Speaking foreign language in public?

[shattered world]

Man so I was out with some friends and people around here normally speak English. Some other guys started speaking in Spanish and then another group just started staring them down hard. Really looked like they were pissed. Just sounded like a basic convo in Spanish from what I understood but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this.

Is it like this where you live? Here in the US it’s like you can’t speak anything other than English outside now.

 

[Dopious]

Well, if I went to another country and met up with friends from my own country I would speak my own language with them, just normal.

 

[shattered world]

Well, if I went to another country and met up with friends from my own country I would speak my own language with them, just normal.

See that’s how I think as well. It’s all cool with me but some people have some real problems like you can tell they flip out because they don’t understand what someone else is saying in a convo they’re not even in.

 

[TheVigilante]

Here there is this political party who forces business owners to talk in local language and if not then they tell you to learn and then beat you up if you try to argue with them

@BlogPro I am sure you being a Mumbaikar you must be knowing it

 

[Zwielicht]

It's xenophobia. I've lived all over the US, and this is a problem everywhere I've been in the country.

Speaking in Spanish in certain areas would get me side-eyed and in some cases, racial remarks were made about me.

Once I was talking to someone from Russia at a coffee shop and there were people getting uncomfortable with us speaking in Russian. We all noticed it but my sister was there with me and pointed it out to me as well.

But it's not just the English speakers, either. When I lived in communities that were predominantly Spanish-speaking, people would act aggressively toward me for speaking in English. Even speaking in Spanish would get me chastised either because I spoke in the wrong dialect or I didn't sound fluent enough.

 

[BlogPro]

Here there is this political party who forces business owners to talk in local language and if not then they tell you to learn and then beat you up if you try to argue with them

@BlogPro I am sure you being a Mumbaikar you must be knowing it

Sigh. All too familiar with it unfortunately. It's just sad.

Have seen it first hand. And now the issue is pretty widespread, such that it has transcended from being just related to that political outfit.

Any interaction that goes sideways is now made a local vs. non-local issue. Or a language issue.

Disagreement between two people? Traffic altercation? Even a disagreement with a public servant? Yep all of it. It's horrible.

@Zwielicht remember I reported earlier that I wasn't getting notified when I was being tagged. @TheVigilante tagged me and I still didn't get one.

 

[SilverClouds]

Nothing like this here. I speak polish with my sister in house and outside and english with everyone else. Which works fine because more educated and well off or at least middle class people usually know english, most products have english labels together with sinhala and tamil. Lame that after living here for more than 2 years already I didn't learn local languages... Wanted to, but most people speak to me in english anyway and I couldn't get resident visa during this time so also felt unsure about my situation and didn't know if I should learn language of some place that is more immigration friendly instead, idk. I mean sinhala is quite niche, after they kick me out I probably wouldn't have much use of that unlike something more popular like spanish or idk chinese. Still some couriers are bad at english so I could perhaps learn some phrases for them . I was always shocked how people can live somewhere and don't learn the local language but now I know how . Jeez, I know more german after bilingual school and short student exchange than I know sinhala after living in Sri Lanka for more than 2 years.

 

[Zwielicht]

@Zwielicht remember I reported earlier that I wasn't getting notified when I was being tagged. @TheVigilante tagged me and I still didn't get one.

I checked and saw he added the tag in after editing the post. Xenforo only sends in alerts if you’re tagged in the first iteration of the post.

Example: This is an edit I added in. If I say @BlogPro, you won’t get an alert. Same as if I say @Impulse or any other member.

 

[shattered world]

Here there is this political party who forces business owners to talk in local language and if not then they tell you to learn and then beat you up if you try to argue with them

@BlogPro I am sure you being a Mumbaikar you must be knowing it

That’s just retarded. I know some places in Canada are like this though. They’ve got a thing over there about preserving the local culture and require you to speak their local version of French “or else…”

 

[BlogPro]

I checked and saw he added the tag in after editing the post. Xenforo only sends in alerts if you’re tagged in the first iteration of the post.

Example: This is an edit I added in. If I say @BlogPro, you won’t get an alert. Same as if I say @Impulse or any other member.

This is the second time this exact thing has happened. I submit my humble apology.

 

[t2van]

Man so I was out with some friends and people around here normally speak English. Some other guys started speaking in Spanish and then another group just started staring them down hard. Really looked like they were pissed. Just sounded like a basic convo in Spanish from what I understood but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen this.

It makes it easier to round them all up though?

Is it like this where you live? Here in the US it’s like you can’t speak anything other than English outside now.

I think mix culture places where say America you have English and then say Spanish depending where you live due to community I guess is probably OK but part of me thinks you moved to an English country speak that when out and keep your own language at home.

If I moved aboard full time id make every effort to learn the local lingo to speak that when out.

Start to see more of it here. When we go to the city lots of "immigrants" walking in gangs speaking their own lingo, I just think you came here for a supposed "better life" (we know thats shit) so make the effort. Just shows ZERO intention to integrate and why the UK/Europe is probably fucked.

 

[roydan]

Tons of languages here. On an average day you'll hear on the street Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Amharic, English, and some Thai (in some places).
It got to a point where words in many languages got "fused" into spoken Hebrew and became slang.

 

[Champagne]

Not really. It depends a lot on the area, but in most places people speaking other languages in public is totally normal. What you saw sounds more like specific people being weird or territorial than some universal “rule.”

 

[SilverClouds]

It makes it easier to round them all up though?



I think mix culture places where say America you have English and then say Spanish depending where you live due to community I guess is probably OK but part of me thinks you moved to an English country speak that when out and keep your own language at home.

If I moved aboard full time id make every effort to learn the local lingo to speak that when out.

Start to see more of it here. When we go to the city lots of "immigrants" walking in gangs speaking their own lingo, I just think you came here for a supposed "better life" (we know thats shit) so make the effort. Just shows ZERO intention to integrate and why the UK/Europe is probably fucked.

I mean, you know... Probably would be weird to talk to ie your family member in a foreign language rather than your own language. The problem is when all your friends are from your home country and you create these weird cliques... I agree, the whole point of leaving the country is, well, leaving the country. Hell, even when I was on short student exchange in Germany the first thing I did was to almost stop hanging out with polish classmates and hanged out with germans. I knew I'd have poles back when I came back to Poland so why waste student exchange on hanging out with exactly the same people.

Here in Sri Lanka I'm also basically living in normal local neighbourhood, not a hotel, have sri lankan neighbours, even stayed at sri lankan friends' house for a month when I arrived (disclaimer: I paid bills lol). But I don't have work here, all my clients are from Poland and I had trouble getting the visa during this time so it's a bit of a different situation... They didn't let me integrate. On one hand, sri lankans are super friendly (but like, bruh... very relaxed, always smiling people) and I have a bunch of them from different neighbourhoods on my Whatsapp but then they're always Poland, Poland... Poland this, Poland that. They always tell me to give my polish address, I had to put this even on rental agreement! My address back in Poland (I don't live there anymore, it's ridiculous). There was no visa available for people working remotely during this whole time. Let's get real, the visas that are available are quite accessible (I mean living in the tropics 5 months in a year ain't bad, no?) but that country isn't really suitable for immigrating long term... Maybe nice for a vacation house. Tbh even some retirees choose to stay 5 months and go to Thailand/Bali/Vietnam/etc the rest of the year because they don't like sri lankan long term visa system either.

Hmmm I saw some poles are basically like you said, they emigrate for economic reasons only and actually like it in Poland but there's no (paying) work available so they go abroad, keep to each other, try to squeeze as much money as possible out of their stay and they return to Poland for retirement and buy a house, etc. I fuckin abhorr Poland so it's a different situation. I never wanted to stay in Poland, I wanted to leave earlier but they didn't let me leave. So there's a bit of a political and religious issue going on, not just economic migration. But I do have money issues lately as well so yeah, sometimes these things happen too, it doesn't mean someone emigrated for economic reasons only or even mainly. Economic migrants probably won't integrate because they actually like their home country.

 

[LegacyBuilder248]

I have two perspective
I lived in germany and there noone cared when people spoke foreign languages.
Today in germany in many places german is spoken as a minority and when you listen to todays youth even native ones their spoken german is so broken and horrible.They sound like immigrants themself even they all are born in germany.

Today i live in poland and here to say it friendly polish are very conservative and also a bit racist to protect their cultur and demand
foreigners living in poland to learn their language.
Of course tourists can use english everywhere here with no issues but other than the germans the polish upkeep the demand to speak in their native language as much as possible and seeing what happened in germany i support it.

To much tolerance destroys your own culture because it creates parrarel societies in the longrun.
Thats my honest opinion

 

[t2van]

I mean, you know... Probably would be weird to talk to ie your family member in a foreign language rather than your own language. The problem is when all your friends are from your home country and you create these weird cliques... I agree, the whole point of leaving the country is, well, leaving the country. Hell, even when I was on short student exchange in Germany the first thing I did was to almost stop hanging out with polish classmates and hanged out with germans. I knew I'd have poles back when I came back to Poland so why waste student exchange on hanging out with exactly the same people.

Here in Sri Lanka I'm also basically living in normal local neighbourhood, not a hotel, have sri lankan neighbours, even stayed at sri lankan friends' house for a month when I arrived (disclaimer: I paid bills lol). But I don't have work here, all my clients are from Poland and I had trouble getting the visa during this time so it's a bit of a different situation... They didn't let me integrate. On one hand, sri lankans are super friendly (but like, bruh... very relaxed, always smiling people) and I have a bunch of them from different neighbourhoods on my Whatsapp but then they're always Poland, Poland... Poland this, Poland that. They always tell me to give my polish address, I had to put this even on rental agreement! My address back in Poland (I don't live there anymore, it's ridiculous). There was no visa available for people working remotely during this whole time. Let's get real, the visas that are available are quite accessible (I mean living in the tropics 5 months in a year ain't bad, no?) but that country isn't really suitable for immigrating long term... Maybe nice for a vacation house. Tbh even some retirees choose to stay 5 months and go to Thailand/Bali/Vietnam/etc the rest of the year because they don't like sri lankan long term visa system either.

Hmmm I saw some poles are basically like you said, they emigrate for economic reasons only and actually like it in Poland but there's no (paying) work available so they go abroad, keep to each other, try to squeeze as much money as possible out of their stay and they return to Poland for retirement and buy a house, etc. I fuckin abhorr Poland so it's a different situation. I never wanted to stay in Poland, I wanted to leave earlier but they didn't let me leave. So there's a bit of a political and religious issue going on, not just economic migration. But I do have money issues lately as well so yeah, sometimes these things happen too, it doesn't mean someone emigrated for economic reasons only or even mainly. Economic migrants probably won't integrate because they actually like their home country.

Yes I agree. I think walking around with your family and talking your native tongue is going to be easier. Much like a holiday.

My comment (without elaborating, and probably my fault) is coming from in the UK you see more and more migrants here all males walking around in gangs of 10-15 all talking their own lingo. It's not a holiday, it's your new home, if no effort is made to try and integrate, then I think that's where you see alot of "racist" comments stem from. At least that's what I think.


As for Polish I got nothing against them. Was a Polish guy who stopped and dragged me away from my car when I had a car crash, none of my native brits helped so I can't point a finger at them. Apart from when they go all go talking away in groups it always sounds angry lol