Have you ever heard people speaking another language around you and wondered if they’re talking about you? The odds are pretty likely based on these stories. Luckily for these folks, they understood the language and called people out for talking smack! You might just want to learn another language after hearing what these people were saying. This content has been edited for clarity.
“Was This My Incredible India?”
“I pressed the button for floor number thirteen. The only other occupants of the lift were two cute girls, who were talking to each other in a highly fake American accent. On the fifth floor, the lift stopped, the door opened, and I was surprised to see an African man standing in front of us. It’s true that Delhi (India) is a favorite destination of international tourists, but people of African origin are still a rare sight.
The lift was again on its way.
I turned my attention back to the girls. Suddenly, one of them started signaling the other, making big round eyes, first pointing toward her, and then toward the African guy. For a second, the second girl seemed confused, but then she realized what her friend was trying to point to and both of them burst into silent giggles. I felt really bad for the African guy, who seemed strangely calm. He didn’t seem to mind at all. Emboldened by this, the two girls began talking loudly, but this time, they strategically switched to Hindi.
One girl said, ‘Kitna bhadda lag raha hai ye kalua!’ (He’s so ugly, this man!)
The other one responded, ‘Haan, sahi kaha. Baal dekh iske, jaise ghungrali ghas ugi ho sir pe.’ (Yep, you’re right. Look at his hair. Looks like his head is covered with curly grass.)
At this, both of them again started guffawing with tears in their eyes.
The first girl said, ‘Itni badsurat shakal kisi ki kese ho sakti hai!’ (How can somebody have such an ugly face!)
I was really embarrassed. Was this my incredible India?
The lift stopped. The African guy adjusted his backpack and proceeded to step out. Then suddenly, he turned around, and in impeccable Hindi, he said,
‘Badsurat dil hone se to badsurat shakal hona achha hai!’ (It’s better to have an ugly face than an ugly heart!)
And then, he was gone.
The expression of utter shame and embarrassment on the girls’ faces, which turned red with rage and humiliation, is something I still cherish to this day.”
Busted
“I did my student teaching at an elementary school with a high Latino population. Every morning, I stood in the hall and greeted the kids. There were three moms who formed a clique. Their English wasn’t the best so they kept their conversations with us to a minimum. They always had bright-eyed smiles and seemed super friendly.
Until they got back in the hallway.
They talked about the lead teacher like a dog. They talked about how our aide looked skimpy. They thought I was creepy for being a man teaching little kids. I listened to variations of this every single day for about two months. I never let on that I could understand them. I can understand Spanish much better than I can speak it.
Over time, they really started to hate the lead teacher and began to like me. Apparently, one of them had stood across the street from the playground to watch my interactions with the kids. She deemed me to be safe.
One day, they were really going in on the lead teacher and one of them said, ‘He should be the lead teacher.’
I figured it was enough of a compliment to let them in on my secret.
‘Estoy in la escuela de posgrado.’ (I’m in grad school.)
They stared at me for the longest time. It was like watching the end of The Usual Suspects as they started adding up all the times they’d stood out there talking about us. Finally, one of them basically acknowledged that they were busted. I told them that their secret was safe with me. They laughed, and I got a nice Christmas present a month later.”
“You Never Know Who Is Listening”
“I was born in Santo Domingo, though I now live in San Diego, so I was visiting family and playing tourist. There I was, sitting in a winery in the Zona Colonial, specifically the Plaza de Espana. I was under one of the umbrellas with my sunglasses on, waiting for a friend of mine to show up, and enjoying the late afternoon with a nice drink. I had a novel lying out on the table; it was probably a Dick Francis novel or some other English mystery.
Two guys came and sat at one of the tables close to me, just to my side. They’d obviously come for an early happy hour or something and they were well-dressed and groomed. They looked like they had money and were on top of their world. They looked briefly over at me and probably saw the lack of companionship because of the English novel. There were not many people around.
Their conversation started about what they were going to do that night. Where to go, what to eat, and after. They talked about the day, how it was hot and there weren’t a lot of people out. Not a lot to do.
One of them motioned to me with his head and said something derogatory about my body. The other turned and looked at me. He responded with another vulgar comment. My glasses were dark, I didn’t turn my head. I’ll spare you further details about the conversation, it went downhill from there for another few minutes as they discussed my body and what I’d be like in bed.
Around that point, my friend came onto the scene and saw me. She called out my name, and as she came near, started to apologize for her delay. She said to get my stuff, we were going to meet up with other friends in another restaurant down the street. In fluent, Dominican-accented Spanish, naturally, I answered her, saying I had to pick up the bill.
I called out to the waiter, ‘La cuenta, por favor.’ (The check, please.)
We chatted while waiting for the bill, catching up on school events, gossip, and people we knew. The boys were frozen at their table. They weren’t even moving. After I paid, I moved behind their table and stopped briefly.
I leaned down between the two of them, ‘I hope you don’t talk about your sisters that way,’ I told them. ‘You never know who is listening.’
And then we left. Fun times.”
Juicy Couture
“Let me start off by saying I am from Vietnam, and I speak Vietnamese. I currently live in California, US. In real life, I don’t look very Vietnamese; most Asian people think I am Korean or Japanese.
A few years ago, I went to an outlet for Black Friday shopping (typical crazy American). I was in line for the 15 percent off deal at Juicy Couture. I was standing there and wondering what I was doing with my life at three a.m. waiting to buy a freaking pink bag. Then, this Asian girl cut in front of me. Boy! You are not cutting the line in front of Tony when he is in a bad mood.
I told her, ‘Excuse me, the line starts from over there,’ and pointed my finger toward the back of the line.
She looked at me and waved her hand, then said, ‘Oh, sorry, no Englit!’
For real? An Asian tried to pull the ‘Asian no English’ card with another Asian.
As a gentleman as always, I calmly said to her, ‘You (pointed at her), to the back (did the walking motion with my fingers).’
She waved both of her hands, and said, ‘No Englit.’
I tried to explain to her again she had to go to the back, but she turned her back on me. Then her friends came over.
One of them asked her, ‘Có sao không em?’ (Is everything okay?)
She sai, ‘Cái thang nay, nó không cho em doi ở day. Em gia vo không noi tiếng Anh, ma no cau nhau hoai.’ (This dude is not letting me stay here. I am pretending not to understand English, but he keeps bugging me.)
Woah! They spoke Vietnamese. That made my night right there, so I decided to pretend I did not know any Vietnamese to have some fun. For real though, it is So Cal, there are tons of Vietnamese there.
I told the guy (in English), ‘The line starts from the back, so please ask your friend to go back there.’
He said, ‘Me no understand you.’
Haha! That was amazing for me.
He told the girl, ‘Em cu dung day di, no dau có lam duoc gi.’ (Just stay here, there is nothing he can do.)
I told him, ‘Dude, just please bring your friend to the back.’
He ignored me, and told the girl, ‘Cái thang kho chiu, no lam nhu no là chu cho nay vay.” (What a demanding dude! He may think he is the landlord of the building.)
Then security came over to see what was going on. I told the security what happened so he told them, ‘You should go to the back if what he said is true.’
The guy shook his head and said, ‘Oh, we no understand you.’
I had enough of that, so I said, ‘Thoi di may cha noi, gia vo hoai, làm ơn di ra dang sau gium.” (Knock it off! Stop pretending, and go to the back already.)
The look on his face was priceless. He told the girl, ‘Forget it, let’s go to the back,’ in good English.
When they were leaving, I heard them say, ‘Du me, ai biet thang do người Việt.’ (What a prick, I did not expect that guy was Vietnamese.)
They sure made my day.”
Bilingual Bill
‘My friend Bill and I were both working at a gym, 24 Hour Fitness. I was the assistant manager and he was the general manager. At the time, he was about 100 pounds overweight (pretty ironic working at a gym). One evening, three middle-aged Chinese women walked in and inquired about speaking to someone about joining. One of the sales counselors gave them the tour and then sat down with them to go over the membership options.
Keep in mind, if you walked into a 24 Hour Fitness back then and inquired about joining, you weren’t leaving until you had all the membership options described to you with a pen and paper, and not until you spoke with a manager. Back to the three Chinese women. They’re at the sales counselor’s desk for about 20 minutes or so and he couldn’t get them to join.
At that point, when you were unsuccessful at getting the guest to join, you would have to get what’s called a TO (turnover). This means that the sales counselor would get the assistant manager or general manager to come speak with you and then they would try to get you to sign on the dotted line. My friend Bill and I were in his office talking when the sales counselor came in and described the situation about why these women didn’t want to buy a membership.
At first, my friend tells me to go talk with them, but then pauses and says, ‘You know what? Let me show you guys how it’s done.’
Bill walked over to the desk where the three women are sitting with the rest of us close by to see him in action. Bill sat down and asks the women how they liked the gym and what their goals were. They gave a brief answer in English and then started speaking in Cantonese. Not only speaking in Cantonese but laughing hysterically.
Bill is as white as you can get but is fully fluent in Cantonese. He managed a 24 Hour Fitness in Hong Kong for several years and married a Cantonese woman. The other sales counselors and I knew that Bill spoke Chinese, and at that point, we knew what was going on.
As the women proceeded to laugh, Bill’s face became a bit rosy, but as Bill gave a half grin and tilted his head, he proceeded to let them finish their personal conversation. After about 25–30 seconds, Bill asked if they were done as he didn’t want to be rude and interrupt. They apologized and said yes.
He then paused for a second and started speaking to them in Cantonese. I’ll never forget the look on their faces. Their mouths were open, and it was as if they were looking at a ghost. They sat there the whole time and let Bill speak. After he was done, they looked embarrassed and quickly removed themselves.
We asked Bill why they were laughing and what he said to them.
They said, ‘How can an overweight white man tell us to work out in a gym? Look how fat he is. Maybe he should get on the treadmill instead of talking to us.’
Bill replied in Cantonese, ‘Yes, I agree. I am overweight and am just starting to get back to working out. This is why you should start working out, so you don’t look like me. See, if you don’t start working out, your body weight can sneak up on you. Kind of like a white man who catches you talking bad about him in a different language.'”
Drinks On The House
“I once took my 15-year-old sister to Barcelona Spain. After unpacking our suitcases, we decided to go to the tavern beneath the hotel for a cold drink. The barman must have realized we were British, so he asked me in English what we wanted. I ordered, in English, a drink for me and a coke for my sister. After we’d sat there awhile, another barman started talking to the first one saying in Spanish,
‘Look! Look at those two English girls looking for men! They’re all the same!’
The first one nodded in agreement.
I turned to my sister and said, ‘Do you know what they’ve just said?’
When I told her, she was furious, but I told her to wait and let this idiot incriminate himself further.
After a few more minutes and another load of insults, I ordered another drink, this time in Spanish, ‘I’ll have another drink and my sister will have another coke, please. Oh, and by the way, we’re not English, we’re Welsh and we’re not looking for men. We’ve only just arrived and came for a quiet drink to cool us down.’
The look on both their faces was priceless. If it had been possible to bottle and sell it, I’d be a millionaire by now. They spent the next few minutes apologizing profusely and the drinks were on the house. I told them not to be so judgemental and made a point of visiting the bar every day whilst we were there just to make the guy squirm!”
Photo Bomb
“I was visiting Turkey in 2014. To be more precise, I was touring the Great Theatre of Ephesus. I was taking a picture for my brother who loved to post indie pictures on his Instagram. The idea for the picture was for him to sit far up in the stands, and I would take a picture of him looking into the distance.
While trying to take the picture from multiple angles, I got in the background of a group’s selfie. The three women cussed me out quite loudly for ruining their perfect shot. They thought they were being sneaky by talking in Korean, but unknown to them, I was understanding all of their remarks. They called me rude, careless, without style, and lots of other horrible things people would say after someone ruins their selfie. The group probably didn’t think I spoke their language because I wasn’t dressed like a Korean. Native Koreans dress very nicely, and I was not dressed nicely at all.
But it gets better.
A few minutes later, they needed a group photo taken by someone else. And guess who they asked? Yours truly.
They tried to ask me to take their photo, using key phrases like ‘Take photo please,’ and ‘You can take photo?’ They weren’t great English speakers, but they tried their best, and I wasn’t clueless, so I got the gist.
I answered in Korean, ‘Nae, uh tukk hae kkic aw de lil ga yo?’ (Yes, how would you like me to take it?)
Their faces were priceless. The mix of embarrassment, surprise, and confusion was hilarious. After I took their pictures, they thanked me and apologized for their previous remarks, since they knew they talked loudly enough for me to hear them. I heard one of the ladies mumbling about how I didn’t look Korean, blah blah blah.
I still don’t understand why they asked me out of all the others. They were asking in English, so it would make sense to ask someone who spoke English. But I didn’t look the part of an English speaker, and there were people next to me literally speaking clear and concise English. But fate gave me the opportunity to have some fun.
This experience motivated me to learn more languages so I can reply if someone talks about me in another language!”
Socks
“My father used to be a tie manufacturers salesman until he took over the store, modernized it, and turned it into an iconic menswear store. I should mention that my father was not Italian, but he was Romanian, so he had dark hair and olive skin. This meant that his customers regularly mistook him for being Italian. It happened so much that out of necessity, he learned to speak Italian. It just so happens that my father was fluent in German, and three or four other languages as well.
One day, an older couple came into his store. They spoke German amongst themselves, not having any reason to suspect that my father understood.
The husband said, ‘I like these socks.’
‘How much are they?’ his wife replied.
‘They’re six dollars,’ he said.
‘Give the stupid man behind the counter four dollars. He will take it,’ his wife said.
With his wife’s approval, the husband took the pair of socks he liked best off the rack and brought it to my father, who was standing behind the counter.
My father (in English) said, ‘How can I help you?’
The husband (in English) said, ‘Would you take four dollars for these socks?’
My father (switching to perfect German) replied, ‘Those fine socks are six dollars for the pair, and this stupid man will not be taking anything less. Would you like them wrapped, sir?’
With a big smile and a knowing look (his head turned slightly so that his wife could not see), the man gave my father six dollars, collected his socks, and quietly left the store. His then silenced wife followed.”
Someone’s Getting Fired
“About 12 years ago, I was getting measured by the in-store tailor of a New Jersey store to have some adjustments made to a business suit I was about to buy. A friend of the tailor came by and they started shooting the breeze in Arabic – Egyptian dialect.
Now, I look African American, which is how I identify, with an African American accent – and that’s how the tailor saw me. But I was born in Sudan, where they speak Arabic – my family had first emigrated to the U.S. when I was a toddler. I’d traveled back and forth, though, and even spent a good chunk of my primary education in Sudanese schools, so I was fluent in Arabic. And the Egyptian dialect is kind of the lingua franca that almost all Arabic speakers understand.
I was in a bit of a rush and not in a chit-chatty mood, so didn’t let on that I spoke Arabic – doing so always leads to a round of socializing that I didn’t feel like that day. I wasn’t trying to, but you can’t help but overhear a conversation that’s taking place less than five feet away from you. The Egyptian tailor and his buddy were cracking jokes in Arabic about people in the store, deadpan and straight-faced, without laughing or giggling. Some were kind of funny, some were just mean – like the ones about the obesity and dowdiness of a middle-aged female store manager who was tinkering with a suit rack nearby.
Then the tailor and his pal switched to cracking jokes about black people, in the same deadpan, referring to them in a derogatory Arabic term. They weren’t talking about me specifically, but cracking jokes like that while close enough to a black person that you’re literally in physical contact with him (he was measuring my inseam) can’t help but offend.
I wasn’t even angry – just kind of disappointed.
So in my calmest, conversational voice, I butted into their conversation with, ‘Bas leeh kiddah ya a’amy? Leeh kiddah? Al a’abeed a’amaloo lak aih? (Just why, uncle? Why? What did black people ever do to you?)
The Tailor was startled so much and flinched so hard when I said it, that he literally jumped. He and his buddy just stood there without saying a word as I went to the changing room and switched back to my clothes. They were still silent when I came out.
I then walked over to the manager a few feet away, and told her what happened – with a blow-by-blow retelling of what they said about her weight and looks, and left. From the livid and mottled look on her face, I knew somebody was getting fired that day. The next time I was in that store a few weeks later, they had a new tailor.”
“I Understood Every Word”
“In Paris, with my French girlfriend, after a great night out, we went to a tavern in the early hours. A bloke was chatting her up, she introduced me to him, like ‘this is my boyfriend,’ and pointed out that I’m English. The gist of what she said was being thoughtful to me and meant it in the way ‘he doesn’t speak French very well and may find it difficult after a shed load of drinks to understand, so it might be better for us all to chat in English.’
Either way, he took it to mean I didn’t understand a thing and proceeded to take the chance.
He said things like, ‘What are you doing with an English idiot, you should give me your number.’
He said things like this in French every now and then whilst continuing to chat in English, thinking he was making me look a right fool.
When my girlfriend went to the bathroom, I said to him (in pretty good French it turned out), ‘I may not speak perfect French but I understood every word you said you slimy prick!’ He wisely apologized and left immediately.
When she got back, she asked where he was.
‘Oh he said it’s getting late so he had to go,’ I said.
She replied, ‘Good, the prick kept trying to chat me up right in front of you!’
The barman who had been quietly doing his thing and enjoying the whole episode gave me an appreciative knowing smile as we left. I told her how it played out and she was in stitches with laughter.”
