For context: I live on a small European island – my grasp of the local language is fairly strong, but not perfect.
Also important: here we drive on the right, so the roundabout situation will seem confusing at first, but just imagine it reversed.
I was just on my way to the supermarket, and got to a single-lane roundabout where you can either go straight over (12 o'clock) or left and basically back on yourself (7 o'clock).
The car in front of me indicated left, and then pulled off to the right and stopped, still on the roundabout, and still with his left indicators on as though he was going to pull back out at any second. I waited a couple of seconds in case they were having some kind of emergency, but then the guy stuck his head out of the window and started gesturing irritatedly at me to pass him.
I threw my hands up at him, "What are you doing?"-style, squeezed past him, and as I did, he made a bunch of angry gestures at me out of the window. I decided to take the maximium British Mary Poppins "Toodle-pip then, d&ckhead!" exit, stuck my hand out of the window as I drove off (straight ahead) and waved goodbye.
I pull into the underground supermarket car park a little further up the road, go through the barriers, park, and turn to find him walking towards me yelling at me. He's stopped his car outside the barriers and come after me on foot!
Now, I can understand 90% of what he's saying. But in my shock (and a bit of my post-traumatic overactive flight-or-flight adrenaline response in situations like this), I couldn't get my words out properly.
He seemed to think I'd flipped him the finger as I drove off, and wanted to know why – but every time I opened my mouth and tried to speak, he yelled over the top of me. I wound up telling him that if he wanted to talk, I'd talk to him, but I wasn't going to stand there while he shouted at me and refused to listen, and I walked off.
If I'd been in this situation in English, I'd have been much stronger and calmer –but in a new language the words just wouldn't come fast or smooth enough, and I've come home now feeling really shaken and pissed off and a bit embarrassed that I didn't stand up for myself better. I'm working hard on improving my language, but in emotional situations my brain just goes blank!
This is a small island and a small town, and I'm sure I'll see him around again. I did my shopping OK and got home, but now that I'm here I've got the shakes a little.
Not really sure why I'm even posting this - maybe just looking for a small hand-hold while I come down off my emotion-rollercoaster! Has anyone else found themselves in a situation like this?