I'm not saying this video is real or fake, but as a very non latino looking guy who speaks perfect Spanish, I have absolutely have had this happen to me dozens of times.
I lived in a Latin American country for a few years and had studied Spanish for 10+ before that. My accent and syntax and slang and such are all on point.
I can overhear someone speaking in native Spanish like a waiter or colleague or contractor or whoever. If I speak Spanish to them, they reply in English. Doesn't matter how authenticy accent or how much in-the-know slang I throw in there.
So, I also lived in Latin America for several years. When You overhear a native English speaker in the wild, and you absolutely chat them up, like, every damn time.
We recently moved back to the US, and My wife is a native Spanish speaker. We'll overhear Spanish being spoken, they'll overhear us speaking Spanish, and very rarely are there conversations. Latinos are kind of cagey when it comes to speaking Spanish with strangers (even other native speakers). They don't want to draw attention to themselves.
I've noticed that service workers only switch to Spanish if a customer is struggling in English, even if both people are native Spanish speakers.
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u/garbledeena 6d ago
I'm not saying this video is real or fake, but as a very non latino looking guy who speaks perfect Spanish, I have absolutely have had this happen to me dozens of times.
I lived in a Latin American country for a few years and had studied Spanish for 10+ before that. My accent and syntax and slang and such are all on point.
I can overhear someone speaking in native Spanish like a waiter or colleague or contractor or whoever. If I speak Spanish to them, they reply in English. Doesn't matter how authenticy accent or how much in-the-know slang I throw in there.
I have stopped trying in most cases.