(Lighthearted) To wish that native language speakers could realise that when foreigners (me) say impolite things it's usually a mistake and not a deliberate slight?

[toomuchtooold]

Lighthearted, don't flame me, but god I find this exhausting. I live in Germany, people are very friendly, but I get some serious side eye at times for mistakes I make in the language. A couple of times I've been searching for the informal dative plural pronoun (euch) and come up with the formal one instead (Ihnen) and seen my school run mum colleagues give me a hard stare.
There's also the thing where someone says something and I don't know the word and I repeat it with a questioning tone and get some massive justifying explanation for why it all went down that way and I'm like no, I wasn't questioning your version of events, I just don't know what that word means?

AIBU to expect people to remember that foreigners make mistakes? My German is nowhere near good enough for them to forget it's not my first language!

Meh, I once (apparently) greeted my new department of employees in The Philippines, trying to be clever and using Tagalog, with ‘Hello, Whores!’.
They were so polite no one wanted to tell me of my mistake, they actually had a meeting to decide which one of them was going to break it to me. We all got over it eventually

Germans don’t really have the best reputation in this respect. Don’t be afraid to explain yourself. It will save everyone a lot of angst.

Hello whores.

I get that here

Are you sure they’re hard staring you rather than trying to work out what you really meant?

I work in an ethnically diverse part of my city and speaking with adult ESL speakers is completely normal. Sometimes I have to really think to work out what they meant versus what they’ve actually just said. It’s not a big deal and I don’t judge them for it. Their language skills are better than, regardless of the odd mistake they might make in English.

*than mine

My (very sweet) Sri Lankan colleague told me I needed to start going to the gym. I actually appreciate the honest approach though!

My dh speaks English as an additional language. When his best friend came over to meet our first baby he sat down and said with a big smile "how are you feeding him? With tits?" It was fantastic. Once when we were staying with my parents and dh wanted to cook them something from his home country. He needed to tenderise some pork chops and announced this to my mum with "I will be beating the meat now" and did not realise why she was laughing so much.

I have this a few ways.

We have au pairs, and obviously their language skills vary. Some, you almost forget English isn't their first language. So when they make an error, it stalls my thought process.

Some, they have more struggles. So we automatically correct and continue without faltering.

One au pair, Austrian, followed her stay with us (and left with perfect English) to study in Lille. She said it was horrendous there. Her French was superb, but because they knew she wasn't native, they snubbed her when she spoke French. Snubbed her if she spoke German and if she dared speak English, it was worse than a snub.

So I empathise with you.

Yeah that does sound exhausting!! I’m a welsh speaker and when anyone even tries to use welsh I’m delighted they’ve given it a go. It’s really hard to put yourself out there in a language that’s not your own and making people feel embarrassed for mistakes is really shitty.
My favourite mistake in welsh was the lady who tried to say she was freezing and instead said she was shagging.
Hello whores is better though!

I was once with a friend when she went into a pharmacy and was asking for some well known, brand name eyedrops. She asked in perfectly good German and was met with a completely blank stare, like she had spoken martian at them and they had absolutely NO WAY of deciphering whatever she could possibly be saying.

Bear in mind she was in a pharmacy, near the eyecare section, talking about "augen", mimicking eyedrop usage and stating a brand name product.

Turned out in the end she had put a slightly different emphasis on one syllable of the product name. Like saying "optr--EX" instead of "optrex".

Bloody Germans. I love them but could swing for them sometimes.

On my first job in Germany, I needed to book a business trip

I got my vocabulary confused - I'd been having the car serviced - and said I wanted to travel by "air filter" rather than by "plane" as intended.

It was only when I flapped my arms in the chicken imitation - which went down very well - that they twigged what I wanted.

That was late 1980s - now most people here seems to understand English, so much easier.
of course, I've learned German properly in the meantime !

I had this with a Greek bus driver once (in Greece). I wanted to go to Marcopolo. I said, hesitantly "Mar-co-poh-lo?". He looked utterly blank. I said it again, more like "Marco-polo?". He stared, then said "Ah! Mar-KOH-pollo!" I agreed, because what else could I do he then let me on the bus, shaking his head at the confusingness of it. I've thought of it many times since and I'm fairly sure that if someone came up to me and asked about the next bus to Lon-Don or Beer-Ming-Ham, I'd probably be able to work it out without making them feel about 2 inches high!!

OTOH, an Arab family friend was once asked which university her DD would be going to, and she said (matter-of-factly) "She failed". We all said oh no and looked sad. She looked puzzled and said "Why are you saying that? Everyone's saying that!" Turned out she meant Sheffield so I can sort of see how some confusions arise!

I think it gets worse the more fluent you are. I used to find this when I was good but not fluent in Norwegian. When I made a mistake people would assume I meant to say it, as they weren't used to needing to give me the benefit of the doubt.

Also, the thing with people not understanding everything just because you have one emphasis or sound slightly wrong - it really pisses me off. I teach philosophy in Norwegian. I work at a high academic level in Norwegian. Yet apparently someone in the local shop can't understand me when I ask for a bag because it is so hard to understand my foreign accent... Says a lot more about their attitudes than my language skills, I reckon.

I think it's the attitudes that stink. People just get "confused" and stare blankly when you've only slightly mispronounced one syllable like you're speaking martian instead of taking a second and let the brain tick over and easily work out what someone means.

My friend who is from Poland used o have an issue with the way he spoke as apparently they have a very direct way of speaking and he used to cause offence as he used to speak English the way he spoke polish so very bluntly and straight to the point which would come across as a bit rude. Took a bit of adjusting for him as he didn't get what he was doing wrong at first.

Attitude is definitely a factor, unfortunately. I went to uni with someone who'd been born and raised in a small town in the UK and had tremendous difficulty in understanding any non-British accent (including Northern ) but she'd get quite cross about it, as if the offending persons were doing it on purpose. It was her attitude that stunk, not her relative lack of exposure to a more diverse population (which she couldn;t have helped). My cousin, by contrast, had much the same upbringing as my friend but now lives abroad full time and gets on with pretty much everyone (and understands/is understood the most part too).

at everyone commiserating Sheffield!

I find ESL speakers often know the slang for body parts and functions, so I often have to keep a straight face while a patient is telling me sincerely about their sore pussy or cunt or how they're struggling to have a shit.

An american friend once said to me if one of the forriners asks for the rubbish bin I look at what theyre holding. Ok its trash so they probably need a trash can. Its not that difficult to work out!

Yes its really annoying when theres one word youve not heard of before and you get a whole long explanation of something else.

@UterusUterusGhali that is very funny!

I got this when I tried to buy a train ticket in Italy - my Italian is appalling but I didn't want to do that arrogant shouting-louder-in-English thing instead, so I thought I'd give it a go at least. I asked for a ticket to Sant' Agnello but fluffed the pronunciation, and the vendor actually laughed at me! I think the sound made by the "gn" in Italian is something that doesn't come easily to non-native speakers and I didn't even bother trying again after that, I just pointed to the name of the station on the timetable instead...

I wish you lived near me owlbethere. I speak Welsh but it’s not as fluent as my English. I get mutations and verb endings wrong. I get hard stares.

Also, the thing with people not understanding everything just because you have one emphasis or sound slightly wrong -

Oh my yes, @sonjadog ! I have the same problem with inflexion and emphasis.

Marcopolo has reminded me of the time I was asked to direct someone to a train for Looga-barooga.

Loughborough. That one did take me a minute.

I once told a French neighbour that I had seen a prostitute at the bottom of our garden. The french word for polecat is remarkably similar!

Don't get me feckin started on this. I live abroad and the hilarity of my broken French is locally known.