Witty Surprises from Multilingual People That Left Others Speechless

CR Staff - JU - May 18, 2023

34. The Look of Horror

My grandmother, who grew up in a Yiddish-speaking household, but does not look particularly Jewish, lives in an area near a large Hasidic community. She has many stories of people saying all sorts of things in Yiddish assuming that she can’t understand but I have one particular favorite.

She was in the supermarket and a little Hasidic boy of about 3 or 4 is wandering around, clearly lost. He sort of nuzzles up against her skirt and says “Mama mama,” in Yiddish. She replies in Yiddish that she’s not his mom but he can come with her and they’ll find her together. The little kid looks up at her with a look of horror and runs away screaming “Mama Mama! The shikse speaks Yiddish!”

noalarmsand

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35. Don’t need it From Strangers

Went to a taco shop with my SO; the kind that has half the menu in Spanish, and the other half in English. Only two people there spoke English. SO is Hispanic, but doesn’t speak Spanish. I’m Jewish, but I studied Spanish for 5yrs, and am quite fluent.

We order to-go and are sitting and waiting for our food. We’re right by the kitchen, so I can hear what people are saying in there. My ears perk up when I hear “gringa” (I’m the only white woman in there), so I, of course, start listening.

At full speaking volume, I hear these two ladies talking about how a nice Mexican boy doesn’t need to be dating “a skinny white b*tch”, and how it’s embarrassing that we’re together. Now, at this point, we’ve been waiting on our food for about 25min. I see one of the ladies walking out, so I go ask her, in Spanish, if our to-go order would be ready soon.

If she had a tail, it would’ve been tucked between her legs. She very quietly said “I’ll go check” while not daring to make eye contact. I’ve never seen someone get too sheepish.

The kicker? They messed up our order. I went back and told them that maybe if they spent less time talking about their customers, and focused more on their orders, I wouldn’t have had to wait so long for my food to be wrong; all in Spanish. Petty? Maybe. Still felt good. I get enough crap about being a mixed-race couple from my own family, I don’t need it from strangers.

amaezingjew

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36. Uncle’s Jaw Hit the Floor

My uncle has a good one. My family are originally from India/Pakistan and speaks Urdu, but my mom’s family moved to rural Arkansas in the late 70s. It was a really small town, like never seen brown people small, but they ended up living there for over 20 years.

Anyway, when my uncle was in high school, they had a math teacher from Japan. One day the teacher was berating my uncle for something (in English of course) and my uncle got mad and cursed him out in Urdu. The teacher replied very calmly, in Urdu: “don’t ever use that sort of language in my class again, understand?” Pretty sure my uncle’s jaw hit the floor. He didn’t expect a Japanese guy living in a small town in Arkansas to speak Urdu.

kingoflint282

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37. It’s the Hair

Well, I’m an African-American guy in Tennessee with a big afro and a deep voice. That being said, I’ve been teaching myself, Russian, for the past few years. I’m not fluent yet, but I’m getting better. My boxing coach of 4 years was Russian and spoke it to me often enough.

So, I work at a small wine and spirits store downtown in my city. Because of the location, most tourists who stay at the local Sheraton and Marriott come visit us because we are so close. Elvis week some time ago brings in people from all over so we always get tourists. These two Russian guys come in looking for not vodka. I show them the Talisker Storm and they decide to take a look around for a while. I poured them some wine samples we had out as well and reassured them I’d help them find whatever they wanted. As they were walking around they were saying in Russian how nice the store was and how nice I was. The taller one even complimented my hair lol. They brought up the Talisker to the counter and I gave them a discount. The taller guy asked why and I responded in Russian “Because you like my hair”. They both turned super red and started laughing saying I’m awesome. Then we went by the growler station and they started telling me about Russia while we drank Ghost River. Good times.

reddituser

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38. A Delightful Experience

I’m half Indonesian. I was born and lived there for quite some time before I moved to the States. I was on vacation in Jakarta this past summer, visiting family and catching up with old friends.

I went out one night with an old friend I was extremely close with. Let’s call her Y. We pretty much went on a date. I took her to the movies, had dinner, and we spent a good amount of time at the arcades. We linked up with our old clique afterwards.

When I dropped her home, her mom was at the door. I got out of the car to greet her and show her some respect. As soon as she sees me, she says, in English, “Hello! My name is X, I’m Y’s mother. Did you guys have fun?” Afterwards, she starts whispering to her daughter. I was able to hear a bit of it and realized they were speaking in conversational Bahasa. I overheard the lines, “Ini cowok yang kamu bilang, ya? Kalian sudah pacaran?” Which translates as “Is this the boy you were talking about? Are you guys dating now?” Her daughter just blushes in embarrassment, hugs me, and says good night to me as she assumes I’m about to leave.

Before I leave, I say good night, and I just let out this line, “Terima kasih, Ibu. Selamat malam. Semoga saya dan Y bisa ketemu lagi minggu depan sebelom saya balik ke America.” Which translates to “Thank you, ma’am. Good night! Hope your daughter and I can meet up again next week before I have to head back to the States.”

Her jaw just dropped, she was extremely surprised and realized that I understood what she was saying to her daughter; her daughter was just laughing at her. She hits me up later that night on FT saying her mom was still not over the fact that I am fluent in Bahasa. She then confesses her feelings to me.

cvrlxs

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39. In an Effort to Profit

Taiwan vacation. 2015.

Me and my sis just learnt Japanese so we communicated in some. The shop owner overheard us and thought we were from Japan, but we are Chinese.

He said (to his partner) in Mandarin ” Japanese again. Now we can jack up the prices .”

So I greeted them in Chinese and boy was it fun seeing that look on his face.

kkiwillreply

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40. The Convenience Fee Vanished Overnight

My mom is half Filipino and half Chinese, and we lived in Hong Kong for most of my childhood before we came to North America, so we’re all fluent in Cantonese. One day, my mom was trying to send money to relatives back in Asia through Western Union. The teller at the desk was a portly Chinese man. My mother had an argument with the man because he was trying to charge her some arbitrary “convenience fee” of $10 that she has never been charged for before. They fight over it for a while in English, going back and forth. Eventually, another employee comes, and asks the teller my mom was arguing with “What’s going on?” In Cantonese. The teller proceeds to say “this stupid b*tch refuses to pay me, I can’t get her chubby *ss out of here”. At this point my mom is livid. She takes a deep breath and calmly answers “well maybe I’d leave if you let me send money to my family, and stop charging me extra so you can buy lunch for YOUR chubby *ss.” Both employee’s cheeks turn red and suddenly become extremely nice, grovelling and praising my mom’s fluency in Cantonese and nervously laughing and repeating “we didn’t know you were Chinese!” over and over. The convenience fee suddenly disappeared.

jaythaprxphet

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