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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
HesterShaw1 · 29/11/2021 16:07

Favourite quote I've heard was "Mae'n ridiculous!"

Along with German DP's irate phone exchange with a fellow German colleague "Es ist ein total Clusterfuck."

CounsellorTroi · 29/11/2021 16:21
  • I would say that about 1/4 to 1/3 of the people who come in to my shop with at least one other person are speaking Welsh. Some only speak in Welsh but most bounce back and forth between Welsh and English, either a whole sentence in each language or random words from the other language thrown in. If some one else started listening at the "wrong" moment, it could easily sound like they were changing from English to Welsh, when in reality they are just having a chat.

This may especially be the case if they are discussing a technical subject or something related to health. They are using English terms for certain things because it’s easier - but they are still basically speaking Welsh.

PerfectlyUnsuitable · 29/11/2021 16:25

@HectorGloop

Wenglish is very definitely real. I work in a shop in a North Wales touristy area. There are lots of Welsh speakers around, some more fluent than others. I have learned enough to get the gist of what people are saying but (as is so often the way) I'm not very confident about replying.

I would say that about 1/4 to 1/3 of the people who come in to my shop with at least one other person are speaking Welsh. Some only speak in Welsh but most bounce back and forth between Welsh and English, either a whole sentence in each language or random words from the other language thrown in. If some one else started listening at the "wrong" moment, it could easily sound like they were changing from English to Welsh, when in reality they are just having a chat.

I think that’s a pretty normal thing to do for people who are truly bilingual.

I’m always fascinated when outsiders struggle to understand you can mix and match languages like this. Another favorite of mine is one person speaking in one language whilst the other answers in another. This often happens with children.

HectorGloop · 29/11/2021 16:49

Another favorite of mine is one person speaking in one language whilst the other answers in another. This often happens with children

Definitely. And there are lots of families where there is 1 welsh speaking parent and 1 english speaking. the kids switch between the two languages depending on which parent they are talking to

youkiddingme · 29/11/2021 17:08

If you were glancing his way enough to notice his body language and form conclusions, whilst talking in a language he didn't understand, it's possible he felt threatened.
Two strangers talking in a language I don't understand on a train, no problem.
Two strangers doing so whilst glancing in my direction and I'm shitting myself. Nothing to do with their race just the fact I don't know what they're saying - in the same way I'd shit myself if two English people were whispering and glancing my way.

Or maybe he's just broken up with a Welsh girlfriend or lost a relative who spoke Welsh, or a million other things. One man's dubious reaction hardly speaks of 'what it's like in England.'

hotmeatymilk · 29/11/2021 20:04

If you were glancing his way enough to notice his body language and form conclusions
You don’t think most women have perfected the art of noticing the men nearest them, and assessing the threat level, and being discreet about it? Besides the OP clarifies in the very first post that she’s talking about the instant the language shift took place. She didn’t carry on chatting while endlessly looking at this man.

ClaudiaJ1 · 30/11/2021 02:31

@hotmeatymilk

If you were glancing his way enough to notice his body language and form conclusions You don’t think most women have perfected the art of noticing the men nearest them, and assessing the threat level, and being discreet about it? Besides the OP clarifies in the very first post that she’s talking about the instant the language shift took place. She didn’t carry on chatting while endlessly looking at this man.
Exactly!

I am staggered at the amount of people attempting to minimise and invalidate a woman's experience. As if we silly women don't KNOW when a man is very clearly hostile, as if we 'imagined it' when it is HARDWIRED INTO WOMEN to pick up on these things. Bad enough for a man to dismiss and invalidate our experience, but when women do it, such as when we're told we are 'projecting' (how the f does that even work in reality?) like @Livelovebehappy has said or to 'get over yourselves' by @PinkKecks and @sendingsamosas it's no surprise women are our own worst enemies with the victim-blaming, minimising, dismissing and invalidating.

As if a woman doesn't know her own experience and intuition. Hmm Very shameful attitudes on here.

ClaudiaJ1 · 30/11/2021 02:42

And @youkiddingme bending over backwards to think of any excuse possible to justify the man's attitude and behaviour when - occam's razor - usually the most obvious reason is the reason, is mystifying. Would youkiddingme bend over this far backwards to justify a man hitting a woman? Oh, he had Covid. He had a bad day. He broke up with his girlfriend. Or his mother or female relative died so he has rage at women. Sadly I think they would. Why do we continue to bend over backwards and beyond for excuses for men's attitude and behavior and attempt to invalidate and dismiss the obvious reason?

Glassofshloer · 30/11/2021 07:35

@hotmeatymilk

If you were glancing his way enough to notice his body language and form conclusions You don’t think most women have perfected the art of noticing the men nearest them, and assessing the threat level, and being discreet about it? Besides the OP clarifies in the very first post that she’s talking about the instant the language shift took place. She didn’t carry on chatting while endlessly looking at this man.
Getting silly now.
Glassofshloer · 30/11/2021 08:01

OP has not been able to give a single tangible reason as to why she felt this ‘hostility’ bar him looking over, which given they switched to a different language, is easily explainable as curiosity.

I consider myself a feminist but if we have now reached a place where men ‘not smiling after previously smiling’ is an indication of ‘hostility’, then we’ve lost the plot tbh.

I’m going to be completely honest, I think there is a certain element of the rest of the U.K. ‘wanting’ to feel like English people are averse/patronising/belittling of them, and then reading it into the most minor and usually irrelevant of behaviours to fit that narrative.

My stepmum was the same - she would regularly go off on ‘rants’ about how proud she was to be from ‘her’ country, how she doesn’t care if ‘English people don’t like it’, but when asked who or what she was defending herself against, she had no answer. There was no xenophobic English comment to defend herself from, she was simply projecting her own belief that for some reason we are all against her. Bizarre Confused

I’m not saying you don’t get some xenophobia from English people to the other nations (and vice versa, let’s be honest) - but I think if this is an ‘example’ worthy of OP starting a thread about it, then we can agree for the most part it isn’t a major issue.

As for people like my stepmum, I think she wanted to believe everyone was ‘noticing’ her nationality, maybe some kind of attention seeking thing? Nationalistic neurosis? Wanting to believe English people care more about it than they actually do? Maybe all 3?

ClaudiaJ1 · 30/11/2021 08:09

@Glassofshloer

OP has not been able to give a single tangible reason as to why she felt this ‘hostility’ bar him looking over, which given they switched to a different language, is easily explainable as curiosity.

I consider myself a feminist but if we have now reached a place where men ‘not smiling after previously smiling’ is an indication of ‘hostility’, then we’ve lost the plot tbh.

I’m going to be completely honest, I think there is a certain element of the rest of the U.K. ‘wanting’ to feel like English people are averse/patronising/belittling of them, and then reading it into the most minor and usually irrelevant of behaviours to fit that narrative.

My stepmum was the same - she would regularly go off on ‘rants’ about how proud she was to be from ‘her’ country, how she doesn’t care if ‘English people don’t like it’, but when asked who or what she was defending herself against, she had no answer. There was no xenophobic English comment to defend herself from, she was simply projecting her own belief that for some reason we are all against her. Bizarre Confused

I’m not saying you don’t get some xenophobia from English people to the other nations (and vice versa, let’s be honest) - but I think if this is an ‘example’ worthy of OP starting a thread about it, then we can agree for the most part it isn’t a major issue.

As for people like my stepmum, I think she wanted to believe everyone was ‘noticing’ her nationality, maybe some kind of attention seeking thing? Nationalistic neurosis? Wanting to believe English people care more about it than they actually do? Maybe all 3?

You are missing the point. She was there. You weren't. Women KNOW the feeling. We.....KNOW. So believe her! Please stop being misogynist and invalidating her experience, you are getting silly now.
ClaudiaJ1 · 30/11/2021 08:10

This is not about a tangible 'reason'. Or a tangible explanation. Women KNOW.

SpritzingAperol · 30/11/2021 08:20

OP has not been able to give a single tangible reason as to why she felt this ‘hostility’ bar him looking over, which given they switched to a different language, is easily explainable as curiosity.

Since when did getting bad vibes not count?

dropitlikeitsloth · 30/11/2021 08:22

Wow this thread is just like the thread about an OPs date and the missing keys (that he accidentally Hmm says he found in his pocket) lots of claims this definitely wasn’t sinister or weird and that OP was being hysterical in getting the locks changed. Despite OP being on the receiving end of odd behaviour and comments such as ‘I don’t know what I’d do if this didn’t work out’

Glassofshloer · 30/11/2021 08:35

@SpritzingAperol

OP has not been able to give a single tangible reason as to why she felt this ‘hostility’ bar him looking over, which given they switched to a different language, is easily explainable as curiosity.

Since when did getting bad vibes not count?

Since ‘bad vibes’ is a figment of ones imagination.
Glassofshloer · 30/11/2021 08:36

@ClaudiaJ1

This is not about a tangible 'reason'. Or a tangible explanation. Women KNOW.
So why start a thread about it, if OP = right and all of us = wrong because we were not there? What is there to discuss?
ClaudiaJ1 · 30/11/2021 08:40

Since ‘bad vibes’ is a figment of ones imagination.

Er no, it really isn't. It is real.

SpritzingAperol · 30/11/2021 08:41

So why start a thread about it, if OP = right and all of us = wrong because we were not there? What is there to discuss?

I think the question was " Is this the experience of non english speakers in England" . Whereas you were saying they sort of imagined the experience in the first place.

There's lots to discuss even if posters don't just agree with you.

ClaudiaJ1 · 30/11/2021 08:42

@Glassofshloer The post was about the experiences of people who talk in different languages and the reactions from others.

SpritzingAperol · 30/11/2021 08:44

Since ‘bad vibes’ is a figment of ones imagination.

Nope, just YOUR imagination. Either you get it or you don't. But I think you'll find lots of people would disagree with you there.

hotmeatymilk · 30/11/2021 09:35

Since ‘bad vibes’ is a figment of ones imagination.
archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/becker-fear.html?_r=2

hoodathunkit · 30/11/2021 10:20

@ChargingBuck

I am so pleased that you found my thoughts useful

:)

A few further thoughts you might find helpful relate to the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein's theories about Oedipal conflicts and the "primal scene" (the primal scene is the real and / or imagined internal concept of the parental couple engaged in amorous union).

Many children accidentally walk in on their parents lovemaking or overhear them, and have complicated feelings as a result. It is not unusual for children to believe that the parents are engaged in a violent union. This may be due in part to the sounds associated with sex, which can easily be misunderstood as sounds of violence.

Klein posited that primitive Oedipal feelings arise very early on in life (in infancy) and relate to feeling excluded from an excited, frenzied union.

Some infants project their own primitive anxieties, greed and feelings of aggression onto the primal scene, resulting in a terrifying imagining that Klein called the "combined parental object".

The combined parental object, in the infant's primitive consciousness, contains all the infant's aggressive, sadistic drives. It is a terrifying biting, sucking, pissing and shitting monster that the infant experiences as persecutory.

It is likely the inspiration for the child eating witch in Hansel and Gretel and in many scary fairy stories.

Of course, as adults, these scary, pre-verbal imaginings are pushed deep into the unconscious and become forgotten, however they can emerge as seemingly irrational outburts when people feel excluded from the intimate exchanges of others, as happens when people become irrationally outraged by others talking in a foreign language.

As with the infant's experience of the primal scene and the combined parental object, the resulting persecutory anxieties are likely coloured by the infantile projections of his or her own rage at feeling excluded and are often cruel, sadistsic and excluding in nature.

Of course infants do not understand adult sexual activity and their projections contain primitive bodily features relating to sucking, biting, pissing and shitting.

It seems to me the area today in which such primitive anxieties most obvously manifest are in the deluded rantings of the incel movement, where the hatred of "Chads" and "Staceys" mirrors the hatred of the parents in the primal scene.

People often talk about the misogynist elements of the incel movement and I would not argue that there is misogyny to be found. However it seems to me that the main driving force behind the spree killers in the incel movement is not so much misogyny as conflicts related to feelings of exlclusion and hatred relating to a primitive imagining (Klein called in a "phantasy") of the combined parental object.

Apologies for the derail

Glassofshloer · 30/11/2021 12:45

I think OP is making a fuss over nothing

Glassofshloer · 30/11/2021 12:45

And that is the end of that! Smile

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