Pretending not to speak English.

[Loveafghanistan]

Have you ever pretended not to speak English, for example, to not have to deal with strangers, the police, people or teachers at school, people advertising stuff to you, to get something your way, etc. If the country's language you're in isn't english, have you done the same with whatever it's native language is?

Share stories here!

 

[Aquari]

hm nope but i definitely could since i know spanish, lol i might try it out sometime

 

[Xara]

Nope.

English is the only language I know, anyways, so it might be hard lmao

 

[Chicha]

I haven't... yet.

I usually walk super fast when people are trying to sell me things at the mall.

 

[wassop]

yeah , i just say i dont speak english and hang up

 

[visibleghost]

yes, in airport security just so that my mom would have to do the talking for me because i was about to pass out from anxiety and couldn't talk, so i just pretended that i didn't understand and my mom spoke for me instead lmaoooo

other than that uh not that i can think of?

 

[Cosmic Moonlight]

yeah , i just say i dont speak english and hang up

^ Sames

OT: Well I have before but I didnt speak any language known to man so yeah that turned out interesting.

 

[kayleee]

No but I've defintely considered it when I'm walking in the mall and people try to sell me stuff

 

[GalacticGhost]

nope. it'd probably be too hard for me to do that anyway, seeing as the only other language besides english i know is a language that a lot of people around here also know. so i couldn't really try to pretend that i can't speak one or the other :'D

 

[otomatoe]

I was the opposite. I pretend that English is my 1st language one time when I was in my mom's country (where English is not the main language), it was at the mall and annoying salesman offer me credit card subscription I guess? and eventhough I can fully understand what they're saying and I can answer to it, the quickest way to get rid of them is to tell them in English that I don't get what are they trying to say. So I did, and they backed down immediately. Yay!

 

[xSuperMario64x]

No. I know Spanish pretty well, but I hav never used it to get out of a coversation.

For some reason that sounds kind of stupid to me. But, you know, I'm my own person...

 

[dizzy bone]

A lot when I lived in korea. Whenever I go out with friends to a bar or something and we get hit on by americans or foreign speakers that we don't want to deal with, we just speak in korean. I've never done that anywhere else though.

 

[Tao]

Yes, in varying degrees of competence ranging from fumbling an accent in vague broken English to outright obviousness of I don't want to talk to them with "I don't speak English, mate" in my usual thick local accent.

 

[vel]

the thing is the community i live in is english and chinese, almost everyone who lives there is chinese. of course, i can always search up "i don't speak english" in another language but that's too much a hassle, i just wear my ski mask and go out, much easier

 

[ams]

I did that once in Italy when an American guy was trying to hit on me.

 

[Celestefey]

No because where I live the vast majority of people speak English, so they probably wouldn't believe me, that and I am a bad liar. If I'm walking past someone trying to sell me something at a shopping centre or in the street then I'll just walk straight past them and say "no thanks".

 

[Ichigo.]

no honestly i just ignore them or if i'm on campus i'll say i have class. i'm a terrible liar anyway, so pretending i don't speak a language i do speak would be too stressful!! haha

 

[jiny]

I could since I speak Spanish anyways

 

[riummi]

nope, I could and they would probably believe me

 

[Mega_Cabbage]

Nah. I just wear a pair of headphones so that people won't bother me in the first place. We have caller ID for telemarketers now, but before then I would just let the phone ring. If it was someone important, then they would call twice in a row. Obviously wouldn't try ignoring police or (some) teachers.