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

I’m sure that’s what non-english speakers experience yes. But let’s be clear…. Someone speaking French or Italian probably isn’t going to experience the same thing as someone speaking an Arabic language or Hindi or Urdu….

There are enough videos on YouTube or Facebook of people being disgustingly racially abused because they were speaking another language either on the phone or to friends.
There is even a pretty famous one of someone being told to fuck off back to their own country by an English guy…. Unfortunately for him he was in Cardiff (I think) and they were speaking welsh…..

But it’s not just England. I live in France and people in the British immigrant community here regularly get told to go home/speak French. It’s the same the world over I’m sure.

I also remember going to North Wales once and everyone in the shop was speaking English until my friend and I walked in with out London accents and everyone switched to welsh and completely ignored us. It wasn’t until our Mancunian friend who had a summer house there and so was well known and well liked came in and introduced us that anyone spoke to us and acted like they hadn’t just been incredibly rude and discriminatory…..

@LynetteScavo

I think switching from English not another language was hostile behaviour. You were purposely excluding him from your conversation. Which is why he then became hostile to you. You were perfectly allowed to exclude him, but he's also allowed to feel a bit miffed at being excluded.

He was never in the conversation!

How was he excluded from a conversation he wasn't ever included in?

My husband and I felt a bit paranoid about speaking french out and about after Brexit, but in hindsight I think we were feeling paranoid and understandably tender and vulnerable about the whole thing.
Never had any ill feeling, my daughter and I regularly talk about people on the way out of school knowing they can’t understand us. It makes her feel better if someone been mean to her.
Ultimately you speak in whatever language feels comfortable and people that aren’t even with you are not to be considered.

I also remember going to North Wales once and everyone in the shop was speaking English until my friend and I walked in with out London accents and everyone switched to welsh and completely ignored us

Ding! Ding!

We have another one

Unfuckingbelievable

I’m English and live in Wales.
Quite often when out with friends they will be speaking English with the group, then another joins the group and they all start speaking Welsh. It’s never bothered me.
A friend also stays with my friend in England, she’s welsh but speaks English to us, if her parents call her she speaks exclusively Welsh to them. It’s their native tongue.

Yes People don't like when people speak different languages. Several people were verbally atacked on the train network for this exact reason. Specially right after Brexit when the xenophobes felt empowered

@FootieMama

Yes People don't like when people speak different languages. Several people were verbally atacked on the train network for this exact reason. Specially right after Brexit when the xenophobes felt empowered

When you say people. I think you mean English people?

Hi op, I think this was not about ethnicity but gender. I think some men who ‘share’ interactions in public spaces with young women do so out of a sense of entitlement. They feel they have a right to your attention particularly if you, being polite have already offered it. So when the attention is withdrawn they feel a sense of righteous indignation which probably manifests as hostility.

I had something a bit like this many many years decades ago on a train.

I was about 19 and I was on the train home on a branchline in Scotland. There was a hole in the knee of my jeans, which is important later in the story.

I had spent some of my childhood in Paris, and at that time I missed the feeling of hearing spoken French terribly, so I had bought a copy of La Monde and was attempting to read it on the train.

I wasn't succeeding much but I was trying, and feeling really good about attempting to meet my own psychological needs by doing something that I'd secretly needed for a long time.

Anyway, two older women were sitting opposite me. I smiled at them and they smiled at me. Then one of them turned to the other and (clearly assuming that I didn't speak English) said "look at the jeans though..." and shook her head. She then carried on smiling intermittently to me, as one does to people who we assume don't understand the language.

I was a bit stunned, but I just spent the whole of the rest of the journey pretending not to be an English speaker so as not to have to confront the situation.

I did quite like the jeans, myself.

@LynetteScavo

I think switching from English not another language was hostile behaviour. You were purposely excluding him from your conversation. Which is why he then became hostile to you. You were perfectly allowed to exclude him, but he's also allowed to feel a bit miffed at being excluded.

So speaking your native language is hostile?

Also, I used to commute on an underground train and often used to see people speaking Urdu. It sounded lovely and I used to stare at them and listen to the sound, because it was just beautiful. I'm sure I probably wasn't meant to do that.

There are literally teachers on this thread saying that they would speak to parents if they caught a child speaking another language. How are you supposed to have any credibility whatsoever in a debate where you can't be bothered reading all the posts

@Autumndays123 there are not. If children don't seem to be mixing well with everyone then of course a good teacher is going to bring that up. Don't want friendships becoming silos. The Scottish teacher you refer to absolutely did not say that speaking the 'wrong' language alone would be a cause for concern.

I agree with you however that schools should not be banning the use of other languages in playgrounds. Break times should be free. I am aware that it happens, a colleague has her kids in a Welsh-medium primary in Gwynedd and she has taken it up with the school when her children have been told off for conversing in English. By the sounds of it though, they adapted very well to a Welsh-medium education considering that they're from an English family with no prior knowledge of Welsh, after a few years in primary the kids are truly bilingual (as in they do their thinking in either language as it suits, rather than listening in their second language, translating in their heads, working out their answer in their first language, and translating back to their second language to give the answer.

Hardly the only example of excessively heavy-handed policies in schools though, look at the nitpicking over uniform. Different schools will have different policies.

OP you and your friend had every right to speak Welsh and I'm sorry you experienced that.

He may have been hostile, if I were him I'd probably have listened to try and work out the language or see if I understood any words and I do have a tendency to pull 'resting bitch faces' when I'm concentrating. Whatever happened, you felt threatened and that's not a nice feeling.

All the people saying they don't believe stories off the English in Wales are just as bad as they are claiming people are for not believing the OP in the first place.

How come it is okay for the OP to experience something in England and you believe her but we aren't allowed to believe the people who have experience similar in Wales?

Why can't we just agree that there are people like this everywhere? Just because you haven't experienced something doesn't mean other people are lying when they say they have and that works both ways.

If he was friendly and chatting, then you suddenly stopped and also talked in a foreign language, he probably felt offended and a bit hurt. He didn't know that you weren't a native speaker! I sometimes speak in other languages on trains but only when people want to be rude about someone in a carriage or say something private. I know how excluded I feel when the conversation around me goes beyond my language skills! My SIL is not a native speaker but speaks English on transport here, even to her kids, so that people can know what is being said. I think if she decided to speak in her native language, she'd apologize that English isn't her native language if she was in conversation with a stranger so they wouldn't think her rude.

Did we ever find out what the man on the train (who OP turned her back on) actually did that was “almost hostile?”

I’m trying to imagine how someone you can’t see or hear could be “almost hostile.”

Was he Derren Brown practising his vibes?

My mother spoke welsh as her first language (they used to get in trouble for speaking at school, back in the day). It’s a beautiful language that has struggled to survive. So keep speaking it!

We are all hateful xenophobes in England. Also narcissists so the non Welsh speaking chap will have assumed you were talking about him.

@WhenISnappedAndFarted

OP you and your friend had every right to speak Welsh and I'm sorry you experienced that.

He may have been hostile, if I were him I'd probably have listened to try and work out the language or see if I understood any words and I do have a tendency to pull 'resting bitch faces' when I'm concentrating. Whatever happened, you felt threatened and that's not a nice feeling.

All the people saying they don't believe stories off the English in Wales are just as bad as they are claiming people are for not believing the OP in the first place.

How come it is okay for the OP to experience something in England and you believe her but we aren't allowed to believe the people who have experience similar in Wales?

Why can't we just agree that there are people like this everywhere? Just because you haven't experienced something doesn't mean other people are lying when they say they have and that works both ways.

The Welsh in the pub stories are very clearly bollocks though. It’s always a pub, it’s always clear, perfect English being spoken loudly enough to be heard outside that switches to Welsh the minute the non-welsh speakers rock up. And the non-Welsh speakers give off such an unmistakable AIR of being English that a silent signal goes the entire way around the pub. It’s total nonsense.

@LittleDandelionClock

Since when did people speak Welsh in Chester?

Probably since half of it is in Wales.

The Welsh in the pub stories are very clearly bollocks though. It’s always a pub, it’s always clear, perfect English being spoken loudly enough to be heard outside that switches to Welsh the minute the non-welsh speakers rock up. And the non-Welsh speakers give off such an unmistakable AIR of being English that a silent signal goes the entire way around the pub. It’s total nonsense.

So fucking true!!

@Pumperthepumper One story was a campsite, one was in a shop, so not always a pub. And so what, maybe some are bollocks maybe some are true. Doesn't mean everyone is lying.

@Offmyfence

The Welsh in the pub stories are very clearly bollocks though. It’s always a pub, it’s always clear, perfect English being spoken loudly enough to be heard outside that switches to Welsh the minute the non-welsh speakers rock up. And the non-Welsh speakers give off such an unmistakable AIR of being English that a silent signal goes the entire way around the pub. It’s total nonsense.

So fucking true!!

Amen

@pollymere

If he was friendly and chatting, then you suddenly stopped and also talked in a foreign language, he probably felt offended and a bit hurt. He didn't know that you weren't a native speaker! I sometimes speak in other languages on trains but only when people want to be rude about someone in a carriage or say something private. I know how excluded I feel when the conversation around me goes beyond my language skills! My SIL is not a native speaker but speaks English on transport here, even to her kids, so that people can know what is being said. I think if she decided to speak in her native language, she'd apologize that English isn't her native language if she was in conversation with a stranger so they wouldn't think her rude.

Your SIL sounds quite mad, or alternatively totally cowed by encountering anti-foreigner attitudes such as the neo-colonial and frankly dimwit monoglot ones demonstrated by some posters on this thread.

Why on earth would it matter whether a random man sitting near the OP on the train knew she was a native speaker of Welsh or not? She doesn’t need him to ok her conversing in any language.

[quote WhenISnappedAndFarted]@Pumperthepumper One story was a campsite, one was in a shop, so not always a pub. And so what, maybe some are bollocks maybe some are true. Doesn't mean everyone is lying.[/quote]
Quite a lot of them are though. Or confirmation bias kicks in when you walk into a pub and people don’t rush to greet you, and you imagine they were speaking English when they’re all native Welsh speakers in a Welsh pub in Wales and they’ve switched just to make fun of your trainers.

@EmergencyPoncho

We are all hateful xenophobes in England. Also narcissists so the non Welsh speaking chap will have assumed you were talking about him.

All 60 fucking million of us,? What a twatty comment