Anyone Ever Tried To Disrespect You In Their Native Language?

[Lin]

I can't say I've really had a personal experience of someone trying to disrespect me in their native tongue and I found out.

Yes, I do speak a little Spanish, but I've never been disrespected by any "Spaniards"...lol :grin:

Do you mind sharing your experiences?

[thekernel]

Well, there was this one time where a group of (Asian) girls from my elementary school started pointing at me and giggling. But I guess I'll never truly know what they were saying. Or if they were even pointing at me. I just assumed at the time that I was the principal inspiration of their hysterics.

[Firelily99]

I have had that happen but I remembered enough of my high school Spanish to pick up what the speaker was saying to me.

[sidney]

I haven't been disrespected by another person yet in their native language, but the exact opposite happened, like some people have tried to express they have feelings for me in their native language while I'm talking to them, and of course, I had no idea yet at that time what they were talking about.

[SpiralArchitect]

Well being in a country where there are a lot of language and at least 20 languages which are spoken by close to a million people, this happens a lot. My wing in the college itself has people with 6 different native languages among 12 people, so it happens whenever there is an argument.

[Bill_H]

I had an experience in Korea in the early 1990s. I was walking on the street with a (white) Canadian girl when a group of young Korean boys passed by. One of them said something in Korean, and my Canadian friend whirled around and shouted him down. What those boys didn't know was that my friend had lived for years in Korea and spoke fluent Korean! Well, that boy bowed low and apologized. When the boys had left, my friend told me that the boy had called us "pieces of sh**" under his breath.  Bet he'll never assume again that Western people don't understand his language!

[JoanMcWench]

My friend and I went to a nice Vietnamese sandwich shop to get some of their acclaimed Banh Mi sandwiches. The two women in the shop had a very limited knowledge of English but this did not really affect MY visit because it's not that hard to order a sandwich & my friend happens to speak Vietnamese fluently. She also happens to look Vietnamese.

Two young American men came in after our order as we waited my friend was making small talk with one of the workers. The two young American males started to catch an attitude with everyone when they felt their order was not understood well enough. They assumed my friend, who actually helped them by translating their order (unbeknownst to them), worked here and did not understand English as well.

After two minutes of hearing them say things I did not appreciate, my friend could see that I was getting to a point I would not tolerate it any longer. I am not one to handle things of this nature cool or calmly. She introduced herself to them in English and decided to politely give them a lecture on not being a bunch of rude something or others. They left without sandwiches and we felt the need to apologize profusely to the workers for them. We bought their sandwiches and decided to eat theirs first. They were delicious.

[True2marie]

The scenario you described is a common one.

My father was in the military and we were stationed in Puerto Rico.  Unfortunately, during that period, my sister became very ill. She had to stay in a local hospital for over a month.

When I would visit her, I often went to the McDonald's attached to the hospitals. Workers there would always be rude to me if I asked for anything in English, even if they understood me.  By the way, I was only 17 at the time.

[pandandesign]

I remember when I came to the United States, I didn't speak English very well although I have learned English in my home country. When I was in middle school, there was one kid who would make fun of me in his language, English. Then, when other kids heard that, they joined him to make fun of me, which I thought they were so disrespectful and were very impolite. They haven't learned the lesson about a kid who suffered through hard times because he came to a new place and went to school in which he didn't make any friends.

[lizbeth19hph]

Well, I am teaching English online to Koreans and I had this child student who typed in a word that means "stupid" in English when I asked her why did she tell that to me as her teacher, she cannot answer. Seems that the kid's parents weren't teaching her good manners or what. I just told her that yoau don't say that bad word to your teacher or to anyone else.

[Daimashin]

Happened to me once online, they were badmouthing me in Chinese because they thought I was an American but they didn't know I'm Chinese myself. I told them to at least respect themselves even if they don't want to respect others and left.

[MyDigitalpoint]

Never happened to me, but my mom says she worked for a "German" when she was young.

She was invited by some of her cousins more than to make money just to have fun insulting him as he didn't understand Spanish.

Mom says they were insulting him to death and the man only replied "si, si" with a smile "si" (yes) was the only word in Spanish he knew.

However suddenly they invited another cousin who was working the the USA to join that job. That cousin was encouraged to introduce himself insulting the "German" man, as all others did.

However he thought of a better idea "I came from the USA and learned a lot of swearing, so let me practice some curse."

That day my mom and all her cousins learned that the "German" man was not German but American and while he could not understand Spanish, he clearly understood what he had to say.

Looks like none of them knew that such man was speaking in English (not German) and the only who could understand was the last, who had no chance to hear them but say "you are fired." LOL

[Rosa]

Well, I can't say for sure, but seeing the stare and general expression you just have to assume that the comment was rude. I would imagine if it was something good there would at least be a little smile.

[SpiralArchitect]

They haven't learned the lesson about a kid who suffered through hard times because he came to a new place and went to school in which he didn't make any friends.

Kids can be jerks sometimes don't they? Happened to me when I was small too. Not because of language barriers but simply because I had come from a different city, which made the whole thing somewhat weird for me. It got over soon enough though.

[rodserd]

My grandpa grew up speaking german, and he taught my mom some.  She occasionally calls me what translates to "stupid jackass" but she always told me it only meant "dumb mule."

[Baburra]

I wouldn't call it disrespect but my teacher lovingly called me an idiot in Chinese a lot of times while I was at school. Ironically, I think I was one of her favorite students, looking back at it now. I think it was because she knew that I liked learning the language rather than just doing it for a passing grade like my classmates.

[Baburra]

My grandpa grew up speaking german, and he taught my mom some.  She occasionally calls me what translates to "stupid jackass" but she always told me it only meant "dumb mule."

My grandpa always calls me idiot too in his native language. I'm pretty sure he says it out of love, thankfully, as he always does laugh as he calls me that name, but it's made the term permanently ingrained in my mind. I can't wait to use it on my kids or grandkids someday.

[Christina Curtin]

When I fist came to Ireland a lot of my friends would ask me how to you say 'bitch' in Russian and so on. So I would tell me something else. They didn't know what I was telling them and they were going to their friends and saying that work. My conscious was clear as I knew that they were only saying something funny to that person and not nasty. I did tell them that they weren't using dirty language. They all laughed at me.

[Monox D. I-Fly]

On 12/10/2013 at 1:47 AM, Rosa said:

Well, I can't say for sure, but seeing the stare and general expression you just have to assume that the comment was rude. I would imagine if it was something good there would at least be a little smile.

Not always the case. Sometimes people make rude comments while constantly smiling, essentially thinking "you are a joke".