Being bilingual comes with its advantages, including the ability to understand and communicate in multiple languages. However, there are moments when bilingual individuals find themselves in a unique position to confront someone who is talking trash about them in another language, unaware that they can understand every word.
In this collection of stories, we delve into the experiences of bilinguals who share the satisfying moments when they shut down someone talking negatively about them in another language. From surprising encounters to empowering confrontations, these accounts highlight the power of language and the gratifying feeling of turning the tables on those who underestimate their linguistic abilities.
Join us as we explore the tales of bilingual individuals who seized the opportunity to silence their detractors and reclaim their power through language. Get ready to be inspired, amused, and reminded of the strength that comes with bilingualism and cultural understanding.
All content has been edited for clarity.
Calling Her Rude After That Is Wild
“I look mixed. I’m fully Cambodian but I’ve been confused with being mixed. When I was 7, I went with my mom to her doctor in Long Beach, which is a mainly Cambodian-populated area.
My mom went inside her doctor’s office, leaving me in the waiting room. As soon as the office door closed, these two old Cambodian ladies start talking sh*t in Khmer saying how she’s a single mom (she’s not), and how she had a Black baby (me) and that’s such a shame because she ‘made my life miserable.’ They also said my skin color was ugly, etc.
I just sat quietly, looking at them until one realized, ‘Oh snap, maybe she understands Khmer,’ and asked me, ‘Hey, do you know your dad?’
I just replied back in our language, ‘Yeah and he’s at home waiting for us. And we have the same skin color so that means yours is ugly too.’
Both of their faces dropped it was great and they had the audacity to tell my mom that I was rude when she came out.”
Self Awareness Is Key
“I am a straight guy and my bilingual friend is gay. We were in college for summer school 20+ years ago and everyone taking classes stayed in the same old dormitory. It was a school with a lot of international students who had even greater representation in the summer because they typically didn’t fly home for just three months. My friend had a computer, I didn’t, so he told me I could go into his room any time and use it if he didn’t need it at the time.
My friend was white but had spent a number of his childhood years in Japan and spoke Japanese like a native. We were talking and walking down the hall toward his room and two Japanese exchange students began talking to one another in Japanese, looking at us and snickering.
My friend looked over and started dressing them down in absolutely perfect Japanese and they were horrifically embarrassed. They began profusely apologizing and hurriedly walking away. I turned to my buddy, ‘What did they say?’
‘They were making some disparaging remarks about your s*x life, so I told them they were wrong and not to be rude,’ he said. Then he quipped, ‘They were making some disparaging remarks about my s*x life, too, but those were all true.'”
I Hope They Both Learned Their Lesson
“I’m fairly tattooed and I was working in retail in a shoe shop at the time. I was serving a very rude woman and her daughter, both of whom clearly thought they were better than me and every time they asked for shoes they told me (in English) that I was very slow to fetch them and bad at my job. I was only on like my third shift.
The atmosphere turned pretty sour because obviously they were being rude and it annoyed me, and as I was boxing up the shoes they wanted, the mother turned and said to her daughter something like, ‘Don’t ever get tattoos, this is the kind of person that has them, working in retail with absolutely no brains and tattoos reflect that! bla bla bla’ in Italian.
I simply replied ‘Non sono d’accordo, ma grazie’ (I disagree, but thank you.)
She looked absolutely humiliated and quickly left!”
That’s Scumbag Behavior
“I went to the park with my sister when I was younger. We look very white and no one would know both of us to speak Mandarin fluently unless we told them.
Some money must’ve fallen out of my sister’s pocket and in Mandarin we heard a mother talking to her daughter and telling her not to let us know we dropped money so that they could pick it up after we left.
Both of us turned around straight away and my sister picked up her money while both of us gave them dirty looks and we changed our conversation to Mandarin. The look of horror on both of their faces will forever be burned into my head.”
The Worst Way To Find Out You’re Learning
“I was living in Barcelona and dating a Swedish girl about 10 years ago. I got really into studying Swedish and watching Swedish films and learning vocabulary and stuff. So we went on vacation to Portugal with her roommate over the summer, and we were on the beach. I was listening to a conversation that they were having between themselves, and honestly not understanding much of it.
But then, in this moment of pure clarity, I heard my girlfriend say, ‘Sometimes I look at him and I just think why??’
Oh man, I confronted her about it, and I’ve never seen someone turn so red in my life.
She was a really rich girl from Sthlm, trying hard (and failing) to be less boring by coming to live in Barcelona. I was 22 and completely insane; dreadlocks, I went out every night, I would do all kinds of substances, and a lot of the time, I would wake up next to other girls.
Half of the time I would look at myself in the mirror and think, ‘Why??’
Which is to say, I wasn’t really surprised that she had said it, I was much more surprised that I had understood it.”
