30 People Share Their "They Didn't Realize I Spoke Their Language" Stories And They're Hilarious

While I'm Spanish, I don't quite look like the stereotypical Spaniard: light skin colour, blondeish, green eyes... When I was living in London I got into several situations like that. The top one was on the tube back home. I think there was a football game (Chelsea - Barcelona) and this couple was going to the stadium and I was standing just besides them. Tube had a hard stop and I accidentally fell a bit over one of them. I apologised in English as I didn't realise they were Spaniards too. They started talking to each other saying "this f***ing fat c**t nearly smashed in the ground" and things of the sort for almost 5 minutes. When they left the tube and he looked at me one last time laughing I told him in perfect Spanish "enjoy the game, you little piece of s**t". His face going pale as the doors were closing was enough satisfaction for a week.

Oh I LOVE this one: So I was working at a dental clinic in Germany, and these 2 guys walk in and start speaking in arabic, not knowing that both I and my supervisor can understand it. The first guy (actual patient) is nervously telling his friend and this would never work, and his friend is telling him to shut up and play along, so the supervisor and I try to figure out what kinda game they're trying to play. Apparently, they were trying to lie about the patient's age to get his dental treatment done for free; (I dont know how that worked, I was just an intern) unlucky for him, his teeth told the truth (you cant fake being 16 when your wisdom teeth are ALL THE WAY out)
So me and my supervisor shut up about it, and I'm in actual pain trying to hold back from laughing as the friend is convincing the patient that we're idiots who dont speak arabic and cant understand their trick. Of course until i cant anymore and decide to discuss the case with my supervisor. Right there in front of them. In arabic.
I have never seen someone turn so many different colours so fast.

Famous story by my grandfather who spoke Arabic and French.
He was in Kuwait with his wife and 20 dollars to his name, applying for a job with a big hotel company I believe the Marriott. He interviews all in Arabic and he waits in the lobby to talk to the final guy for the job. Two of his previous interviewers walk past him and say in French “what’s he still doing here he didn’t get the job?” My grandfather then stands up and says “if I didn’t get the job why did you have me sit and wait here for no reason?” They look back at him and say “you speak French? You are hired”. One of my favorites!

The people at the Chinese food place on my campus spoke Chinese to the door exchange students. But even tho I spoke Chinese I just always spoke English to them since I have an accent when I speak Chinese. But one day I got all meat no rice since I had a rice maker at home. And when I was paying the lady says to the person beside her "fat ass wants meat no rice". And I responded in Chinese, "actually I have rice at home". They didn't charge me for the order and started giving me a bit extra whenever I go there

I'm a Mexican who speaks Hebrew fluently. I was actually in the US in a deli around the time when the World Cup was going on in 2014. I was wearing a National team jersey and had been watching with family. We usually paint the colors of our flag on our cheeks (tradition). The game was over and we were getting food. So my parents, brother and I walk into a booth. We sit and the people behind us (three middle aged women) start speaking in Hebrew saying: "look at these stupid Mexicans (which should have been a giveaway since the word for Mexicans in Hebrew is "mexicanim") being loud and thinking they own the place. Typical". Well, I turn around look at them and answer in Hebrew: "yes we are very proud of our country and the great job they are doing at the World Cup. If it bothers you, you can move". The look on their faces was priceless. I've never felt so empowered...until Mexico did a s**t job and got eliminated from the cup.

I'm half Chinese, quarter English, quarter Irish, and was born and raised in London - I don't look particularly British (or indeed Chinese), but I definitely look "foreign". In the wake of Brexit, I happened to be on the phone to my mother (Chinese) while on the train commuting into work, so I was speaking Mandarin. While on the phone to her, I overheard some little prick grumbling about "the f***ing Chinese in this country, Brexit borders immigrants Muslims Polish builders taking our jobs stealing our benefits rarararararagrgghhhh" or whatever - but the word chink came into it a couple times, too. Clearly this man had been emboldened by the vote to leave the EU and felt justified in airing his racism, feeling there were lots of like-minded others. English very much being my first language, I turned to him and just said, "you f***ing what mate?" in my clearly-from-south-London accent. At this point he immediately started to backpedal, and said I was "alright" because I was "one of us", whatever the f**k that meant. So I got called out for being a foreigner in my own country, which is both amusing and sad.

We had a large family reunion dinner at a restaurant and we were all sharing stories. My funny Uncle was telling us how he used to pretend he was deaf and his sister would translate. To prove it, he asked the waitress to get the manager. When he came over, my Uncle started signing to him...with made up and exaggerated gestures. My Aunt told him that the food was good and the server was excellent...all the while the manager just smiled and nodded. When they were done “talking”, the manager said in sign language, he spoke ASL and knew it was BS. We blew up laughing and my Uncles face turned beet red.

My family and I went to Sri Lanka for two weeks to see where my mom grew up and general beach stuff. For some reason we were like the only people in the hotel we were staying at aside from a wedding party that left a day after we got there.
A few days in there was another family staying there, I believe from Suriname and we were all chilling at the pool and decided to play a game of water polo against each other. Things got exciting and one of the daughters yelled out something in Dutch like "go for the big fat guy!", my Dutch dad replied "what big fat guy?", And everybody laughed.
Just a simple story but it was pretty sweet.

While sitting in a Starbucks in Brooklyn (not the trendy part of Brooklyn) a couple sitting next to me started saying pretty racist antisemitic comments ( i wear a yarmulke) in swiss german with a distinct lucerne region accent. The looks on their faces when I greeted them in the Lucerne dialect definitely made hearing their abuse so worth it :)

I was in Paris and overheard these two women mocking me for being a "fat American pig." I turned to them & smiled sweetly & said " je parle français vous chattes" (i speak french you c***s). That shut them up.