Talking in your native language, is it acceptable in a group?

[AllDruggedUpWithNowhereToGo]

The other evening I was at an adult education class and there was an issue. So I have a “who was being unreasonable”

Person A and person B were chatting in their own language during the class and person C complained about it.

The thing is we are a very chatty class, and person A claimed racism due to it being a foreign language and that no one else had been named as being a distraction. The tutor shut the issue down quickly and stressed the “distraction” aspect of it, but I got the impression that the “foreign language” aspect was what person C had the real issue with (if it makes a difference the conversation A and B were having was nothing to do with the class we are taking)

I am neither A, B or C but now feel really uncomfortable by the division in the class because of this.

Also I can see both sides of the division. I was raised that to exclude people when you are all part of a group is rude (is this a cultural thing though?), but then if English isn’t your first language and you live in an English speaking country, I imagine it’s nice to be able to chat in your native language.

So who was BU?

AIBU for A&B
AINBU for C

(Also I have name changed, rarely post, but have been here since penis beaker)

I think that being offended by people like A&B in the OP is typical of an unpleasantly insular and suspicious attitude to foreign languages that is commonly found in England

It takes a special sort of victimhood to find this offensive

Yes to both of these. Does C complain when, in the class you describe as chatty, people hold conversations in English? If not, and if conversations are only ‘distracting’ when conducted in a different language, C is unreasonable.

As for eavesdropping, I always think it's quite funny when Germans start slagging something off and I listen in. I usually drop in something - either in German or English depending on whether we're in the UK at the time, which indicates I understood everything.

We once stayed in a B&B near Elgin (old church) run by a German family and most of the other guests were German and we had dinner together one night. We spoke English but there was a side conversation going on where they were having a right moan about certain things in Scotland (how very dare they). After dinner I got my German book out and started reading it. T'was quite funny when they noticed.

It's all very nice to slag off British/English people as xenophobic and rubbish at languages but betrays a prejudice of your own. Some of us actually do speak other languages, and the number has increased due to the number of Erasmus mixed marriages, sadly to possibly reduce in future.

So C happily speaks during class and doesn’t seem to mind other people talking during class. Either everyone can talk or no one can, there shouldn’t be different rules for different people.

English isn’t my first language, if I meet someone who speaks my first language then we’ll speak in it. The only other person I can speak my first language with is my four year old, being able to have an adult conversation in my language is a huge luxury.

I think it is rude to speak in another language when other people are present.

Surely you can see how ridiculous this statement is.

@cologne4711 suggests that, according to your view, we brits should just keep silent when we visit other countries.

Here’s a plan that might suit you better. When you go abroad, all of the people living in that country and speaking that country’s language should just keep quiet in case they offend you by speaking their language when people who don’t speak it might be present.

All you speakers of many languages, the odd slippage or side comment, fine

How gracious!

I recently had dinner with a friend. She speaks Italian, which I speak, to her family. Her DH speaks Dutch, which I don't. He speaks English to me, and so do their children. When he's talking to his children, we wait patiently or speak English/Italian to someone else. I think it would be the height of rudeness to expect the family to change their language to accommodate me even more than they already are.

C was being very unreasonable. They were not talking to the group or to C they were talking to each other so why shouldn't they use their native language? Why do others need to understand what they are saying? A and B were being unreasonable for talking during a class if they were not supposed to be., but not for talking in their native language if anyone is being racist here it is C.

If it's a 1:1 conversation when others are having 1:1 conversations then it's fine, if it's a group conversation then no.

I think it is rude to speak in another language when other people are present.
Do you ever go on holiday to a country where English is not the native language? If so do you speak the native language of that country when you are out and about or do you speak English?

It is not rude to speak a language other than English. It is ignorant to assume so. Maybe they are more comfortable in their own language. Could C person imagine being in a foreign country with an English friend, but speaking to that friend in the foreign language just in case someone might want to know what they are saying?

Well it's not about allowing or not, it's about what is judged as rude or not! I've spent my entire life in multilingual environments, and come from a multilingual family, and I don't know many people who would say that speaking a language such that another person present (especially a guest!!) is unable to join in the conversation is a-ok. It really isn't. I don't mean saying 'yes darling you can play in the garden' to your child or 'damn, we're out of milk' to your partner, but an actual conversation where you as a guest have to sit there like a lemon? No way, sorry.

"If so do you speak the native language of that country when you are out and about or do you speak English?"

Talk about missing the point! We are talking about social environments where multiple languages are spoken. Obviously not about what language you speak in the street or in restaurants when with your family or friends

But A and B were chatting and C wasn't a guest!

the complaint was chatting in a foreign language while the tutor was talking.

Perhaps they were working together to understanding the tutor.

As a non-native English speaker, IME people who do not have a second language tend to be have a more negative view of people speaking their own native language in a predominantly English-speaking environment.

IMO context is all. If it would have been rude to have an exclusive conversation then the language is almost irrelevant.

'But A and B were chatting and C wasn't a guest!'
Yes which is why i said i thought the situation was ambiguous, because it isn't clear whether C felt excluded - I can think of classroom situations where this would be the case. Context is all, and we don't have it here.

Cant comment as it's been described. Totally depends on the circumstances posters have pointed to.

Person C had better stay out of Wales then. I have no problem with native speakers of any language chatting away in whatever is their tongue. Of course it scares the merde/scheiße/gavno out if them if you join in.

A, B and C were not the only people in the classroom. There were at least two other people present: the teacher and the OP.

I remember a thread a while back where the OP, who worked in a hotel, wanted to raise a grievance because her Polish colleagues, who were working as chambermaids, spoke Polish to each other and she felt excluded and bullied.

FFS! Let people speak their own language if they don’t need to communicate in English. You don’t need to give a running commentary when you are turning a room. Managing a foreign language is difficult (I say this as an average speaker of French and a ropy speaker of Spanish). Same goes for the OP’s classmates. If the environment is one in which people chat in small groups about the subject, let A and B get on with it.

I wouldn’t register it to be honest but know people who would. I think it tends to be people who either have a slight paranoia about being talked about (usually the same people who think people look at them in funny ways all the time) or worry about being liked who tend to be unnerved by not understanding a conversation in proximity to them by people they know.

On balance I think it’s best to keep to one language in hearing distance of a group you have even a vague relationship with if you put any value on them.

'think it tends to be people who either have a slight paranoia about being talked about'

Ive developed one when it comes to Germans Three times it's happened! Once after a job talk, when i was waiting in an office, two women walked in, started chatting in German about how rubbish they thought my talk was. I wish i could say i upbraided them in their native tongue, but in all honesty i was too shocked to say a word. One of the women did look directly at me and i gave her the evil eye back, so you never know! People absolutely use language to exclude which is why people get paranoid. I think the chambermaid wombat mentions was right to be miserable, would you really like being effectively completely ignored and excluded by your fellow workmates?! That's what it amounts to.

If you are there to learn a language, then you should all be speaking the language being taught.

If A&B are disrupting the class, or otherwise making it difficult for C to hear / pay attention, then they should be quieter in whatever language they are speaking. But if they want to speak their own language together, quietly, I wouldn't have a problem with that.

I'm a minority language speaker (English speaker living in France). If I ended up in an evening class with another English speaker, someone that I liked and got on with, I would definitely speak to them in English and not in French. I speak French fine, but to speak French with another English speaker - especially if it's someone I like and want to make friends with - would be just weird. I can communicate in French - but I am far more myself when speaking English.

My MIL seems to be a bit like C, and personally I think she's the one being racist. She was moaning on to me about being in the High Street of her town and walking behind two women " babbling away in Polish, they could have been saying anything, you just don't know what they are saying". And I replied "what, like me and my Sottish friend here in France? Because we certainly don't speak French when we are together walking down the street, even though we both could."

Of course in a group conversation you speak in a common language, but in a private conversation that's up to the people in the conversation.

I can't possibly fathom how the PP who scolds her children in another language while in public is being rude.

If everyone in the class is having private conversations then it's their business what language they speak in. If it is a group discussion then it is rude.

I had a friend in uni who struggled with maths in English. In group tutorials we would discuss in English and I would preface each additional explanation to my friend with "I'm just going to explain Y to X" - that's being polite but I am not sure that is the scenario OP is describing

I’d probably think it was rude..... on their own, totally different, do as they please then. I equate it to something like whispering.

And what if two English speakers spoke to each other in slang that non-native English couldn't understand? That's rude but people think it's fine because it's English

I’d probably think it was rude..... on their own, totally different, do as they please then. I equate it to something like whispering.

When is quiet chatting 'whispering'?

You wouldn't bat an eyelid at people talking quietly during a class, talking quietly so as not to talk over the tutor, in a class where quiet chatting is accepted. Would you call it 'whispering' then? But mention that they happen to be doing so in a language that you do not understand, and suddenly it becomes 'whispering' and is rude.

In the last few years, I have noticed a clear change where speaking another language in the street isn’t acceptable anymore.
Think people turning around and staring at you type of behaviour. These are people that I don’t know.
I have felt uncomfortable eating with friends, all from the same country and sharing the same language, because I could feel people staring again. Or the staff. Even though we have always all reverted to English as soon as anyone came to see us.

(And yes I’m not living in London or anywhere near a cosmopolitan area)

FWIW and to come back to the original question.
C is unreasonnable. Because A and B were not having a conversation as part of the group and alongside it.