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

@Stellaroses

Oh GOD people are so ignorant about Welsh!! As someone says upthread - for bilingual people it's totally normal to switch back and forth, barely noticing which language you're speaking at that moment. I speak Welsh with my DH and a number of friends. It would feel absolutely bizarre and awkward to me to speak English to him unless we were actually IN a conversation with someone else. We speak English if a monoglot friend or family member is around but certainly wouldn't keep speaking English just because we'd had a friendly exchange with a stranger!! Madness! We would of course finish the conversation politely and not just turn away and start chatting, but otherwise, come on! Chatting in a less comfortable language with someone you're close to just in case a stranger wanted to "join in"?! Is it also rude to talk on the phone in your own language?

And the old as time "they all switched to welsh when we walked in" 😂😂
100% did not happen.

This is absolutely right. There is a world of difference speaking your own language in public to someone you are with and being in a group where several members of that group don't speak your own language. It is only good manners not to exclude them.

@PrincessAnnaOfArundale

You say hostile but what do you mean by that? It sounds to me like you are looking for a problem here. Unless the person was aggressive or rude your account of this doesn’t really make sense. However, I honestly think switching languages is rude to be honest which might have been the problem. It’s the equivalent of whispering around someone. I speak French as first language but have lived in England since I was a child so I have a native English accent. However when speaking with family I’d never ever just switch from English to French in front of someone I was just speaking English to. It’s just rude. I think this might be your social faux pas here.

Are you unclear about the difference between ‘my family’ and ‘random stranger on a train’?

Do you need a train to speak Welsh (or any other language) in Chester?
@ColinTheKoala doing anything in Chester generally requires some form of transport to get there, unless you are already in the city.

@Stellaroses

It happened to me in Blaenau Ffestiniog 30+ years ago. The lady in the shop and her assistant were speaking English and when we spoke and they heard our accents they changed to Welsh. It 100% did happen. Why would I lie about it? What do I gain?

Here's a thought: maybe there's some link between the fact Brits are notoriously crap at speaking foreign languages and the fact so many of us think other people speaking anything but English in our presence is rude.

I'm trying to learn my wife's mother tongue. I won't get anywhere if people (everyone, not just those who know I'm learning) don't speak it when I'm around!

@ChargingBuck

Erm no. Person said we are ALL hateful xenophobes in England - they said ALL - they didn't specify which particular geographic area, language speakers, genders, nationality - JUST ALL. So I ask again? Are ALL people in England xenophobes or just the English ? If it's the ok latter where's your evidence? You said all so you must know us all very well.

You missed the point again, @Allycott, which was nowt to do with whether the English are xenophobes, & everything to do with your conflation of English people with British people.

You seem to think there are 60m English people living in England ... damn near the entire populations of the British Isles ... a common Anglo-centric confusion, forgivable from people who don't live here, but horribly revealing of mindset & assumptions when it comes from people who do ...

If you still don't get it, please don't bother to @ me again, as my patience has worn thin & I don't want waste your time or upset you with concepts you may be incapable of assimilating.

I think there about 60m people bin England buti don't think they are English and I don't think that's an issue -.but you do.

55.98m actually

I am just here proudly waving the British flag...( waves flag )

I honestly couldnt give a fuck if one man seen his arse if you were speaking in welsh.

Just like we didn't give give a fuck when we walked in to pub in Welshspool and every one one stopped talking and took an age to serve us.

There are dick heads every where. Anti British sentiment is rife inWales OP - dont deny it ( ive witlessness it) Yet we dont see thread aghast at it in MN....

Err okay, so someone who is speaking in their native language is somehow wrong??? Okay, if you speak English on, say, a French train where the predominant language is French, should you be lambasted? Or a train anywhere, where people of a particular non native language speak their language? Come off it, you have a very shaky argument.

CasperGutman absolutely 👏👏

@Builtthiscityonsausagerolls

The guy was being hostile, both my friend and I felt it and acknowledged it. I get that it's hard to explain, but when you're in the situation you can feel when an attitude has changed. To clarify again, we didn't have a conversation with thus guy. He was sitting opposite us. Had a bit of friendly chat with the conductor which he joined in on but we weren't directly talking to him. Even if we were, I still find it a bit baffling that according to these responses that meant for the next 2 hours we were obliged to continue our conversation in English.

I keep changing my mind because I am not clear if you conversed with him or not prior. I thought you had, then you said you hadn't, now you said this "To clarify again, we didn't have a conversation with thus guy. He was sitting opposite us. Had a bit of friendly chat with the conductor which he joined in on but we weren't directly talking to him." . I'm afraid it's not clear to me since you said this "Had a bit of friendly chat with the conductor which he joined in on but we weren't directly talking to him." That comment itself seems a bit mean and exclusionary, and he sounds like someone who wanted to chat. You don't have to chat to strangers of course, and talking in a different language is probably a better way to handle this than saying "We don't want to talk to you". Is that why you switched? Maybe that's what he felt. I don't know his reaction or why he had that reaction. If you were so aware of his reaction you must have kept looking at him whilst speaking in another language, it is also quite possible he could think you're talking about him if you both kept looking at him.

"PrincessAnnaOfArundale"

"And yes I think maybe there is a feeling that if you can speak English then you should... same as in any country. I’d never return to Belgium and switch to English in front of a French speaker. You just don’t do that."
Really? I speak a few languages to different sets of people. I am a native Welsh and English speaker, as well as other European languages, so should I only prioritise the English language?

Btw I'm sad I can't speak my dad's native language and I feel excluded when he and others of his home nationality are speaking together in their language in front of me for extended amounts of time :( but I know that's not the same.

The anti-welshness of mumsnet is alive and well.

Oh, I had a weird thing where paramedic said he thought I had an accent after he knew my dad was from somewhere else. Then later he and another paramedic were talking to each other about us, right next to us, being quite rude about us, like we weren't there, like they thought we couldn't understand them.

Neural pathways are created in whichever language you have as default with every person you know when you bilingual. It’s actually hard wired into your brain And it’s very hard to break that default setting once it’s set up. It’s why I speak to my best friend in English, and despite us both being fluent in Welsh because neither of us realised the other spoke Welsh on first meeting and now the habit is formed.

@Evesgarden

I am just here proudly waving the British flag...( waves flag )

I honestly couldnt give a fuck if one man seen his arse if you were speaking in welsh.

Just like we didn't give give a fuck when we walked in to pub in Welshspool and every one one stopped talking and took an age to serve us.

There are dick heads every where. Anti British sentiment is rife inWales OP - dont deny it ( ive witlessness it) Yet we dont see thread aghast at it in MN....

That’s a bit of sweeping generalisation. Why would the Welsh be anti-British? We’re just as British as anyone else.

There's way over 900 replies to this so I'm not trudging through each but my guess is it's not so much speaking in Welsh that caused the change but switching from English to Welsh in such close proximity.

My daughter is bilingual (speaks fluent Japanese and Chinese / Mandarin) and finds she is regularly given the same sort of response when she's in a place where people assume she won't understand. It's just rude, more so when others have been speaking English to a point.

I remember being in Wales on holiday when the kids were very little and they had a hour's lead rein ride. The girls that worked at the yard spoke perfect English to us initially - were pleasant enough personally but the entire hour whilst they were leading the kids on their ride, they chatted to each other in Welsh completely throwing us a blank unless we specifically spoke to them.

It's a little like whispering to someone when another person walks in the room. That I'm guessing is what probably brought the frosty reception.

@Evesgarden

If England/Britain is so "welcoming" why does it keep voting in the most right wing, anti immigrant government it's ever had? The government of the Windrush scandal and the "hostile environment", and which boasts about ending freedom of movement following the Brexit vote, which in itself was largely driven by anti- immigrant, anti- foreigner sentiment.

As for migrants crossing the Channel, most Tory voters would happily see every migrant drown in the Channel if they could. They probably see it as a useful deterrent.

@LittleDandelionClock

Since when did people speak Welsh in Chester?

Questionable isn't it?

Why didn't you pose this AIBU in Welsh, OP?

www.eneuro.org/content/8/6/ENEURO.0084-21.2021

The brain can be ‘blind’ to language switches. It’s totally possible to be unaware you are switching.

@GaryLurcher19 because most posters on mumsnet don’t speak Welsh.
However if I was on my local Facebook group I’d speak in Welsh as most members are Welsh speaking.

Weird question.

Sorry if someone has mentioned this already as I haven’t rtft but OP there is a word - Xenolingohassen - for the phobia of hearing a foreign language. Unsurprisingly, particularly prevalent among monolinguists.

If you'd ended then conversation to the point of talking in a different language then why are you even bothered about how he reacted? A few people have suggested he might have felt excluded etc and your reaction is defence... so you don't ca re about his feelings so why should he care about yours?
Op I don't think you are unreasonable for speaking Welsh, I think there's literally nothing wrong with this. But that man might have acted like that for a number of different reasons and if you're not open to hearing them or understanding them then best just let it go.

@PinniGig

There's way over 900 replies to this so I'm not trudging through each but my guess is it's not so much speaking in Welsh that caused the change but switching from English to Welsh in such close proximity.

My daughter is bilingual (speaks fluent Japanese and Chinese / Mandarin) and finds she is regularly given the same sort of response when she's in a place where people assume she won't understand. It's just rude, more so when others have been speaking English to a point.

I remember being in Wales on holiday when the kids were very little and they had a hour's lead rein ride. The girls that worked at the yard spoke perfect English to us initially - were pleasant enough personally but the entire hour whilst they were leading the kids on their ride, they chatted to each other in Welsh completely throwing us a blank unless we specifically spoke to them.

It's a little like whispering to someone when another person walks in the room. That I'm guessing is what probably brought the frosty reception.

@PinniGig see my reply about neural pathways just a few comments up, when you are used to speaking in one language with a specific person it’s very hard and takes conscious effort to switch to another language. It’s quite possible from other studies that they didn’t even realise they’d done it as that’s how multilingual brains work.

If you were in Spain and the guides spoke Spanish to each other would you feel the same about it being rude?