I think I've just experienced what it's like in England..

[Builtthiscityonsausagerolls]

To not be a native English speaker.

My natural first language is Welsh. I went to an English university and obviously have a native proficiency in English but when chatting im more comfortable in Welsh.

So... I'm on a train in the Midlands with a friend. Had a chatty conversation with the conducter in English, guy sitting across from us very friendly. The we switched to Welsh and the difference in attitude was immediate. Felt very hostile. Very hard to explain, but as soon as we switched languages it became almost threatening?

I'm used to speaking Welsh in maybe more border towns (mainly chester) where its quite common, but thinking about it not in 'deep' England :) 😀

We keep going over it, but the change in attitude was definitely when we changed language. Is this really the experienced of non-English speakers? The hostility really was quite overt

He thought you were talking about him.

Are you for real? She completed her primary educt in Wales and can speak Welsh fluently. I moved her because unfortunately having an entire education in Welsh only is only going to be beneficial if you choose to never leave Wales.

Plenty of evidence that the benefits of bilingualism go far beyond employment prospects.

WestendVBroadway

I don't actually have a problem with you speaking to your friend in your mutual native language. However what you experienced sounds similar to what me and DH experienced while holidaying in Wales. We entered a pub where 90% of people were conversing in English. As soon as the customers and staff heard our English accents they all switched to speaking Welsh. Well why shouldn't they, we were in Wales? However we felt a similar hostility to how you felt. It was patently obviously that they wished to exclude us as they had been speaking English when we got there.

I doubt that happened. Believe it or not, there are pubs in Wales where the customers would speak to each other in Welsh.

If you don't like hearing people speak Welsh, stay at home

My DH’s friend experiences the opposite. He is Welsh but lives in England. Welsh is his first language but he tends to use English as he feels it’s more inclusive.
He has many stories about how he’s heard people switching to Welsh as they think he won’t understand while they lambast the English and making insulting remarks about him; when he joins in the conversation in Welsh they squirm.

@Alaimo

I'm a non-native English speaker but have mostly lived in bigger cities so when i speak my native language people probably just assume I'm a tourist.

In my experience is only monolingual (English) speakers who equate speaking in your own language with being gossiped about. Most people i know who speak more than 1 language understand that sometimes it's just easier to speak in your native language.

But sometimes it is right, I once offered to change seat with someone as they were with a group of people using BSL.

SHe then turned round to a companion and called me a nosy cow in BSL.

@Helendee

My DH’s friend experiences the opposite. He is Welsh but lives in England. Welsh is his first language but he tends to use English as he feels it’s more inclusive. He has many stories about how he’s heard people switching to Welsh as they think he won’t understand while they lambast the English and making insulting remarks about him; when he joins in the conversation in Welsh they squirm.

Cool story bro

@Helendee, yeah, right.

Based on this thread you'd get the impression that the Welsh language only survived because people wanted to exclude the English. Guess what, it's a language that people use in their day-to-day life.

[quote GogLais]@Helendee, yeah, right.

Based on this thread you'd get the impression that the Welsh language only survived because people wanted to exclude the English. Guess what, it's a language that people use in their day-to-day life.[/quote]
Shock horror, people even go to the theatre to watch Welsh plays

And there are TV programmes... Do people think the actors on Pobl y Cwm switch languages when an English person walks in the room 😂

And there are Welsh books - are they magic ones that change words when an English person picks them up??

Get.A.Grip.

I've had a few occasions, none recently, of going into a pub or cafe in Wales and a distinctive shift from speaking English to Welsh in a 'hostile', deliberately alienating manner (I will not explain the details for the sake of the few mumsnetters who on this post that will now leap down my throat - just take it from me). Yet I love Wales and hearing the language, so it won't stop me ;-)

Oh my god, now I see the OP lives in Chester. You couldn’t make this up.

So she lives in Chester. Probably walks about all day every day speaking in Welsh, on and off and has been doing this most of her life. No problems apparently. But now, based on the behaviour of ONE MAN (who she had her back to) on a train, she suddenly feels the need to proclaim she feels “foreign”. In the “deepest England” region of Birmingham aka a couple of hours down the road from Chester

Anyone would think she’d taken a trip to Outer Mongolia fgs. I do wonder how some people get through life.

They may well have been bitching about you but why the assumption that they switched from English to Welsh?

Welsh is a real language you know and the fact that you think it's reserved especially to piss off English people is actually quite offensive and dismissive.

And parents send their children to Welsh medium schools purely so that they can learn to be exclusionary and be rude about the English without them knowing.

So she lives in Chester. Probably walks about all day every day speaking in Welsh, on and off and has been doing this most of her life. No problems apparently. But now, based on the behaviour of ONE MAN (who she had her back to) on a train, she suddenly feels the need to proclaim she feels “foreign”. In the “deepest England” region of Birmingham aka a couple of hours down the road from Chester
Are you quite well?

How can anyone say the op was rude for speaking in Welsh, her first language?
Presumably, the conductor was an English speaker so op used English.
Then op and friend returned to their first language.
Would they be rude if they were French or Italian? Absolutely not and situation is exactly the same.
People seem to have a real problem when Welsh is spoken. I don't understand why.

@Ddraigmawr

Think what you like, no skin off my nose although it’s rather arrogant to dismiss someone else’s experiences.

Of course Welsh is a real language. But why bang in about it? Nobody cares! If I’m speaking Spanish and someone is giving me bad vibes in a train, I don’t assume it’s because I’m speaking Spanish. I just assume he / she is having a bad day or is a tosser in general life.

@LittleDandelionClock

Since when did people speak Welsh in Chester?

Never in the 20 years I lived there.

Maybe he was a xenophobe and thought you were a horrid forriner.

Forced inclusivity on everything is really getting out of hand and why is it that this burden to include everyone mostly falls on women? You see it with the trans-shit and now this. I would not be surprised if that guy was a lot less hostile if you were both men.

Yes I’m quite well thanks. Here’s the OP’s comment about ‘deep England’ -

“I used to speaking Welsh in maybe more border towns (mainly chester) where its quite common, but thinking about it not in 'deep' England”

So “deep England” is apparently Birmingham. One can only imagine the struggles faced by someone from Chester when travelling to Birmingham. It must be such a culture shock. A real odyssey by rail.

Don’t come to London whatever you do OP. There’s allsorts on the tube. Some of them may not look very friendly. Best not to open your mouth.

@CaptSkippy

Forced inclusivity on everything is really getting out of hand and why is it that this burden to include everyone mostly falls on women? You see it with the trans-shit and now this. I would not be surprised if that guy was a lot less hostile if you were both men.

I believe it's still majority women on here forcing language inclusivity, where it doesn't matter. I don't doubt many of whom hate other forms of forced inclusivity though, once it's a woman's issue.

It's the hypocrisy everywhere or at the very least, people's inability to see anything that doesn’t affect them.

If I'm in a situation where people switch languages I do wonder if it's because they are talking about me. That applies wherever I am in the world. There have been two situations where I had some understanding of the language being spoken and my paranoia was justified and they were indeed talking about me!

@ExpatInBritain It is true that a good portion of women do men's dirty work by forcing other women 'in line'.

However, that shit about what we women outh to be and how we ought to behave did not originate with us. It only serves men's interests.

Wow

So people the whole world over all speak English until you walk in then they switch to their native language just to talk about you?
That’s arrogance right there, please show some respect to multi lingual people especially to the original inhabitants of Prydain (Britain)

@EvenRosesHaveThorns

I've had a few occasions, none recently, of going into a pub or cafe in Wales and a distinctive shift from speaking English to Welsh in a 'hostile', deliberately alienating manner (I will not explain the details for the sake of the few mumsnetters who on this post that will now leap down my throat - just take it from me). Yet I love Wales and hearing the language, so it won't stop me ;-)

But how did they know you didn't speak Welsh? And how did you know that they were speaking in English before you went in?