To have been touched that these women spoke English in front of me?

[LuckyLopez]

Today at school I was passing the time chatting to another mum in the playground. We're not especially friends but have children in the same class.

A few minutes later her friend joined us and they chatted about their half term holidays and both had trips back to their native country. Both women have fairly broken English and I know if I wasn't stood there they would have spoken in their first language as any of us would. I was genuinely touched that they continued in English so I felt included.
Telling a friend later about it, she looked at me like my head just fell off and rolled down the road... Wasn't it nice of them? She says she wouldn't have noticed but i did because I could see how much they were trying, presumably only as I was hanging about listening.

I switch to English when I speak to another German speaker the moment someone shows up who doesn't speak German. In my experience this is the norm but I'm in science where English is kind of the common language and most people are pretty fluent in it.

sashh that poster clearly said in the UK so the international aspect is irrelevant as a response.

Similarly calooh obviously there will be pockets of bilingual/multilingualism in this country, but I greatly doubt that most people are multilingual in the UK.

Basic good manners. you do sound a bit "gushy"

You know, I hate all this slting of English people for not speaking lots of languages. It's quite simple really. English is the internationally recognised second language. other nationalities, when learning a second language will mostly learn English. Whereas English people would need a grounding in about 30 different languages.
Also, again, if we are talking about when in Britain then other nationalities need to learn English, not English speakers learn Polish/ Urdu/French/Lithuanian etc.

Yanbu Op, especially as the two women apparently don't speak English effortlessly.

Many poster's default on AIBU is to piss on people's chips. In that respect AIBU provides a public service by allowing them to exhibit their stupidity* in a safe environment.

*that was meant to read 'superiority', but perhaps autocorrect has a point

I would have appreciated that gesture too, as it meant that you weren't excluded from the conversation, although I would also understand if they wanted to speak their mother tongue. I once worked on a conservation project in Greece where there were lots of Swedish volunteers who all had excellent English. They would switch to English if they were just chatting on the beach with other non-Swedish volunteers around just in case they wanted to join in the conversation.

When I was doing a student year abroad in Germany, I met a girl (a friend of a friend) who was on a gap year after A-levels. A group of us non-German students were going somewhere by train and she said we should speak to each other in German, despite the lack of German speakers who might have joined in our conversation. I remember thinking that seemed a bit strange but perhaps she wanted to take every opportunity to practice German or just thought some other passengers might have felt excluded.

Yes, it was lovely of them. Just good manners, really, but how great that it touched you. :)

I love it when small things make the world a better place.