I always feel inadequate that I am not bilingual.

I don’t think anybody is really laughing at them, but they do deserve plenty of ridicule. I’m sure they go out and order guacamole and enchiladas.

My tendency when I will be encountering people who speak a language I don't know is to learn simple greetings and farewells in that language. Then, I use those to show my interest. I have never seen an ill reception to my simplistic use of any language. It always seems like people are pleased that you took at least the time to try. Most are surprised when I say "Hello," or "Good morning." They're not surprised that that's all I know, but it's OK. I tried.

These days, you can learn those basics on YouTube for any language you can imagine.

They may imagine that people are talking about them in a language they don't understand. Of course, there are people who just need an excuse to be pissed off and offended.

The best places I've lived over the years were very diverse. I learned a lot and it created a very healthy environment to raise children.

Not unless they're doing something extraordinary to make them stand out.

I know this, my secret power is blending in; I look like someone's pale auntie, and am basically ignored, even in areas where I would normally stand out as a Gringo or really pale.

Unless they're talking to me directly or discussing participating in a crime near me, does it matter what other people are saying? I'm not the f'ing center of the world, abitrator of other people's motivations or desires, after all ..

Plus, if people are talking about you, it is pretty easy to tell. People aren't all that subtle.

Sometimes it is nice not knowing what people are saying. The conversations of other people can be a distraction if you're trying to think or read. If it is in a different language, it can become just background noise.

Last edited Thu Feb 12, 2026, 12:17 PM - Edit history (1)

People who believe otherwise have not read enough history. The US is something of an exception in this regard.

that national borders were very fluid at that time. There were many Greeks living in Palestine at the time who adopted the Jewish faith. And Jewish and early Christian doctrine welcomed strangers from other lands.

What language did they speak if not French?

Of course to the Parisians, nobody else speaks francaise.

(Darn DU won't let me put in accented letters....)

... such as Occitan, which was already being written at a time when French was not and its literature has continued to thrive, with a Nobel Prize for Frédéric Mistral in 1904.

Gives me a new perspective.

Acknowledging that our educational system is so arrogant that a second language is not required, or at least encouraged.

white 2 guys behind me were speaking in a language I could not make out. Being a university city that was nothing new, but usually I could sort of guess about what it was.

But this one I had no idea - so I asked. Both proudly answered together that it was Arabic. Once again I marveled at the different people I encountered because of the university.

I can speak (not fluently) 3-4 western European languages and understand the tones of some of the eastern European ones. But these guys were speaking something very unusual.

Now, I lived in northern NY and Vermont and have been to Canada many times. When I met up with them at baggage claim, I asked what they were speaking. They said French. Quebecois. But their accents were so strong that I couldn't grasp a single word in French. They laughed when I mentioned this and said that they were from the Laurentians and some other Quebecois couldn't understand them either.

There were hundreds of other languages, before and during the English-language incursion into North America

Are the least represented in jobs abroad.

We eventually wound up in Springfield, Illinois' "Cabbage Patch": an immigrant neighborhood that was mostly Slavs, Magyars and assorted Bohunks. My father insisted that we speak English at home, resulting in us children losing our Hungarian.
Of course, that didn't prevent us from learning interesting words from our less restrained, polyglot neighbors! Get me tired and/or mad enough to let my accent slip and I'll let fly with some profanities picked up from a terrifyingly ancient Cossak who lived across the street.

It doesn't bother me that people speak a language that I don't understand. I realize that I'm a tiny speck on the planet and that there is a whole wide world out there besides me and my preferences.

That said, I'm getting older and I have a hard time sometimes understanding customer service reps who speak in English, but it isn't their first language. I try never to be rude, but I do get embarrassed sometimes at myself for having to ask "can you say that again, please". I don't think that makes me a horrible person. I think that makes me human. We all have differences. We are all unique. We deal as best we can.

Specifically, it's a list of grievances, and the reason "conservative principles" are often ignored or contradicted is that they are just rationalizations for the grievances.

I saw a comment on YouTube that said: "I don't care if they deport all the immigrants, legal or illegal, if I don't ever have to press 1 for English again."

When you’re in a public place it’s impossible to avoid eavesdropping on people near you who are talking loud enough to be heard. I’ve heard a lot of conversations about things I didn’t want to know.

When they’re talking in another language, it’s easier to tune it out if I’m trying to read, or I can listen and appreciate the musicality of the language and their expressiveness without understanding one word of it and feeling like a creepy eavesdropper.

Years ago, we knew someone married to a Turkish woman... Lovely person and what a beautiful language! I loved to hear her say anything at all in it... didn't matter what it was, it was all so beautifully melodic.

Is when we call customer service for a problem, and when, and if we get by all the computer's chats, etc, we finally get a live agent, the person is in another country. Classically India, and although they speak English, their accent is SOOOOO thick, they are not understandable. I always kindly tell them, to talk slower and pronounce their words better, so that I can understand......they usually understand and comply, but not always and I am regretfully forced to just hang up.....

Of course, these same Corporations that are all saying: RAH, RAH AMERICA, and are all sending U.S. jobs to other countries?????

Since I was young, a thousand years ago, I have always heard the same exact refrain out of these Corporations:
"We can't find anyone who wants to work"........
Instead of truthfully saying:
"We can't find anyone who wants to work for our outrageously low amount we want to pay"

The Corporations are truly what are running America, and we are stuck, WITH THE BEST REPUBLICAN POLITICIANS THAT THE CORPORATIONS CAN BUY.......

I fully expect, that some time down the road, the United States of America will be renamed, The Corporate States of America....

We dropped WOW for cable and phone largely because I can never reach anyone there ... they have that kind of phone service and an online chat which is very slow, because obviously one person is handling multiple customers ... and you can't make certain changes online, only by phone ....

those on line chats are often AI Bots? programmed to help you, but almost always can't.......
I just went thru that for 40 minutes trying to cancel an app called FUBO and finally gave up. They were charging over a hundred bucks a month, and making almost impossible to cancel......cute, huh.
My Super Geek son took over, and in a few minutes had it cancelled, using weird techniques that not everyone knows how to do.

you know after a bit the words and the slang. The bad words too. Sometime we'd speak a phrase back at them and it was shock, mostly because they now knew, we knew.

There is a guy on you-tube thats a wiz on languages I love his videos . He does do obscure American and first Nations languages and sometime make people cry when he uses their native tongue.

This is a delightful video. So much fun. And is just shows how lovely people can be, everywhere. So willing to be kind.

I took several years of Spanish in high school and college. I even acted as a translator once. I’m 70, so I basically have major brain farts when it comes to English. I plan on going back to relearn it.

why doesn't he just ask what language he is hearing - I politely asked a couple of ladies at the Post Office and they said Swahili....it sounded so cool

she heard spanish and was cuddled by her when she was a baby and toddler. The babysitter knew very little english, she was a refugee from El Salvador. So years later, my daughter takes high school spanish, the teacher tells us during a 9th grade parent conference/visit, that my daughter has a funny accent, but wow she is excelling in Spanish class. The teacher has never had a english only speaker progress this well. We tell her she heard of a lot of spanish as a baby and toddler. That appears to explain her success. She took Spanish all four years of high school.

Funny story, my daughter always wore wildly patterned socks to school. So one day, she's walking down the hall in school and over hears two girls noticing and kind of making fun of her socks, She didn't respond to them, but she knew what they were saying. Laughed her head off, telling us the story. She was happy they noticed her socks. They didn't have a clue she understood them.

the literally dozens of language one could hear during the course of a regular day.