I kinda have this weird idea where I would hypothetically visit China (where I was born) some time in the future (like as a tourist), then I would go chat up some random foreigners in China, and pretend I don’t speak English, then later reveal I do speak English, and then they’d be so surprised like “OMG this Chinese person speaks perfect English?” (because I immigrated to the US as a kid). I kinda want to do this as a prank. I mean I know it sounds silly, but its like the reverse of those youtubers that learn Chinese and surprise Chinese people. I mean, they’d probably eventually figure out that I was grew up in a English speaking country, but its still funny to do this as a prank to confuse people (especially people who’s native language is Engish) 😅.
Anyways… what’s are your stories (or even hypothetical scenarios) involving languages that you want to share?
I am not Spanish, but I learnt it while leaving there some years ago. And I like languages, so I did my best to learn it as well as I can. Years later, I met my now Spanish husband while living in Germany. When I went first time with him to Spain, to meet the family, they were having a big family dinner.
Before eating, everyone just talked with the others in small groups, and I happened to be talking with my husband’s uncle( he is one of those that strayed to the right side of politics and likes to believe conspiracy theories and I think he does not like immigrants). Anyway, I was talking to him for a while, probably about living and working in Germany, I don’t remember.
But at some point, my now husband comes into the mini group and asks him:“So? What do you think of her Spanish, it‘s really good, right?“ He got auch a face of confusion, trying to make sense of the words, I had to laugh. He finally asked:“But…is she not Spanish?!“ Oh the satisfaction! He would be the kind of person saying that he would definitely detect someone outside of Spain. I do speak as they do in the north, so I use verb tenses differently than them. And also have some regional words from the north in my vocabulary. So I could fool him easier because of that.