50 Of The Best And Worst Things Bilinguals Heard Someone Say When They Thought Nobody Would Understand Them

In high school, I spent a month in Germany as an exchange student. The family had a son my age. Everyone I met commented on the fact that they had never met an American who could speak German. Until they met me.

One night I shortly after I arrived, I was at a party. Two girls about my age sat down close to me and started talking. I tried to look oblivious.

Girl1 (In German): Isn't that the American boy staying with Peter?

Girl2 (German): Yes. He's rather cute, yes?

Girl1 (German): Yes! I'm going to say something!

Girl1 (English): Hey! Aren't you the American staying with Peter? I'm Birgitte, and this is Hilde.

Me (In German): Yes, I am! It's nice to meet you both!

They both turned bright red. It was one one of the funnest trips I've ever had.

I'm bilingual (going tri-lingual) and I have a full traditional Japanese sleeve.


Day before thanksgiving was at a Korean/Chinese jjajangmyeon restaurant. My family and I sat down and behind me, there was a kid...maybe 10/11 and saw my sleeve. His eyes got BIG and told his mom "im going to get tattoos" in his native tongue (which I speak as well). Mom was shocked and stated "if you get tattoos, you'll end up homeless, nobody will like you, you wont have a job, and you'll be a criminal." I turned around and said "I have a career, have a BIG house, and am not a criminal" She turned very red with embarrassment, got her order, asked them to pack it for her and they left. My family and I had a good laugh.

Sometimes my students forget I speak Russian, and start saying stuff that is way inappropriate for English class. The best was when this one boy, who always finishes his work early and fidgets around with things, was pretending to swallow a pencil. Another boy, who thinks he's very funny, said in Russian, "I always knew you could deep-throat."

That kid turned a beautiful color when I reminded him I could understand.

Not me, but a teacher of mine

Teacher, who spoke both fluent French and fluent German, was on a horse drawn tour of a city, sitting in the center row of the carriage.

A French couple sat in the rear row, and a German couple with small children sat in the front.

The children were tired and cold and making a small fuss, but nothing outrageous.

The French couple started insulting the parents and children in French, snidely. The German family didn't speak French and had no idea what was going on, trying to soothe their children and enjoy the ride.

Teacher scolds the French couple in French, saying something along the lines of "if you two bitter people ever manage to hold this relationship together, you'll likely be in the same situation one day. Show some decorum."

Teacher then turned to German couple and, in German, reiterated what the French were saying about them and what he said in return.

The German couple asked him to convey their apologies, their hotel room wasnt ready and the children hadn't eaten yet, and they were killing time until they could check in. That they were sorry for disrupting their evening.

Teacher did. French couple looked embarrassed. Teacher spent the rest of the evening visiting with the German family in German.

I'm from Hungary and I lived in Germany for a few years as an au pair. I was honestly surprised how many times I heard random Hungarians. They never said anything offensive or rude about others, just...swore a lot, really loudly. I almost never swear in English (a sad lack of variety) but when my friend visited after 6 months, and I could finally talk with someone from home, I did the exact same thing! Maybe it's a cultural thing.

I speak mandarin, heard some weird stuff,
“I wouldn’t marry you if you owned all the kittens in the world” overheard in a restaurant was great. But I also speak some French, and while in Baltimore airport, I overheard a little girl, who was pointing at a huge preying mantis on the window and say “it’s not going to come on the airplane is it?” Adorable.

So I speak like 1.2 languages English and Japanese. My Japanese is poor but gets me around town, let's me be pleasant in the most basic conversation, order food and beer, and try to pick up girls.

I was on a bus in Australia one time and overheard the two girls on the bus say something along the lines of "those guys are cute/cool". I responded with something of along the lines" Thanks! You're cute too. Would you like to drink beer with us?" In Japanese. They were shocked! They did not get a beer with us be I did get her phone number. Fortunately for me, her English is much better than my Japnesee and we did meet up after!

Well, as an Italian I overheard many American tourists diss my town, the service workers and many other things.

But the most fun I had was abroad when two thugs talked badly about me and my father in our face (even with sporadic eye contact) in a second-generation-immigrant-esque version of Italian while we were touring NYC.
Boy did they look surprised...

I worked in the field building houses for a couple years. I'm a pale, freckled, irish-american that looks as white as they come but I speak spanish very well. On my first day at a new jobsite, our gas for the generator went missing. I asked the framers if they saw anything and one guy says to his coworker in spanish "Thats the gas we used for our van yesterday"but then said "No" in english.



I went and gave him a straw from my car and told him he better put it back!

I‘m from Switzerland and I can speak German and English.

One summer my friend invited me to a vacation to Florida. Pretty much at the beginnning of that vacation her family and I went to a McDonalds for quick bite. We had to wait a little but there was this really cute cashier there. My friend and I were openly talking about how cute he was in Swiss-German, which is basically just an dialect even some Germans don‘t understand. So we did that a lot in Florida.

Well the line moved eventually and we were in front of that cashier. He smiled at us and asked us if were from Switzerland. We nodded and then he told us how his family used to have mainly Au-Pairs from Switzerland and he knew some German. We went red and he thought it was very funny and was flattered. At least I hope so lol.

I'm from Sweden so everyone assumes that I speak English and I do speak English. it's a bit different tho when I'm in Spain and some people there talk s**t about me and then I speak Spanish to my friend just make them feel uncomfortable.

I took a youth group to Six Flags. We had extra tickets from a couple of no-shows, so I decided to scalp them.

A Korean family walked up and I made my pitch. They conferred together in Korean. I'm a white guy, but I lived in rural Korea for a year and bargained with a lot of shopkeepers, so I knew their counter-offer and what they were willing to pay before they announced it in English.

I was sitting in my grandmother's living room. I hadn't been there since I was 7(I'm 19 in this story) and had said nothing as at that time I was a quiet introvert. My two aunts were talking about how I was "A stupid American" and "How I never could understand the language of my family". I then smiled and said "You know I understood everything you just said, right?" They didn't talk to me for a while after that.

I can speak in English,French,German and Turkish.

I have heard a lot of french speaking tourists especially males comment about me(and I am 23M) about my look my body etc. When I say "merci beaucoup" when I pass by their side they usually freeze.It is really giving me the most fun time I have.

On a transatlantic flight I had a row to myself. In the air the flight attendant asked me to switch with a couple who didn’t have an extra seat for their baby. No problem. Then they moved me again for some reason. After I sat down the lady across the aisle asked me to switch with her boyfriend, who was one row ahead of me. I let out a deep sigh and she told me not to worry about it.

The food service came and on reflection I realized it wasn’t a huge deal to move again so I decided I’d offer after the flight attended cleared the trays. Then they started talking to each other in French and called me fat and lazy. So I stayed in my seat.

The weird thing is this was an Air Canada flight. Most Canadians aren’t bilingual but know enough to understand the insults. They weren’t being very secretive.

I used to work at a name brand retail store. This attracts a lot of Chinese clients as Chinese people are really big on name brand products.
Most of our Chinese clients are tourists or people who've moved to the US later in life and don't speak that well and prefer to speak in Chinese. I hate dealing with actual Chinese clients because their manners are usually not the best and once they know you speak Chinese they start demanding lots of stuff from you.
So at work, I avoided speaking Chinese as much as possible, leading to me to insulted many times by them thinking I don't understand. I've been called all kinds of profanities and blamed for cheaping them out and not giving them better prices or free stuff(this is a retail store not the street market).
I usually don't confront these people but one time this older lady in her 70s yelled "HURRY UP" to my face in Chinese. He daughter turns to her and told her even if you tell her to hurry up she can't understand you. Only reason why it was taking longer than usual was because she wanted me to individually wrap everything she bought. So I decided to take my time, give her the shopping bag and said "慢走" which is a formal greeting Chinese people use when people are leaving their house/store.
I'll never forget the old lady's face when I said that.

I’m half korean, and can understand fluent Korean and can only respond in simple Korean or I just respond in English. But I was eating by myself in a korean restaurant and the servers were speaking korean, literally badmouthing me. I just looked up at them as soon as they were talking among themselves about me, and they noticed and just dispersed / went separate ways. I’ve talked to other half korean folks I know and we’ve all talked about similar experiences of full korean folks badmouth, all the while them not realizing we understand what they’re saying. It’s embarrassing.

Edit: I didn’t think this was going to blow up! I have been told that I look more white than korean. I have blue hair, some nostril piercings and I don’t remember what I wore that day but that’s what they were talking about! They were talking about my appearance. Unfortunately this was just a recent example, i used to hear more comments when I was younger. I think people are more open minded now, interracial couples werent as accepting back then like it is now imo! But this was purely people not realizing I can understand them when they’re speaking their native tongue.

English-French
Walking around in New York with my gay cousin who lives there, some french tourist points out my cousins nails and says to his family:

“Regarde moi ça, ya vraiment des mecs bizarres ici”
“Get à load of this guy’s nails, there’s really some weird people here”

We both turned and starting bombarding the dude with “ya un problem?” And asked him why are his nails a problem to your life (in French)

His baffled face was worth it.

I work in the utility industry. I had a guy I was working with trying to get new service to his residence. During one of our meetings he was on his cell phone when I got there. He continued talking for a few minutes then said something along the lines of "I've got to go, that stupid white boy is here". He was laughing on the phone then looked at me. The look on my face must have told him I understood everything he said, because he got stone sober professional.

My wife's family asked her " I thought you didn't date white guys" She says "He's Mexican and he understood you." I smiled and nodded. After that, I was repeatedly asked If I'm sure I'm not white.