One time this man approached me in a bar talking in Spanish. So I assumed he was Spanish and we started speaking, we had a whole ass conversation and at some point he was like. So what part of Spain are you from? And I said well I’m Italian actually. What part of Spain are you from? And he was like. I’m Greek.
One time I was in Argentina and I was so tired of trying to speak Spanish because I’m not very good at it lmao so I broke into exasperated English and the retail seller girl quickly understood me and engaged me in conversation. We talked for a while, she introduced me to a makeup brand, and then I decided to buy it. While she was packaging the purchase, she asked me if I were from the US or perhaps the UK and I just said “oh no I’m Brazilian hahah” and she looked me straight in the eyes and said, in clear Portuguese, “I’m Brazilian too”
When my dad went to China on a work trip, his Mandarin speaking wasn’t great but his listening was fine (his first language is Cantonese) and he encountered a German guy who had moved to China to work. My dad knew how to speak German because he studied it in university (but wasn’t great when it came to listening to new vocab he hadn’t studied before), and the German guy knew Mandarin because he lived and worked in China, so they had a conversation where my dad spoke to the German guy in German and the guy responded in Mandarin. I’m sure it confused a lot of their coworkers who just saw the Asian guy speaking German and the white guy speaking Mandarin.
Some years ago, I worked for a manufacturing company that had a service depot in China. One of the engineers from the main office here in the US spent most of his time at the depot. The problem was that he didn’t speak *any* of the various Chinese languages, and no one at the depot spoke any English. They all, however, spoke Spanish.
I love the world
My late uncle (English) met his ex wife (French) in Germany, where they spoke almost exclusively German to each because that was their only common language to start with.
They had two kids, both of whom are fluent in both English and French, but don’t speak a word of German between them XD
At work just now, we held a small meeting to share some thoughts over the week. I live in Germany, but people at work speak a variety of languages, so for ease of understanding we held the meeting in English. A girl next to me, who i hadnt met before, started giving her opinions best she could in English, but from her accent & general manner of speaking I quickly got that she was French. I then gave my little thoughts in English too, then came the turn of another guy who said he wasn’t confident enough in his English, so he spoke a bit in German, which almost everyone at least understands, but it was also clear the french girl sat next to me was getting 0% of what he was on about, so after he was done i leaned in closer to her and whispered in French – my native language – “do you want me to translate?”
She looked so taken aback at first, I even had to repeat a second time, that I thought for a minute that I had gotten it wrong and she wasnt actually French, until I realised – she had no idea I was french and was so not expecting me to speak french that she didn’t actually even register what i was saying lol
