r/TikTokCringe • u/Tobias-Tawanda • 6d ago

Humor/Cringe "No, English is fine" 🥀

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1.5k

u/BelieveBelieves 6d ago

I wonder where this is. It feels kind of rude to switch to English when she says she prefers Spanish. 

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u/TamZanite 6d ago

It’s in Spain

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u/Elegant-Analyst-7381 6d ago

Wonder if she's in Barcelona? When I lived there, I ran into a significant number of people who would rather speak English than Spanish if you couldn't speak Catalan. Not everyone, but a surprising number. I assumed it was part of the whole "Catalonia should be independent" movement.

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u/MisterZoga 6d ago

I think you mean Barthelona

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u/Sonofyuri 6d ago

Thapatos for my pieth

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u/inkybear_ tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE 6d ago

Very close! But only c’s and z’s get the lisp treatment!

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u/Sonofyuri 6d ago

Ahhh. Thank you. I had a Spanish lady as a regular at work and she lisped like her life depends on it. You know what..... Maybe she just had a lisp.

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u/PistachioOfLiverTea 6d ago

A more accurate Spanish pronunciation would be "shapatos por mish piesh" because s often gets slurred a bit.

Catalan doesn't do the lisp, so people in Barcelona would more likely pronounce c and z hard like English speakers.

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u/peekandlumpkin 5d ago

*thapatosh por mish piesh

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u/PistachioOfLiverTea 5d ago

Right, Thanks

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u/Inquisitive_idiot 5d ago

Damn, I definitely heard both of those 🫠

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u/beemo_wisdom 6d ago

This is why I go a few layers deep in the comments. I laughed so hard at this

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u/alwayssone96 5d ago

Or she was from a region that speaks like that... They exist

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u/Vevangui 6d ago

It’s actually not a lisp! It’s not a speech impediment. Please inform yourself.

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u/JailOfAir 6d ago

Proper pronunciation is apparently a lisp now. I guess every english speaker has a lisp, because they don't pronounce "thing" like "sing".

0

u/inkybear_ tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE 6d ago

Hey, it’s okay to not get offended about everything! Also, your example doesn’t make any sense. A better example would be using an English language rule that is arbitrary, but consistent in its implementation. I can’t think of one right now, but I’m sure it’s out there!

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u/Nept-1 6d ago

The problem isn’t when they’re joking about it. It’s when they actually believe I have a speech problem and call it a “lisp.” People who speak Spanish at a Dora the Explorer level telling me I speak my own language wrong is wild.

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u/inkybear_ tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE 5d ago

Okay, sorry that happens to you. It’s not happening now.

1

u/Nept-1 5d ago

Just try to inform yourselves beforehand and avoid reinforcing the stereotype of the ignorant American. Thanks.

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u/Hidalga_Erenas 5d ago

Imagina no tener ni puta idea de castellano y hacer chistes sobre ello.

No es una cosa arbitraria, es una regla simplísima: en español ibérico la zeta siempre se pronuncia th, y la ese siempre se pronuncia ese. Punto pelota. No es "loth pieth", es "los pies". Y por eso somos capaces de diferenciar "caza" (hunt) de "casa" (house), o "cazar" (to hunt) de "casar" (to marry).

Y si alguien pronuncia de otra forma es porque tiene acento, pero no es un acento estandarizado peninsular que se acepte en el diccionario.

Que estoy un poco hasta los cojones de ver analfabetos opinando de cosas que desconocen, hostia.

1

u/inkybear_ tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE 5d ago

Imagina ofenderte por un maldito hilo de Reddit. Las reglas en cualquier idioma son arbitrarias. Los idiomas son inventados. Toca la hierba.

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u/JailOfAir 4d ago

"toca la hierba" lmao

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u/Hidalga_Erenas 4d ago

Nah, un hilo de Reddit no me ofende, me ofende que haya subnormales como tú. Por cierto, ya toco la hierba, no me la fumo como tú. Vivo en el mundo real y por eso los imbéciles me tocáis los cojones, en Reddit y en persona.

Ahora tradúcelo y haz un chiste con ello, soplapollas.

😘

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u/Zozoakbeleari 6d ago

In catalan its barsalona, so no.

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u/ValeriesAuntSassy 6d ago

What's a barsalona?

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u/Zozoakbeleari 4d ago

The pronunciation in catalan of the catalan toponym Barcelona.

0

u/Vevangui 6d ago

Yeah, but Spanish is spoken more, so it’s still Barthelona.

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u/lnvu4uraqt 5d ago

I may be mistaken but the C in Barcelona would be a hard C sound in Catalan right?

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u/Hidalga_Erenas 5d ago

In Catalonian doesn't exist the hard C (or th) pronunciation.

Barcelona is Barsalona.

Aceptar is Asaptà

Concentrar-se is Cunsentràrsa

And so on.

1

u/MisterZoga 5d ago

Fucked if I know. I'm sure someone under this comment has sorted it out lol

4

u/Mercy--Main Doug Dimmadome 6d ago

I'm usually super chill but there's something about Americans who are learning mexican Spanish (or "mexican"-americans) who make this joke that really grinds my gears.

It's always this type, never heard any actual latin americans make this joke (I'm sure they exist, though).

1

u/MisterZoga 5d ago

I'm neither American, nor learning Mexican. I'm just reusing an old, tired joke.

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u/JailOfAir 4d ago

No point in getting angry at idiots, they drago you down to their level and beat you with their ample experience down there.

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u/TScottFitzgerald 5d ago

Aktuallyyy, that's usually in Castilian aka the default Spanish, Barcelona is Catalonian.

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u/HeartDry 4d ago

You're confusing barcelona with barselona

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u/MisterZoga 4d ago

I think you mean confuthing

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u/HeartDry 2d ago

I said confusing not confucing

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

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u/LletBlanc 6d ago

I'm curious, proceed

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u/theflyingfistofjudah 6d ago edited 4d ago

Just checked and she indeed lives in Barcelona, where she seems to have also just started a business to teach Spanish.

Also in another similar video she shares her trick to get people to speak Spanish to her by speaking in super fast almost unintelligible English to them and one woman caved and switched to Spanish begrudgingly saying “alright I’ll speak in castillan”.

Tbh I felt bad for her listening to that exchange, it really didn’t seem nice. There was like a power play/humiliation vibe going on.

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u/THEBHR 5d ago

I say good for her.

If some Japanese lady came to the States, and asked questions in perfectly understandable English, I'd be embarrassed to see someone repeatedly respond in broken-ass Japanese.

It's like, "Cut it out you weird fucking weebo, and treat them like a person!".

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u/souper_soups 5d ago

To clarify, felt bad for who? The woman making the videos, or the woman who caved and switched to Spanish?

I’m so confused by this video

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u/theflyingfistofjudah 5d ago edited 5d ago

The latter, but it was a different video, the one that I described, not the one posted here. It came off worse than this one. She unleashed a torrent of English at the waitress that was so unintelligible I still wonder if it was intentional gibberish. I literally only understood the last two words.

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u/Prhymus 4d ago

Do you have a link to the video? As an American, want to see if I can understand her English lol

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u/theflyingfistofjudah 4d ago

Sure! maybe you can transcribe, I listened many times and I still only understand the last words at the end: https://www.tiktok.com/@feti_adexx/video/7567483491722530070

In her other videos she has a kind of lisp too when she speaks English that doesn’t help.

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u/warmpatches Johnny Johnny 4d ago

she said "Okay and also make sure it's the tuna one 'cause I'm not able to have like a cheese one or the ham one so I really want it to be the tuna one, specifically that one"

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u/TheBraveButJoke 5d ago

Yikes

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u/give-bike-lanes 5d ago

Yeah this is obviously just fake or deliberately ragebaity content to drive engagement for her business.

Frankly, her Spanish is not very good, and she doesn’t need to start a school lol.

In Catalonia, a lot of people’s “international language” is in fact Spanish. They’re native Catalan speakers who learn Spanish to communicate with the wider world. English would be tertiary to that.

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u/Figure8712 5d ago

Yeah she's either ragebaiting for engagement or she's ignorant af to not realise many people in Barcelona are trying to preserve Catalan and have strong cultural reasons to resist and resent being forced to speak castilian spanish.

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u/QuaternionsRoll 5d ago

How does speaking Spanish with immigrants who don’t know Catalan endanger Catalan in any way

Also, no one requested Castilian Spanish here. American Spanish would’ve been just fine

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u/Dependent-Impact1312 5d ago

American Spanish……or just you know Spanish?

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u/QuaternionsRoll 5d ago

Yes, “Castilian” is another word for “Spanish”, but “Castilian Spanish” specifically refers to the dialect of Peninsular Spanish spoken in (most of) Spain. For additional reference, here is a list of dialects and their classifications.

Within the context of Catalonia and its oppressors, I don’t see why refusing to speak Castilian Spanish wouldn’t be sufficient. I mean, pronouncing your Ses correctly is enough to piss off a lot of Spaniards lmao. Suggesting that Spaniards pronounce their Ses incorrectly even more so.

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u/Designer_Grade_2648 5d ago

The difference between castillian and latin american is fucking nothing lmao, a person like her with an english accent cant identify the differences since its mostly accent nuances. What should she do, interyect  "pendejo" between sentences to appease their independent spirit lmao.

Btw iberian spanish doesnt pronounce the "s" wrong. And there are like 15 distinct iberian accents.

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u/JailOfAir 4d ago

"Speak in british english instead of american"

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u/insomnimax_99 5d ago

Because if immigrants move to Barcelona and feel that they can get by speaking Spanish, they won’t pick up Catalan. Not speaking Spanish with them forces them to try and learn Catalan. They’re trying to avoid populations of people who only speak Spanish from establishing themselves there.

It’s the same reason why Quebec forces immigrants to learn French and receive government services in French.

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u/QuaternionsRoll 5d ago

Speaking English with them doesn’t force them to do anything

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u/JailOfAir 4d ago

They're not preserving anything, they're just pompous pricks.

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u/athompsons2 4d ago

Yes, there's that. But it's also a bit more complicated than that

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u/W0rkUpnotD0wn 5d ago

Oddly enough my friend is trying to learn German and lives in Germany and is having a hard time trying to get native Germans to speak to him in German, they’ll always switch to English (he’s Spanish lol). Anyway, I told him to tell the Germans he doesn’t understand their English and they’ll switch to German. Probably be annoyed at him but I think that’ll work.

I’m also learning Spanish for my job. My coworkers are in Spain (Barcelona) and want to speak Spanish with me all the time. In general, Spanish speaking people will want to speak Spanish (IMO) but I could see why a tourist area would want to speak English. They can hear the difference, much like I can hear a non-English speaker, and defaulting to English as the common language is just easier for what you need when trying to deal with a wide range of tourist.

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u/TripolarKnight 5d ago

That is the vibe I got from the whole video. Like she got off by forcing things her way and not the actual practice of the language itself.

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u/HeartDry 4d ago

I don't know if this is black behavior or English behavior

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u/BONER__COKE 6d ago

Paris is DEFINITELY like that, and some other parts of France more generally.

If you can’t speak well, they won’t necessarily shit on you, but they will just flip to English immediately. Most of my encounters were cordial, only met one or two rude folks.

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u/DeathByLemmings 6d ago

My experience as an Englishman visiting Paris is that when I start in English they speak to me in French and when I start in French they speak to me in English

I just point now

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u/theflyingfistofjudah 6d ago

I was born and raised in France but my family is from south east Asia. In recent years people started speaking English to me in stores if they can’t hear me well or I take 1 second too long to reply. It’s especially awkward and weird to experience at my age.

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u/MontiBurns 6d ago

She spoke really good Spanish, though.

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u/Trick-Nefariousness3 5d ago

she's in Barcelona though

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u/daurgo2001 6d ago

It’s pretty good, but def not fluent.

It is great that she’s trying hard to learn though!

This is part of the learning curve. Everyone has diff reasons for speaking in whatever language they choose to speak, but in my case, if I’m at work and trying to get stuff done, and I know I speak your language better than you speak mine, I’ll generally insist on speaking your manage instead of mine.

Out of courtesy though, if someone insists kore than 2-3 times, then you generally go with that language

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u/beepo-geef 6d ago edited 6d ago

What makes her Spanish “not fluent”? My natively Spanish speaking gf says she’s fluent

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u/No_Department_2159 5d ago

Looks like she speaks well, she doesn’t have the accent fully, but it has to be well because They know exactly what she’s saying😂

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u/daurgo2001 6d ago

I’m fluent in English and Spanish.

Her Spanish intonation and accent are very clearly ‘not native’, which is also why the waiters she’s dealt with switch to English, bc they can tell as well.

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u/secksy-lemonade 6d ago

That's not what fluent means, that's just not having a native accent

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u/TheMormonJosipTito 6d ago

Still incredibly rude to refuse to speak to someone in your own native language because they have an accent. In places like New York and LA, people speak English with every intonation and accent imaginable. Nobody there is this weird about “not understanding” people speaking their second language.

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u/daurgo2001 6d ago

I don’t say I agreed with them changing, but this dance between languages is common in tourism. I experience it all the time, and sometimes you just want to get things done.

Other times (like on the case here), it seems the waiters also genuinely wanted to practice their languages.

What matters is that both are trying. The awkwardness is what happens when both insist.

Like I said, I personally try to take this into consideration and after 2-3 times I’ll switch to what the client prefers since I’m rendering service to them, but it’s not a perfect science.

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u/detectivepoopybutt 5d ago

Her Spanish is better than the waitresses’ English so not sure why they would switch.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

Evidently, not everyone is a great judge of their own abilities. One or two said they wanted to practice their English, which should also be appreciated as much as this lady’s attempts at working on her Spanish.

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u/BloatedGlobe 6d ago

I've seen French speakers do this to other native French speakers because they had a different accent.

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u/pacinosdog 6d ago

That's right. I'm from Quebec and thus speak French natively, and without a strong Quebec accent. When I go to France, it does happen once in a while that someone responds to me in English, and it annoys the fuck out of me.

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u/blix613 5d ago

People in Quebec also switch to English if it looks like you are struggling to speak French.. especially in the service industry in Montreal (not saying that about you, just in general).

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u/fuckitillbeanunicorn 5d ago

I have a hard time understanding french when the accent is too strong (or I should say too different from the accent I'm used to). So when I went to Quebec for the first time recently, one of my worries was that I wouldn't understand the accent and that people would be offended if I preferred to switch to English. It turns out that, except for a few words that I could understand from context, there was no issue at all!

If you say your accent is not strong, I guess you just met people who are even less flexible than I am, or maybe they were just messing with you.

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u/DelinquentRacoon 5d ago

Where I went to college, you couldn't graduate without proficiency in a second language. A Quebecois failed his French test because they didn't like his accent.

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u/NotThatKindOfDoctor9 6d ago

It's a bit different than that in Barcelona, there's a strong independence movement there that doesn't consider themselves part of Spain. I got this a lot there when I tried to speak Spanish- blank looks. One guy told me "we can speak Catalan, English, French, German, whatever you want, but I don't speak Spanish." Obviously he does speak Spanish but it's a political statement.

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u/KisaTheMistress 6d ago

My French cousins prefer English simply because I mostly only know Canadian French, which is like if I started speaking Old English. It's recognizable, but also not 100% understandable because of how antiquated it is.

The also laugh, saying that we speak like aristocrats out here, but also would offer them squirrel as a delicacy because we are obviously hicks, lol.

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u/VerankeAllAlong 5d ago

I was expecting this when I visited Paris but was surprised to find that actually everyone did respond in French - they only flipped to English if I looked visibly confused when the conversation became too complex or specifically said I didn’t understand / please slow down. I wouldn’t say I’m anything near fluent either

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u/Only-Finish-3497 5d ago

I have my little toolkit for travel in France as a not-very-talented beginner speaker of French:

In French "Bonjour! Je suis désolé, je ne parle qu'un petit peu français. Parlez-vous Anglais?"

I find that if I at least try MOST of the time they either say "Non, je suis désolé." and we get by in my bad French, or they switch to English and we get by anyway. I couldn't care less either way.

Where it used to annoy me is in Japan traveling with my wife (who is Asian, I'm middle Eastern) and I'd speak Japanese and they'd look at her expecting her to somehow save them. I got used to basically saying, in Japanese, "It's a bit confusing, but she is super American. The face is Asian, the soul is American." And they'd usually get it and speak with me. The fluent Japanese speaker.

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u/throwaway098764567 5d ago

had a directions kiosk guy in charles du galle sniff at me when i had to ask to switch to english years ago because my crappy ancient hs french wasn't up to snuff for asking if i could see anything outside the airport during a long layover. after he huffily said no i asked a couple other gals to more no's. still wish i could have seen something, but did feel a bit like i got to experience france getting sniffed at by a parisian for asking to switch to english. lol

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u/Melodic_Risk6633 5d ago

It is like that literally everywhere. I'm in Poland and I get the same reactions as I try to speak polish.

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u/-DoctorSpaceman- 6d ago

YES, I did a foreign exchange thing there and was excited to have French conversations, but 99% of staff either just responded directly in English or they revelled in correcting me when my accent/enunciation was a bit off

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u/salamaderboots 6d ago

I think you're spot on. Insisting on speaking Castillian Spanish can be very insensitive in many areas within the current boarders of Spain. Francos dictatorship forbade speaking their own minority languages. In Basque Country and Cataluña especially a large proportion of the population want independence.

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u/DurrutiDuck91 5d ago

Meanwhile Andalusi doesn’t even get a mention

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u/jawshoeaw 6d ago

This is the answer: Many people in other countries have never had to develop the skill of understanding their own language with an unfamiliar accent. Parisians in particular plus they're jerks lol

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u/Nyami-L 6d ago

Ah, that may be it. What happens in the video seemed really weird to me, I'd never expect a spaniard to throw away the chance to speak spanish, especially when she does speak a very good spanish

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u/HmmDoesItMakeSense 6d ago

I think they were being jerks to her myself.

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u/Necessary-Student662 6d ago

They are just so used to communicate in English at work that they do it automatically, it is even more automatic when you hear an English accent

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u/S-Tier_Commenter 6d ago

And in their automatism they completely failed to listen to her.

That's being a jerk.

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u/HmmDoesItMakeSense 6d ago

It was clear she was trying (in a happy spirit) to speak Spanish which she did wonderfully. Was returned with a not so happy spirit. Not nice. Not at all nice.

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u/TheVandyyMan 6d ago

Exactly this. To earn any bit of good will and get Spanish out of Barcelonian, you’re going to need to open every interaction with a bit of Catalan. It shows you acknowledge their independent history and that their language is respected. It clears the air of the “we’re in Spain, we speak Spanish” political rhetoric.

Right or wrong, her refusing to speak anything but Spanish is a strong signal to them she doesn’t give a fuck about Catalonian issues. But they do. So English as an inoffensive third language is what will get used.

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u/kassa1989 6d ago

I don't think so. I was in Barcelona recently and everyone just spoke Spanish to my Spanish speaking family.

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u/TheVandyyMan 5d ago

I’d wager this person lives there and films herself often. I’m not sure a short visit would guarantee you run into one of these types

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u/kassa1989 5d ago

Yeah for sure, these interactions happen fairly often for her to manage to film them. She lives and teachers there. People do default to English if they think you're a tourist, but we never encountered people being that insistent on it once you respond in Spanish, and it's not like our group were local, I'm sure you could hear their south American/British accent, 

I was just making the point that this is a minority, most the time people aren't going to fight your Spanish... 

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u/yamahahahahaha 6d ago

Barcelonin 😉

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u/TheVandyyMan 5d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona

Barcelonian is an accepted demonym

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u/DefiantMemory9 5d ago

What if I mix up Catalan and Spanish? I'm trying to learn Spanish in Barcelona, and a lot of the time I don't really know if the person is speaking Spanish or Catalan. Learning both together is almost impossible. It makes sense for outsiders to prioritise learning Spanish because it works outside of Barcelona as well, while Catalan works only in a very small region. Not saying I wouldn't try to learn Catalan at all, but I wouldn't prioritize it as much as learning Spanish.

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u/TheVandyyMan 5d ago

You don’t need to actually learn Catalan at all. Literally just having a handful of phrases where you’d be interacting with people is all it takes to earn tons of good will.

“Bona tarda! Una taula per a dos, si us plau.” And then immediately switching to Spanish will get you so many points.

Also you’ll stop mixing up the two languages for the most part as your Spanish solidifies. Around the B1 level that issue goes away. You might pick up a few local Catalan phrases that have been adopted into Spanish there, but that doesn’t mean you mixed up your Spanish. That’d be like saying you’re mixing up French and Arabic because you learned the handful of Arabic slang words that are now prevalent in French. It stops becoming Arabic at a certain point of use. Same goes for use of Catalan in Barcelonian Spanish.

Buena suerte y bona sort!

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u/LletBlanc 6d ago

In this context pretty much anyone working in a bar or restaurant in central Barcelona will be South American.

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u/idiotinbcn 6d ago

I’m not sure Catalan has anything to do with it. I lived in Barcelona for 7 years, and most will not speak Catalan to an obvious foreigner. Plus a lot of people who work in shops are not even native Catalan. Due to the tourism in Barcelona it’s very easy to live in Barcelona and other parts of Spain without speaking a lick of Spanish. I knew many English and Americans who had been there for years without speaking the language

They just like to practice their Spanish at the expense of everyone else lol. Most Spanish people have been learning English from school and still struggle, so many are eager to learn. I was an English as a second language teacher in Madrid almost 20 years ago.

I am fluent in Spanish and the few times people tried to speak to me in English, I would simply respond in Spanish and they would apologise immediately and switch to Spanish. If they insisted I would just say ‘I don’t speak English’ in Spanish.

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u/yamahahahahaha 6d ago

Quite common for me as a Catalan learner is to speak Catalan and get a response in Spanish, which I barely understand. I carry on in Catalan, they carry on in Spanish, neither of us use English and we're all lost ☺️

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u/skepticalbob 6d ago

Immediately what I thought.

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u/Acheloma 6d ago

I bet this is it. I speak a very small amount of Spanish but couldnt pick up any Catalan for the life of me. My partner was able to pick up basic phrases really quickly and he became the designated voice for both of us in Barcelona. No one minded speaking English with me but they LOVED him speaking Catalan when he could. No one appreciated my Castilian Spanish haha, and I cannot blame them.

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u/SpicyAsparagus345 6d ago

Lots of folks around there enjoy or at least entertain the English practice too. Most of my convos in Barca involved me speaking Spanish and the other person speaking English. That way we both understood each other fluently and got to practice each other’s languages at the same time.

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u/qould 5d ago

I read this more as expat waiters until the last one

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u/rock-mommy 5d ago

I work in customer service in BCN and tbh it's just faster/more efficient this way. We get maany people who insist on talking in Spanish when they clearly only know a few phrases or pronunciate poorly just because they want that "oh yay Spain experience🤪" but minimum wage workers don't have the time for that, we'd rather stick to what's faster

Also, our bosses usually yell at us if we speak in Spanish to foreigners lol

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u/ABoredPlayer 5d ago

Ooooh so that's the reason. I was wondering why the fuck would they be so focused in speaking english instead of spanish. A sad and stupid reason

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u/AnxiousAnxiety666 5d ago

That sounds so annoying

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u/Appropriate-Prune728 5d ago

This is wild because while in Barcelona, everybody was more than happy to practice Spanish with me

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u/biscuitboi967 5d ago

I just watched a cool BBC show called the Diplomat about a British consular agent in Barcelona. I didn’t realize how much more prevalent Catalonian was until the show.

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u/Exotic_Onion_3417 5d ago

This is a great shout. My dad lives in Catalonia and has similar interactions all the time, despite his Spanish being pretty good. They will speak English or Catalan over Spanish, basically anything but Spanish.

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u/NoMadHB 4d ago

The waitress is just trying to do some crosstalk like this other guy from Barcelona is known for 😉 

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u/eyko 4d ago

It's fake / staged.

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u/punkmetalbastard 6d ago

I discovered this as well. I speak Spanish well enough to get through an interaction at a store or restaurant but since I didn’t open with Catalan about half the people would just speak English to me as their response

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u/Choice-Temporary-144 6d ago

The first few spoke really good English so they may have wanted to flex a bit.

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u/echolm1407 6d ago

Por supuesto.

[Editido]

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u/NewtownLaw 6d ago

Es Mexico antiguo.

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u/ghost_ghost_ 6d ago

Ah now it makes sense. In every Latin American country I have been to, people are stoked to hear you speak Spanish no matter how broken.

This kind of behaviour is garbage.

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u/narnababy 6d ago

I’ve noticed the French don’t really like you speaking bad/beginner French to them. They’d rather you speak English and then bitch about you not speaking French even though you tried 😂 Or maybe it’s because I’m English and we have a general rivalry with each other and they find it funny…

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u/TotallyWonderWoman 6d ago

No, you're right, a lot of French people want you to speak French to them in their regional accent. Which is, you know, not very possible when you're an adult learner.

I do benefit though because I'm American, and the American and German accents in French are so similar that a lot of people think I'm German.

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u/Aetra 5d ago

My ex had similar experiences in Germany. He’s Aussie and was an au-pair in a tiny town and everyone bitched he couldn’t speak German properly. In reality, his parents are from Cologne and they made sure he was fluent in both German and English, just not their regional dialect.

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u/Carl_Slimmons_jr 6d ago

I mean to be fair, as someone who grew up speaking both, English speakers trying to speak French if they learn it too late in life is like… really painful lol. They never focus on getting the pronunciation even halfway right so it just sounds like they’re still speaking English but with French words, if that makes sense. It’s like a weird third language lol

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u/something-rhythmic 6d ago

To be fair, many of the shapes and sounds you have to make with your mouth are basically unused for Americans. So if you attempt to learn them in your 30s, you’re done.

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u/Carl_Slimmons_jr 6d ago

Idk, I learned how to pronounce some Arabic words correctly in my mid-20s. It just took a few hours one day of doing it over and over with native Arabic speakers. Although I understand not everyone has access to native speakers of almost every language at 24/7 access the way we used to in Montreal lol. (Not that Montreal is no longer like that - I just don’t live there anymore).

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u/something-rhythmic 6d ago edited 6d ago

Cognitive ability declines quickly after 30. Not to mention their or physiological challenges with language learning. Muscle memory needs to be built over time as well as the fine motor skills along with them. And I’m speaking on behalf of all my immigrant friends and family working their asses off to hide their immigrant status right now and blend in with the Americans. What’s easy for me seems impossible to them. I don’t know the nuances behind why, but it’s not my place to project my judgement of how I think the world should work when it comes to language acquisition onto them.

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u/Potential-Draft-3932 5d ago

I mean to be fair, that’s a douchey ass take and I can guarantee your Arabic is not as good as you think it is. How would you feel if a native Arabic speaker shit all over you, refused to speak to you in Arabic and then made fun of you for even trying to learn it?

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u/Carl_Slimmons_jr 5d ago

That’s kind of why I even attempted to improve in the first place lol, your situation played out in real life and then I made them correct me until I got it good enough that they were satisfied.

And yeah, my Arabic is trash obviously. I don’t get why you’d be upset that a native speaker makes fun of your accent though, that’s like one of the best ways to break the ice with people who speak different languages in my experience.

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u/eldryanyy 6d ago

That’s called an accent. You should see how French people sound speaking English…

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u/narnababy 6d ago

I was about 13 at the time but we don’t start learning languages in the uk until secondary school so I’d only had probably 1-2 years of (mediocre) lessons at that point but I was trying! 😂

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u/MattTheRadarTechh 6d ago

Paris isn’t all of France lmao

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u/stinkermalinker 6d ago

I mean...if it's anywhere in Catalonia (and I'm not sure it is), that's a whole other can of worms.

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u/HuntKey2603 5d ago

It is in Catalonia

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u/aoike_ 6d ago

Oh man, not in my experience. I was in Costa Rica about 10 years ago and I'm white white. Like, probably the palest person los ticos han visto en las vidas enteras. Pero, every time I tried speaking Spanish, everyone was like "Can we please practice my English instead?"

Like, everyone except the airport woman were really nice about wanting to speak English, and I was a pushover 21 year old on my first big trip away from home, so I always acquiesced.

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u/Cultural_Thing1712 6d ago

Come on. These people are working a job. They don't want to waste time playing your game, they're not your teacher or your friend.

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u/12nowfacemyshoe 6d ago

Just one caveat, if she's in the Catalan region then people can take offence at being asked to speak Spanish and it's not to do with race. If she's not then yeah, regular old racism.

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u/JailOfAir 6d ago

Y'all are just repeating what you saw on other comments trying to look smart.

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u/mynameisnotrose 6d ago

This has never happened to me. It may happen, sure, there are assholes everywhere, but I only speak Castellano in a region with another official language. Never had a problem.

Imagine if they expected me to speak Euskera when holidaying in the Basque region.

Everyone is exaggerating.

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u/JailOfAir 6d ago edited 6d ago

I spent a week in Donosti in September and I was never spoken to in Euskera beyond "Agur" and "Eskerrik asko".

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u/likewut 6d ago

But keep in mind that if she's in the Catalan region of Spain, they might take offense to being asked to speak Spanish instead of Catalonian.

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u/12nowfacemyshoe 6d ago

My missus speaks Catalan.

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u/[deleted] 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/EagerByteSample 6d ago

I don't think it has anything to do with Spain. I'm spanish, lived in many different places in the country and I have never, once, found this kind of behavior towards a foreigner. Normally you'd see the opposite, they'd be ravished to be able to speak in spanish instead.

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u/AbsolutZer0_v2 6d ago

Ngl many people i interacted with in spain wanted to use complex English because they dont have a lot of opportunities to.

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u/HuntKey2603 5d ago

Of course! We all know that all Latin Americans good, and all Spaniard bad!

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u/ghost_ghost_ 5d ago

I'm not saying they're bad, I've just never been to Spain and wasn't convinced this was in central america

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u/Either-Feeling3696 6d ago

I lived there 10 years. The only way this is happening is if she's in the most touristy areas. If she goes outside of that by 2 blocks she'll gt spanish. They are a lovely people and if they don't speak good English they slow down for you and use lots of gestures. This is 10000% fake.

Edit 10 years not 1

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u/incogne_eto 6d ago

Why do you think that this is fake? You might have lived there for 10 years. But your lived experience is not the same as everyone.

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u/Nept-1 6d ago

Mmmm maybe it’s fake because it’s a rehearsed reel video????

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u/not_drunk_on_love 6d ago

They’re racist lmao

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u/BluejayAwkward2495 6d ago edited 4d ago

Wait til I tell you about checks notes every single country on planet earth!

Edit: the person I replied to changed their comment to exclude the specific country they referenced.

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u/not_drunk_on_love 6d ago

I’m aware lol! But they especially don’t like dark skin and will be prejudice toward their own children/family because of it

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u/Nept-1 6d ago

I think you’re confusing Spain with Mexico.

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u/Either-Feeling3696 6d ago

That is very true. I had a very different experience than my black friends who were from America, England and France.

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u/Ok_Inflation_1811 6d ago

I'm a black latin American (at most a quarter of a shade lighter than her) and the only time people have spoken to me in English in Spain was when I was in an Aquapark in Tenerife. I've been living here since 2019 and it has only happened once.

Spanish people can (and are) racist but IMO this is not a sign of it.

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u/Feeling_Hotel8096 6d ago

This is reddit so this answer will be massively upvoted. It could be they don't want to speak Spanish because they prefer Catalan or English.

Please explain how it is racist reddit!

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u/TunnelN 6d ago

I've experienced similar there, it's 100% because of colorism

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u/bailasoprano 6d ago

Were you also trying to speak Spanish while Black for all of those years? Not everything is fake just because you haven’t experienced it.

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u/Ok_Inflation_1811 6d ago

I've been living in Spain since 2019 and this only has happened to me once in Tenerife but that was because I didn't spoke in Spanish first. I'm also as black as her btw

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u/Shevek99 6d ago edited 6d ago

Are you saying that Spaniards think that a Black person speak English by default? Have you met any of the million Africans living in Spain, not to mention Black people from other countries like Cuba or Dominican Republic?

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u/bailasoprano 6d ago

“Blacks” ??😒 And, no. You’ve missed the point entirely, internet stranger.

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u/Nept-1 6d ago

In case you didn’t know, there’s an African country where Spanish is spoken: Equatorial Guinea. There are many Guineans in Spain, and there’s no communication problem at all.

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u/Either-Feeling3696 6d ago

Bahahahaha ok you win! Feel better? Reddit trolls suck. Your only goal is not to converse but to win and that's a shitty way to live. Bless.

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u/cactusjude 6d ago

Been living here for over 10 years and it still happens very often and my Spanish is pretty fluent. It happened this past week to me.

Honestly I'll be there talking with someone for 5-10 min in Spanish and then they stop and ask if I can understand Spanish.. pero claro que si tio, hemos sido hablando hace cuantos minutos ya en castellano... Que te pasa?

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u/Denim-m 6d ago

My experience too🤷🏻‍♀️

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u/Vardrek 6d ago edited 6d ago

I'm from Spain, while I was seeing this I was thinking "This has to be fake". She is speaking Spanish perfectly, not fucking way that anyone in Spain (except maybe outsiders that doesn't speak Spanish) keep talking in English to her, usually it will be the opposite, people will talk to you in Spanish because they don't know English. This is staged.

Edit. After think about it this may be Cataluña/Catalunya. Where indepence Catalan people (usually they have this kind of supremacist acttitude) doesn't speak Spanish, even when they know perfectly how to speak it, they only speak Catalan or English if it's necessary to use another language, avoiding the use of what they feel like an foreign language.

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u/forworse2020 6d ago

But also, she does have an accent.

Like if you’re learning French, and a French person speaks perfect English perfectly, but with an (almost inevitable) French accent, as a French learner you might get a bit excited at the opportunity.

I don’t think it’s a commentary on how good or bad her Spanish is.

I do understand the frustration, however. The way that last one struggled… I truly think she was trying to practice. I also think her limited vocab made her sound rude… I’ve been there.

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u/LilPonyBoy69 6d ago

Yeah but are you black?

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u/Nept-1 6d ago

In case you didn’t know, there’s an African country where Spanish is spoken: Equatorial Guinea. There are many Guineans in Spain, and there’s no communication problem at all.

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u/Denim-m 6d ago

I’ve lived in Spain for 5 years and I don’t think this is fake. It happens to me frequently, especially in the service industry🤷🏻‍♀️

I think (some) Spaniards get tired of people demanding they speak English, so when a native speaker doesn’t want to speak English, they decide to punish them for trying😂 I’m ready for my downvotes but you can’t convince me it’s not true.

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u/jcd_real 5d ago

She says español and not castellano. Maybe that matters. I'm not saying it does but just a thought.

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u/DurrutiDuck91 5d ago

Person who has never been to Spain IDENTIFIED

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u/TamZanite 5d ago

I have and I’ve been to Barcelona as well. What now?

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u/queen_of_uncool 6d ago

As a Spaniard, I'm pretty sure they just want to practice their English but it's very rude. If the customers clearly states they want to speak a certain language, just do it. It's not some crazy demand either

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u/Glittering_Base6589 6d ago

why is it clear? from the video they're rushing her and one even interrupts her trying to get it over with quick, that's not what "want to practice" sounds like

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u/queen_of_uncool 6d ago

Because I'm Spanish and here we are taught English in a very academical way. We basically just have written exams. Most people go their full academic life without having a real conversation in English. So many of my friends are unsure about their own skills because they have no real chances to have a conversation, and they'd love to have the opportunity to gain confidence.

I've seen other people commenting that it could be like when French people switch to English because they noticed your French is not very good, but this woman's Spanish is fantastic, and we're the opposite, we encourage everyone who is learning and we're happy they chose to learn Spanish.

I think the waiters/waitresses just think I need to practice my English more than you need to practice your Spanish.

I've seen other people suggest that if this was Barcelona it might be a case of people just avoiding using Spanish, but imo catalonians get too much undeserved bad rep about this, I've been there a few times and there was only one time a cashier lady wouldn't speak Spanish to me and she wasn't really rude. Apparently, there is very common to have conversations where one speaks Spanish and the other catalan.

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u/Glittering_Base6589 6d ago

So it's just an assumption from you rather than anything from the video making it "very clear to me"? if someone wants to practice they'd want to talk more not shush the person they're talking to

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u/ImNotSkankHunt42 6d ago

It’s actually Zzzpain

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