Don't assume nobody can understand you if you're speaking a different language.

[protege]

My great-great-grandparents emigrated from Norway soon after the War Between the American States. The area they settled Norwegian was the prevalent language. The local Lutheran church still had a Norwegian language service into the 1960s. My great grandfather's preferred language was Norwegian, but spoke English in my lifetime out of necessity because only his son could speak it.

Yours too? My dad's adoptive family was Norwegian. My last name roughly translates to "eastern house." They came over here about 1850, and originally settled near what is now Ossian, Iowa, in the northeast corner of the state. From what I understand, the church they helped to found in that town still exists, and several (very) distant relatives are buried and still live there. Growing up, I don't ever recall any Norwegian being spoken at my grandparents home. Nor do I remember hearing any Gaelic--the other part of the family was Irish.

What I do remember, was my great-grandmother...cursing in German. She did that so the kids wouldn't understand her. What was odd, is that she'd start out in English, but switch to German. It was pretty obvious that she was pissed. But, if you've never seen a 5-foot-tall little old lady screaming at someone in German, it's pretty freaking awesome

[Slave to the Phone]

I was stationed in Japan for 3 years back when you had to fly there on a pterodactyl. I was determined to learn how to speak the native language, so used the immersion method. I watched Japanese dubbed American TV shows and talked to everyone. I was actually an unwitting B-Girl for a while as I learned.

My spoken Japanese was not very good, its hard for a longnose to pronounce. I certainly did learn how to understand it when it was spoken, though.

My spoken Spanish is not good, but I understand a lot. Its a shame that Latin has fallen on the wayside, I've been studying it as a hobby and because its so fun to learn about the root of words. Fun fact: Javalina (pronounced hav-a-lina), while not being actual porcus, are often mistaken for wild pigs. Their common name is Mexican, which has a strong Spanish influence. The root language for both is Latin.

Now that everyone has fallen to sleep whilst reading my dissertation...the reason Javalina are named that is because the Romans used to hunt wild pigs with short spear aka Javelins. Language is fun

[Nunavut Pants]

...But, if you've never seen a 5-foot-tall little old lady screaming at someone in German, it's pretty freaking awesome

How can you tell? To an American, at least, everything in German sounds like cursing!

[wolfie]

several (very) distant relatives are buried and still live there.

That sounds like a good story for Haloween.

[dalesys]

That sounds like a good story for Haloween.

The ones with halos are all gone... to heaven!

[AccountingDrone]

Could be reformulated to:
"Will you admit to speaking English?"
... in certain areas to the north where I have distant ancestry. (1630s through 1840s)

LOL I did that at several jobs [fairly large Hispanic community in Central CT, so several jobs had a decent Hispanic population in the office.] I like to evesdrop when people don't think you understand =)

My ancestors for one part of my Dad's family sort of bounced brides back and forth for political reasons between a certain area of Northern France, Flanders, Holland and Germany. Earliest traced was simply buried as Isobel, Countess de <insert area> - any further back we would have to go to the actual churches, abbeys, nunneries and monasteries and check birth, baptism, marriage and death records that haven't been digitized yet, and actual monuments. But the 1000s are a pretty good run of tracking back. On Mom's side, her family moved here from Altekirchen Germany in 1650, and they go back also to the 1100s in various municipal and church records. [Amish meant that she had a pretty narrow gene pool for the past few hundred years and easy to trace =) ]

[protege]

To an American, at least, everything in German sounds like cursing!

LOL Very true! But, the only time great-grandma would speak in German...was when she was cursing. She didn't want us children to understand her

As to my dead relatives, there are still several with my name living in Iowa. Very distant ones, which I've never met. Dad's family never really got together all that much, so I don't know any of them.

[EricKei]

protege -- My family did something similar.

Mom & Dad used (Austrian-accented) German as their Secret Language when they wanted to speak 'privately' in front of us kids, and our extended family (on Dad's side) did the same with Cajun French, as his parents' generation were native speakers, while Dad and his gen had at least been taught enough to get by. Then again, Dad and his sibs grew up speaking "Yat" dialect (...dawwwwwlin'!) when they WERE speaking English; he diligently worked to rid himself of the dialect by the time he went to college. Neither German nor Cajun was ever passed on to us aside from the odd accidental Cajun curse or slang term.

[BPFH]

I never told her that I grew up in Germany, but as I was driving away I did a jovial wave and wished her "Auf Nicht Wiedersehen."

Until we don't meet again. Ausgezeichnet.

(I blame my Austro-Hungarian--they'd be Romanian if born today--great-grandparents.)

[Enjis]

Re: the original post:
You're my hero. Your revenge on those jerks was subtle and delightful, and cost no one their job.
My only regret is that the tourists did not learn their lesson to not be unkind, no matter what language they speak.
Your school escapades are also an inspiration. You sound like a very gifted person.

[skeptic53]

I was in Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, West Africa. It was settled by freed slaves from Jamaica, who spoke Creole, a pidgin-English language. In Sierra Leone it is known as Krio, and their descendants are called Krios. They mostly live in the capital city. The rest of the country speaks their own tribal languages, but almost everyone speaks Krio as a second language. A few years later I was on a bus, sitting next to an African-American guy. A few rows behind was a group of Africans, who were speaking a pidgin-English language. Nigeria was oil-rich and there were many Nigerian students in the US, I assumed they were Nigerians. I wondered if I could understand their conversation and started listening intently. The African-American guy next to me noticed and said "Man, ain't nobody can understand what them African dudes are saying". At that very moment I realized the Africans were speaking Krio, they were Sierra Leoneans. It was like that moment in the movie "Airplane" where Barbara Billingsley says "Oh, stewardess! I speak jive!". I held up a finger as to say "watch this" and walked back, greeted the Sierra Leoneans and carried on a lively conversation. The African-American guy's jaw was on the floor... loads of fun.

[BlaqueKatt]

I can still read though. I've been ordering manga with the original japanse to keep up with it.

A friend of my ex husband learned basic japanese through playing untranslated video games.

[AkaiKitsune]

Re: the original post:
Your school escapades are also an inspiration. You sound like a very gifted person.

The problem here is that the schools don't allow people to skip grades. I took my 12 yr finals in grade 7 to prove a point and with the exception of math (and I'm pretty sure my teachers invented a grade just to get rid of me) I passed with better marks then most grade 12 students. Part of that is just the way I retain information. But they wouldn't even move me up to grade 8 for fear of 'stunting my social growth.' Despite the fact that I was antisocial and refused to talk to my fellow classmates on the grounds that repeating the same sentence 2-3 times because the words you use are too big gets really really annoying really quick. I'm not genius level (as far as I know) I just retain information in a way that is easy to recall (which is probably why I fail miserably at math yet I'm still great at subjects like chemistry that heavily rely on math). But when considering the options of being punished and penalized for working to the best of my abilities or for the exact same outcome for screwing around, I saw no reason to put forth the extra effort and difficulty. So instead I turned school assignments into a game. One where I technically do the assignment just not in the way it was meant to be done. (Apparently all essays are to be written is English. Not German, not Russian... But English). Why would anyone put extra effort doing something as boring as studying if they're only going to be penalized for it. If I'm gonna put extra effort in it will be because it amuses me.

[Ironclad Alibi]

One where I technically do the assignment just not in the way it was meant to be done.

That reminded me of the old "measure the height of a building using a barometer" essay.