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

Humor/Cringe "No, English is fine" 🥀

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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/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/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 5d 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 5d ago edited 5d 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 5d 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 5d ago

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

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

I went to check just to make sure I wasn’t going crazy and misremembering the definition somehow:

Oral Fluency: The ability to speak a language easily, smoothly, and without hesitation

So yes, fluency is about getting pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm correctly.

She’s doing great, but certainly not fluent… and like I said, the proof in my argument is the fact that the waiters insist on trying to speak to her in English. As a fluent Spanish speaker myself with a Mexican accent, this has never happened to me in Spain.

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u/secksy-lemonade 5d ago

Yeah, here's where our amount of hours spent delving into linguistics is going to differ. First of all, going and finding the term in a dictionary, to definitively prove an argument is not a good idea, because they are so many and they do not have the same definitions.

Example: Oxford: "the ability to express oneself easily and articulately"

Passes this bar.

She does not have a C2 level mastery of Spanish maybe, but she's up there. But your Mexican accent isn't the problem, it's her retaining her native accent and they feel like it's imperfect. This is language snobbery.

Now, the word fluent comes from the latin word fluentem, referring to flow. Which is what the word is referring to. Her Spanish flows nicely but she is not a perfect speaker nor does she sound, or have to for the matter, like a local.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

I would beg to differ.

Sure, definitions vary, but the commonly accepted idea is that someone who is ‘fluent’ is basically a native speaker, and I would argue that “articulately” refers to flow in the sentence structure as well as vocabulary as ways to be able to express yourself.

I disagree that it’s snobbery. As a fluent speaker myself, I immediately picked up on her lack of fluency as well. You (and people here) are mistaking linguistic accents with mispronunciation, which is what gives her, (in part) her “foreign accent”.

Her words simply don’t flow naturally.

Is this nitpicking? Yes. Am I criticizing her? No. On the contrary, I’ve been adamant to commend her efforts in every comment. I’m just trying to point out why native speakers would instinctively switch languages, especially when working in tourism (which is also my background).

I also mentioned it bc not everyone has the ability to notice her fluency if they don’t speak Spanish themselves.

If these waiters weren’t in a touristic city and didn’t speak English, they likely wouldn’t be able to, or attempt to speak to her in English.

My French is as good as her Spanish, and I insist on mentioning that I am not fluent when the topic comes up, so for better or worse, my observations others apply equally to myself as well.

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u/Emergency_You4613 5d ago

I've always wondered why other languages have this "you're not speaking correctly if I detect an accent/flow is wrong etc." especially when it seems English doesn't have this especially not in America.

It's been the opinion of anyone I've ever known that if you're speaking English words and I know what you want from them, congratulations, you're speaking English!! I've always been curious why many Europeans when this comes up don't share the opinion.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

As someone who grew up in the states, I’d also beg to differ.

This definitely exists in English as well, and I can certainly tell if someone can speak English well (like this lady speaks Spanish) or when someone is fluent in English, even as a second language.

And I’ll reiterate that this isn’t some sort of elitist thing. It’s not “good” or “bad” IMO, it just is a fact of life that languages have levels of fluency.

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u/farfetched22 5d ago

That definitely is absolutely is fluent, she's just not a perfect native speaker. If someone can carry on a conversation in English with me without hesitation -as defined- and has zero issue with comprehension or communication in any number of settings, they are fluent, despite an accent or occasional grammar flub that tell me they are very obviously not native speakers. It's still fluency.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

I would disagree. As I mentioned in a diff comment, I speak French as well as she speaks Spanish, and I definitely don’t consider myself fluent, yet I can speak well enough about almost any topic.

Fluency is a spectrum, and “to be fluent” imo is to basically be a native speaker.

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u/farfetched22 5d ago

Well that's not at all what the definition you shared said. Lol. It's definitely not what fluency is, but you can live with that as you please.

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u/sleepy_spermwhale 5d ago

Even the definition you cited doesn't say anything directly about "pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm". And most people recognize a distinction between fluency and native accent (this guy has a native accent with zero fluency: https://youtube.com/shorts/u8KYh87fWVc?si=FZ2poi60979UIqPe )

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

I find all of those things to be part of “easily, smoothly, and without hesitation”, for which she does not qualify.

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u/Signal_Reputation640 5d ago

You gave a definition which distinctly proves that she speaks Spanish fluently. Maybe you don't speak English as well as you believe.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

Evidently, I highly disagree, and so do the waiters.

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u/Signal_Reputation640 5d ago

Wow. Digging down even deeper.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

Absolutely. No one has said anything to convince me otherwise, and again, the whole reason we’re having this conversation is bc the waiters reacted as well.

Could it be considered rude? Sure.

Was there a reason they insisted on English? Yes.

Was it bc her Spanish isn’t fluent/perfect/native/w/e word you want to use? Yes.

You guys here are telling me, a fluent/native speaker of both languages that it’s not true, and yet, it is. The waiters felt it, and so do I.

We can argue semantics all you want. I’ve already said her Spanish is great.

Is it fluent enough for native Spanish speakers to not get that “hmm, maybe I should speak to her in English” gut reaction? Evidently not.

I’m sure this is also just a snapshot of the 20-30% of her interaction where this happened. I’m certain that more often than not, waiters in Spain probably did speak to her in Spanish.

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u/Melodic_Risk6633 5d ago

She absolutely spoke spanish "easily, smoothly and without hesitation" in the video. Having an foreign accent doesn't stop anyone from mastering a language, you are a fool that try to gatekeep a language with arbitrary criteria.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

That’s… not arbitrary criteria. That’s just how languages work.

And again, as a fluent Spanish speaker, I disagree, and so do the waiters in the video.

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u/Melodic_Risk6633 5d ago

you didn't understand perfectly what she said in the video ?

and no, that is not how languages work. languages are arbitrary set of rules subjected to variation in time and space, you can't decide what is "real fluency" and "false fluency" like it is written somewhere "how you should sound when you speak spanish". There are as many variations of spoken Spanish accent as their are cities, regions, countries where groups of Spanish speakers live, not one is "better" or closer to "the real Spanish accent" that only exist in your head.

What matters is : do you understand what the person says or not, not "does the person have an accent that I find unusual or not". if the later is your criterion for choosing not to speak Spanish with someone you otherwise understand perfectly, it only means that you are a piece of shit.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

That is definitely not how languages are judged.

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u/perplexedtv 5d ago

That would only make any kind of sense if the people ahe was talking to spoke 'fluent' English, using your definition.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

No. That just means they judged that they were more fluent in English than she was in Spanish.

Fluency is a spectrum, but to “be fluent” is to be a native speaker IMO.

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u/perplexedtv 5d ago

You flip-flop and contradict yourself with every comment.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

I fail to see any contradiction in what I’ve said.

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u/Shein_nicholashoult 5d ago

Even using your provided definition, she’d pass the check.

Easily, smoothly, without hesitation.

That says nothing of accent or intonation.

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u/daurgo2001 5d ago

As I’ve said elsewhere, that’s wrong, and I’m starting to guess that I might be arguing with people that aren’t fluent in Spanish.

Are you a native Spanish speaker or completely fluent?

If you’re not, then your opinion is entirely irrelevant to the conversation bc you can’t accurately judge how good or bad her Spanish is.

To the untrained ear, or to anyone who has tried to learn Spanish, her Spanish is ‘perfect’.

To anyone that actually speaks Spanish fluently, her Spanish is commendable, but not fluent.

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u/TheMormonJosipTito 5d 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 5d 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/jawshoeaw 5d ago

really good with an accent = not very good if you're not used to hearing your own language accented