In the right situations, speaking multiple languages can transform you into a spy of sorts. Since people make assumptions about what languages others speak based on their skin color or location, it's easy to play ignorant and get intel on seemingly private conversations. This skill naturally makes for some interesting stories.
In a recent Reddit thread, multilingual people shared the times they've overheard conversations, and the results range from heartwarming to downright depressing.
1. eureka123's great aunt told a butcher off.
"Well my great aunt told a story of how she once went into a butcher shop. When she walked in, the butcher was talking with a customer in Russian (which she spoke).
The butcher saw my great aunt walk in and told the costumer (in Russian) that he'd take care of this "old hag," and then continue the conversation."
"So my great aunt (in English) asked for pounds and pounds of cold cuts, all sliced and wrapped. When it was all ready, she told him (in Russian), to "shove it up your ass," and walked out.
God i loved that woman."
2. P35-HiPowe's best friend shut down some sexists.
"My late best friend, who was big tall and blond, was in Tim Hortons.......he speaks fairly fluent Arabic, having spent 7 years working in Saudi Arabia. Three Arabic men were sitting at a table making very lewd comments about the women in the shop. My buddy turned to them and said in Arabic; "You need to shut up before someone kicks your ass.........you never know who is listening"
They got very confused, and left soon after."
3. coffee-coffee_coffee joined in a game of I Spy.
"I was on the subway in NYC a few months ago when a family sitting across from me was playing I Spy in Hebrew with their kids. The parents went around describing each person they saw on the train, so when they got to me I decided to play along. I looked up from my book, made a funny face, and covered my face with the book before the kids could find me. The parents started laughing and said to their kids: “I spy someone who understands us!”
"The parents and I shared a good laugh about it while their kids got really excited that someone else spoke Hebrew. They never figured out who it was, but it made my commute a lot more fun!"
4. kosmor learned a little too much at the hospital.
"I've said this before. It happened a while ago. I went to a psychiatric emergency ward once and asked for help and if they were comfortable to speak English. I understand Danish but have a hard time making myself understandable in it and didn't really feel like an idiot at a crucial time of my life.
I stayed there for 4 days without anyone realising I knew what they were saying about me right in front of me."
"2 of the nurses thought I was cute.
1 doctor thought I was lying all the time.
A patient thought I was a spy for the staff.
A lot happened in those 4 days
It made my stay way more enjoyable then it should have been."
5. bksbeat was able to call out scammers.
"I lived in Riga for a short while and went out almost every Friday to meet girls. Riga has a lot of visitors from UK and I've spent a chunk of my time in US, so I generally speak English in the center. I feel more comfortable using it. However, I also speak Russian perfectly well."
"So I'm drinking a beer in a bar and all of a sudden some cute Russian girl comes up to me and starts speaking English to me. She invited me for a beer with her and her friend. I didn't really have anything else going for me that night, so I agreed.
What followed is an hour of them trying to make me buy them a Dom Perignon bottle and some really dirty talking about what one of them would do to me if I agreed.They also talked to the bartender (who knows me fairly well) how they're gonna rip me off big time and that I'm a foreign idiot."
"I ended up buying them 4 beers total out of decency. It was a lot of fun for a while, I'll give them that. Eventually I got really tired of it all + my friend hit me up, so I just switched to Russian, thanked them for a nice evening and left.
Their faces were red from embarrassment and anger. Oh well. Don't scam people."
6. GodsGift420's avoided a shady business deal.
"My dad grew up in Egypt and now travels the world for Dole (the fruit company). Once he was in Morocco at a plant who were possible suppliers and they tried to deceive him. They showed him the safety guidelines that were written in Arabic, but were describing different standards in English. My dad doesn’t look like a typical middle easterner and has a very non-descript accent, so they thought they could fleece him. After the dude was done talk my dad says “that’s not what it says” and the guy says “what do you mean”. My dad repeats the statement but in Arabic. The guy apparently dropped his jaw and all he could say was “you speak Arabic?”
Needless to say that Moroccan plant did not get the gig."
7. Booper3's neighbors called out some xenophobes.
"My neighbors went on holiday with her sister's family in Spain. The sister can speak fluent Spanish (they're Irish). Apparently a tour guide in Spain started talking about them refering to them as "those English sluts" . They were never ones to let anything slide so an argument broke out very quickly."
8. arlondiluthel stood up for a friend.
"I'm an extremely white American man. I was stationed in Korea, and a buddy and I went into a store that was slightly "off the beaten path". My buddy was in a different section of the store and found something he liked. He asked the shop keep how much it was, the shop keep said, in Korean "well, you're an American, so $65" (translation and currency exchange provided for ease of reference). I looked over, and saw a sign on the wall that said the exact item he wanted was $40. I approached the shop keep and asked him, in Korean, how much it cost, to which he replied $40. So I responded, in Korean, "Why are you charging him $65?". He got rather embarrassed and apologetic, offered to sell the item for $35, and gave us each a soft drink for free."
9. h4k01n's partner shut down guys laughing at her.
"My SO is a tattoo artist who can speak Bulgarian, Turkish, English and German. One day we were queueing in the supermarket and two guys behind us were laughing and snickering. She turned around and said something to them. Afterwards she was laughing while one of the guys went bright red."
"Afterwards I asked her what that was about. The guys were like "look at her arm. Those tattoos. Disgusting. How can you tattoo a naked woman on yourself?" In Turkish. My SO turned around and said "thanks bro". St first the guy asked her to repeat because he didn't even register that she could be speaking Turkish and assumed he misheard English. That's when she said "for the tattoo opinion"."
"It was funny from there. The guy apologized and said he has never felt so much shame in his life. His friend was saying at least buy them (my SO and I) some beers. This was in a small town outside of Dublin city, so I can understand why they didn't think there would be any Turkish speakers around."
10. candiice_xo's husband saved them a few bucks on tacos.
"I’ve posted this before but I’ll post it again.
My husband is the bilingual one, not me. He’s from Colombia so he speaks Spanish fluently, but grew up in the U.S and has been here most of his life. He also has a really fair complexion. Most people think he’s just Caucasian. Anyway, we were in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico looking for a place to eat. We get to a restaurant and he asks in English how much it would cost for all you can eat tacos. The guy at the door said it’s $15. His friend next to him said to the guy in Spanish, “I thought it’s $12?” And the first guy responded, “Yeah, but they don’t know that.” My husband of course understood everything. He told them in Spanish that they’re lying rip offs and we’d be going somewhere else. The guy’s expression was priceless."
11. Gene_R's brother learned a lesson while shopping.
"Inverse. A long time ago, my brother had a habit of making remarks about people in Spanish whenever he got annoyed, frustrated, or just wanted to make fun of someone (kinda like a gossiping school girl). I told him it wasn't cool, not because he shouldn't be talking Spanish in public, but that he shouldn't be using it in such an underhanded way."
"If he had a grievance that he needed to get off his chest, he should tell them in a language they are likely to understand where we live -- English. He kept doing it anyway. One time, we were leaving a major retailer and the store greeter asked to see his receipt before he could exit with the bagged merchandise in the cart. He had a hard time finding where he put his receipt and he got frustrated."
"He switched to Spanish and said some variety of "this old bitch" and the store greeter immediately called him out on it in Spanish. He was like a deer caught in the headlights. I was so happy she did it. He made a weak attempt at re-asserting his right to be frustrated at the situation, but you could see he was very embarrassed at having been caught talking trash in Spanish. I love my brother, but I'm glad he stopped doing that soon after."
12. veekay45 had a very sweet moment on the train.
"When I was doing my exchange studies in China (native Russian), I was riding a subway in Shanghai. At one of the stops a mother and her daughter sat beside me. The daughter was maybe 4 or 5 and she wouldn't stop looking at me, then without turning her head she started asking her mom "Mommy why is mister so strange? Why is his hair strange?" and so on. I didn't react as if I didn't speak Chinese, and the mother patiently told her daughter "Mister isn't strange, he's just a foreigner, they look different". I thought it was really sweet so I started talking to both of them in Chinese. They were very nice and I hope they're doing great now."
13. FireShepherd29 saw their mom model how to break up some judgment.
"I live in Austria, but my Dad is from Brazil, all my Austrian aunts and uncles married a brazilian. My grandparents from my mothers side opened and lead a factory of our family company in Brazil, that's why everyone was there, but some eventually came back to Austria, just like my mom with my dad. Me and my siblings were raised multilingual but lived most of our live in Austria."
"So once when I was around 10 my Mom and me were on a tram in Vienna with my little brother, who was around 2 at the time, in a stroller and he starts crying, really loudly. Then one brazilian lady starts speaking really loudly and in an obnoxious tone something in the lines of: "Well, these European folks don't know how to treat their children with love, how can someone be so cold and unaffectionate to a child as to let them scream without taking them out of the stroller and holding them?"
"(We were standing btw, there was no seat big enough at the time where we could leave the stroller) Sooo, I was getting worried we were doing something wrong, I wanted to comfort my brother and get him out, but my Mom stopped me and really loudly said in portuguese: "Leave him, it is too dangerous to take him out of the stroller while we are standing here and the tram is moving"
"You could see the womens face go from red, to white and back to red, get up and get out so fast at the next exit that we just started laughing and my brother ultimately calmed down.
Not really exciting, but I find it funny when I think back."
14. kakinapotiti had the ultimate clap-back.
"I am Greek but study in Belgium. Greeks are notorious for talking about people loudly when abroad. The language is rare enough that most people including myself usually feel comfortable doing that. Only problem with that logic is, there are so many of us around the world, it's generally not a good idea."
"So I get on the tram one day and there's this woman (30s) sitting across from me who says to her friend very loudly and in greek: "What is that supposed to be, a boy or a girl?" (Context for non Greeks: we have a third, neutral gender that we use for objects, animals, or when talking about someone in a very rude and derogatory way. That is what she used, and in a very mocking tone as well). So I very calmly validated my ticket, and as I was walking away I reply, also in greek. "It's a girl. And it speaks greek as well."
"Her face was hilarious. She just made a mortified "Ah" sound and didn't utter another word until she got off a few stops later. I love this story, but it kind of terrifies me as well. I avoid talking about other people, but I do tend to have very personal conversations with my greek friends in public places, confident that nobody understands, even after being myself proof that it's not very safe."
15. orionova89 had the last word in their marriage.
"My former in-laws speak Italian. I went into the marriage not knowing Italian, but I picked it up pretty well. My MIL had a bad habit of talking to her family in Italian while I was sitting right there. Every one of them spoke English, so it wasn't as if she had to speak it to be understood."
"I put up with it, and it became interesting to hear what she had to say about me to the family while I was there. I got out of the marriage due mostly to her son's treatment of me, but her actions didn't help. So one day she calls me. She is going on about me being a terrible wife and mother. So I remark "you know, I actually understand Italian. I understood everything you said about me when you thought I didn't know." She went quiet and cut the call short. It was wonderful."
16. rekipsj got to know their aunt-in-law in the worst way.
"My wife is Indian and her family speaks Gujarati. I've spent many years trying to pick it up and have found it to be very difficult as there are no great resources that I am aware of to learn it. You just have to listen and try to guess the context. Anyway, over the years I've gotten pretty good, and when my wife's aunt was visiting from Indian she went right in to my wife about how much weight I'd gained and how bad my diet must be. I understood every word and stopped her about two minutes into her rant. Turns out it didn't stop her from continuing."
17. PrettyInteraction62 thoroughly humiliated some gross dudes.
"I'm Irish and I'm studying in Spain at the moment. I was in a restaurant the other day with my friend and there was a group of 3 or 4 English guys beside us. My friend and I were speaking in French, so they must have assumed we were French or didn't understand English. They started shouting about how sexy my friend and I were and how I have better tits and she has a better ass. I think they were deliberately using a lot of slang in the hopes that even if we did speak English, we wouldn't know English slang (I do, because I have an English housemate)."
"My friend doesn't speak much English, but I told her what they were saying and started loudly talking (in English) about how there are a lot of English speakers in this city and people should watch what they're saying because they never know who can understand them. They went completely silent and beetroot red. Fucking idiots! Why they would assume that nobody in this city can speak English is beyond me. It's a university town with a high international population!"
18. petitelouloutte learned to temper their dinner conversation the hard way.
"Mine was also in New York, and I was the idiot in the story. I was eating at a restaurant explaining in French to my boyfriend that I was upset about how "cocksucker" was translated into french in the show we were watching (Deadwood). The translation used was "fils de pute" which means "son of a bitch" and obviously that's not the same thing. Anyway, the table next to us started cracking up and I felt pretty sheepish when I realized they understood what I was saying, especially since the literal translation of cocksucker in French is pretty damn vulgar, which is the whole reason it wasn't translated that way in the first place."