet halfway. The people who speak English and want me to speak to them in Spanish just tick me off. I shouldn't have to learn a new language because you don't feel like speaking the language of the country you're in.

[Boozy]

The video rental store I used to work at was in a area of town with a high Hispanic population. I had this woman come in one time and ask me "tu habla Espanol?" to which I said no, she then proceeded to talk to me in perfect English. I hated that.

I don't see the suck here. She asked a question, you answered in the negative, and then she switched to English. Presumably, the rest of the transaction went along normally.

Just a general note about this thread: I am pleased to see that it's been relatively politics-free. Let's keep it that way.

[blas]

Where I live, we have a lot of Hmong people, and a lot work at the factory. One time I was training this little Hmong girl who had just been speaking in her native language to an older Hmong man, then she came up to me and started talking in tongues and I said "What?!" and she said "Oh I'm so sorry I forgot!"

It was cute.