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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

999 replies

Builtthiscityonsausagerolls · 25/11/2021 21:29

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

OP posts:
LizzieSiddal · 25/11/2021 21:57

I really don’t understand why people would feel upset about what language someone is speaking in on a train.

Absolutely baffling.

Blackfridayshite · 25/11/2021 21:57

I love welsh,please ignore the twat on the train.I havent been born in this country and my mother language is not english.I love all the various accents in Britain and it amazes me,why so many people have hangups about their accent and even change it.Be proud of Welsh,its a beautiful language!

forinborin · 25/11/2021 21:57

Was told many times to speak English on public transport when chatting to my children. No OP you're not imagining it.

BitterTits · 25/11/2021 21:57

Don't be so fucking dull. Based on your thread title alone, YABtotallyU. And you're basing this on an impression. I'm Welsh and hear very little spoken within Wales, let alone Chester either.

I really dislike the goadiness of this post.

EileenGC · 25/11/2021 21:57

@Builtthiscityonsausagerolls I totally get what you’re saying.

People, the OP didn’t say the 3 of them were having a conversation together prior to the switch to Welsh. She said they’d spoken in English to the conductor, not to this guy in front of them.

You don’t get it unless you’ve lived it. I was once asked if I could switch to English whilst on a phone call to my mum. Who doesn’t speak English nor has she ever lived in an English-speaking country. I was a bit Confused as to why I needed to switch to English. Apparently it was ‘annoying’ not understanding what I was saying.

Another time someone asked what language was I speaking with my friend on a bus. I said Spanish (our native language). She replied with ‘oh but I can’t understand any of it and I did Spanish at school, are you sure it’s really Spanish? It’s way too fast’ Well dear, we’re obviously not going to slow down and spell out each word to you just so you can follow the convo… Grin

KikoLemons · 25/11/2021 21:58

It;s actually horrible to sit next to or opposite people jabbering away in a language you don't understand. No escape, You're sharing a small space, it's deliberately exclusive, it's just noise.
When people are speaking their own language - and I know from years of living abroad as well as from the UK, you don't engage with people in the same way. There's a sense of being in a bubble.
There have been a lot of studies done about this sort of thing if you're interested

Waspsarearseholes · 25/11/2021 21:58

Blimey. It's rude to speak in your mother tongue to a friend because a perfectly strange English man on a train won't be able to understand your conversation? Bloody hell. The entitlement of English speakers is remarkable.
There is a difference between indifference/disinterest and active hostility, which the OP is describing. It is in no way rude to speak the language you and the one other person you're with share.

gogohm · 25/11/2021 21:58

Perhaps he felt like you were still having a conversation and was enjoying your company, you then turned to your friend and excluded him ... I would suggest his reaction is similar to how many of us would react if someone switched mid conversation.

But that said I suspect you are reading more into it than it was, you didn't want him to be in your conversation so he stopped acting friendly at that point.

Original poster
Builtthiscityonsausagerolls · 25/11/2021 22:00

We didn't speak to him.
We spoke to the conductor.
He sat across from us, friendly smile.
When conductor moved on We continued our conversation in Welsh. On a train in Birmingham. Just us two.
When we switched from English to Welsh there was a notable hostility.
Most responses agree that this is fine. I find it baffling that I'm being rude to a stranger by speaking my native language to my friend.

OP posts:
WrongWayApricot · 25/11/2021 22:02

If the conversation between you all dwindled and then after some silence you began in Welsh, then the stranger is weird. If you abruptly cut conversation and started speaking Welsh then I'm not surprised he would stare at you both because that would be weird of you two. I live in London and don't even notice people around me are talking in another language, they're not talking to me so I don't care. Being a Londoner I might look at you weird for trying to start conversation with me on public transport in the first place though Grin

LittleDandelionClock · 25/11/2021 22:03

@ZenNudist

Icedcoffees I live in Manchester and not heard anyone speak Welsh here ever!

This ^

@Livpool

Liverpool is close to Wales and I have heard a lot of languages - but never Welsh. Spent lots of time in Chester too.

And this. ^ As I said, I never heard anyone speaking Welsh in Chester in all the years I lived there!

The OP is talking tosh. And for some reason, desperately trying to deny she was remarkably rude, and she is not in the wrong, by making out the man was 'terrifyingly hostile' Hmm

TheAntiGardener · 25/11/2021 22:03

@LittleDandelionClock - perhaps I didn’t explain well, but I meant that I can’t remember hearing welsh spoken ‘in real life’ before I moved here. I‘m very interested in languages andwas quite fascinated the first time! I’d lived in the south and midlands before, never heard anyone conversing in welsh, and can imagine this guy, hostile or not, may well never have heard it before. By contrast, I do hear it from time to time here.

And, yes, I do hear other languages as well, including in my own home. But different areas clearly have different concentrations of speakers of certain languages. It stands to reason that Chester is going to have a lot more welsh speakers than other parts of England and that is going to ripple out. Also not sure why you don’t believe op who is a welsh speaker, seems to know Chester and is therefore in a position to assess how common it is to hear Welsh there!

WrongWayApricot · 25/11/2021 22:03

Oh cross post, nvm, stranger is weird.

EileenGC · 25/11/2021 22:03

Oh and following my post, it’s not an English thing. I’ve experienced it many other countries as well, where (thankfully only a few) people seem offended when somebody speaks a language they don’t understand.

Those of you saying it’s rude because it looks like you’re talking about the other person or something, do you always revert to the local language when on holiday? A language you don’t know that well? Is it not rude to go to Spain or Greece and speak English with your family and friends there?

Also, why would you switch to another language to talk about someone who’s sat in front of you… when you have no idea if they’re also fluent in said language? You’d be making a fool of yourself and you really can’t know who speaks what from sitting next to them on a train for a few minutes Grin

LubaLuca · 25/11/2021 22:03

He might just have been that kind of person, your first impression of him was wrong and he wasn't friendly at all. Maybe he was fascinated by a language he's never heard before and his concentrating face is a bit weird.

Sam020 · 25/11/2021 22:04

I haven't experienced any direct hostility but what I find a bit sad is that sometimes people ask me which language I'm speaking to dc and when they realise that it's a Western European language rather than an Asian language (inspite of me looking Asian), they noticeably and immediately become more respectful and friendly.

CustardySergeant · 25/11/2021 22:04

"When we switched from English to Welsh there was a notable hostility."

Assuming no words were exchanged, how was this conveyed?

EileenGC · 25/11/2021 22:06

By the way - and this is lighthearted - but there seems to be an awful lot of English speakers on this thread who couldn’t read the OP properly and retain the sentence where she clearly said English was used to speak with the conductor. Not the guy in front of them. She wrote it in English so no excuse here!

(I’m out Wine)

gogohm · 25/11/2021 22:06

But I have experienced bar staff in a pub in Wales being rude about English customers (my friend is Welsh, Welsh medium schools but moved to England for university and list his accent!) irony is they wouldn't have had jobs if it weren't for English holiday makers.

Nimchinge · 25/11/2021 22:07

Thats really rude. I'm tri lingual and would never switch languages like that, unless I prefaced it by explaining to the non speaker that I needed to switch quickly for a specific reason. Its alienating and makes other people feel like an idiot. You were being a dick

WhenWillISleepThroughTheNight · 25/11/2021 22:07

I think you had a one off. We speak in french a lot and have never felt anything wrong.

Whoop whoop for chester!

You do hear Welsh here. Tippyn bach but still.

Firesidefox · 25/11/2021 22:07

It doesn't sound like xenophobia to me. More like they thought you switched to Welsh to bitch about them.

EileenGC · 25/11/2021 22:08

@Nimchinge

Thats really rude. I'm tri lingual and would never switch languages like that, unless I prefaced it by explaining to the non speaker that I needed to switch quickly for a specific reason. Its alienating and makes other people feel like an idiot. You were being a dick
She wasn’t speaking to this guy to begin with. How is that rude or alienating?

People need to learn how to read…

phishy · 25/11/2021 22:08

@Sam020

I haven't experienced any direct hostility but what I find a bit sad is that sometimes people ask me which language I'm speaking to dc and when they realise that it's a Western European language rather than an Asian language (inspite of me looking Asian), they noticeably and immediately become more respectful and friendly.
Yep, and conversely, I don’t look Asian but many people recoil a bit when they ask me where I’m from and I answer.
Walkaround · 25/11/2021 22:09

So you weren’t actually chatting with your friend in English, you were just speaking to the English train conductor, then, when he left, started chatting to each other in Welsh? Because tbh, it would come across as a bit weird if you started out chatting away to each other in English then suddenly and apparently inexplicably switched to Welsh. Even more weird , though, is the fact you appear to have noticed some kind of hostility in someone you never spoke to at all and who never spoke to you. I’m wondering how a complete stranger on a train that is just sitting near you and who hasn’t at any point spoken to you or moved from his seat could possibly have communicated hostility? What on earth were you staring at him for in order to notice this? I can’t say I ever particularly notice other people on trains when I’m chatting to my friends.