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

@Lostmyheart101

It’s rude behaviour to talk to someone who is being friendly, then turn to your friend and speak in a different language that the person can’t understand.

Are you normally that rude or was you not aware you was being rude?

If you hadn’t spoken to him at all and was speaking Welsh with your friend then that would be fine, but to be chatting to someone then turn and change language is a mean thing to do, as they can’t understand you anymore, which was obviously the point.

Depressing how many PP believe women owe men their time, conversation, & 'friendliness'.

OP's conversation was none of this stranger's fucking business.
The fact that she'd been polite to him in his native language for a few seconds doesn't alter that fact.

I'm going to derail my own thread here....
I live in Chester. I'm in a development of flats of about 160ish. From the Facebook residents page, 3 of us are fluent Welsh so although maybe not common not unheard of...

To put the thread back on track, I was more curious as to whether other people experience hostility when not speaking English in public

@LizzieSiddal

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

Absolutely baffling.

OP, I get your experience. I speak 3 languages and when people speak the same languages we keep switching between the 3 or only 2 languages.

Foreigners are many times harassed for speaking their own native languages. It happened to me and my other friends. After the Brexit vote, there was an increase in attacks against EU nationals, especially when speaking their native languages.

About 4 to 5 times I had some very angry men shouting to speak English ... then swear words and other name callings.

*Depressing how many PP believe women owe men their time, conversation, & 'friendliness'.

OP's conversation was none of this stranger's fucking business.
The fact that she'd been polite to him in his native language for a few seconds doesn't alter that fact.*

100%

You weren't being rude by speaking welsh. But her was not being rude if he stopped smiling and had a grumpy face. He probably wasn't doing it on purpose, and you can't expect him to smile or engage with people who have clearly disengaged from him.

Sorry, but you have to be paranoid to detect hostility in the face of a complete stranger who is clearly minding their own business and has never said a word to you or got up from their seat. Was he supposed to grin at you both for the entire journey or something?

Alright, what’s with 90% of posters saying ‘you spoke to him in English then switched to Welsh’.

Can’t people not read and understand what they’ve read in their own language!? The OP didn’t talk to this person at all, in either English or Welsh. But I suppose this is Mumsnet, so…

@WrongWayApricot

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

That's because most of the responses are from native English speakers.

Which means that

1.they have never encountered the hostility you speak of

And
2.they felt excluded by people talking in a different language because obviously it's all about them and anything besides English is rude like you owe them the opportunity to be an audience.

You can't get an accurate opinion from people that don't get/live it.

Sorry, one man was hostile to you in England when you spoke welsh so you think all English people are hostile to non native speakers? Is that right?

@Builtthiscityonsausagerolls

I'm going to derail my own thread here.... I live in Chester. I'm in a development of flats of about 160ish. From the Facebook residents page, 3 of us are fluent Welsh so although maybe not common not unheard of...

To put the thread back on track, I was more curious as to whether other people experience hostility when not speaking English in public

Ah so you didn't mean to post in AIBU at all then? You meant to post in chat and ask whether other people experience hostility when not speaking English in public?

I can't answer that as I'm a native English speaker but I can attest that I have witnessed extreme hostility and name calling from South Walian's to native Welsh speakers and that I have been criticised for not being able to speak Lithuanian. I hope you find that helpful.

Wow you were rude. Excluding someone from conversation..no wonder he off with you as felt you talking about him. Never heard Welsh in Chester. Yabu

Actually,@Texasfucked, it might not all be as bollocks as you charmingly put it.

I spent many summers in Wales, and then a year at polytechnic, and there was a certain amount of hostility, in some places. Or if not hostility, at least some rudeness of the type described- abrupt switching of language in front of us.

I think we noticed it more, because my mother felt a bit hurt, being, as she was, half Welsh herself, although she sounded very English. After spending 6 years in the Rhondda, during the war, she felt more at home in Wales than anywhere else, so to find some of this rudeness from strangers was unpleasant.

But it just goes to show really- one's own experiences colour our views.

Yes, England is incredibly xenophobic, we like to kid ourselves it's not though

Builtthiscityonsausagerolls

Why switch
Because I was having a chat with my friend in our native language
Should we do it in English so that strangers on a train in Birminham don't think we're talking about them

It sounds like you were talking to him or at least passing the time of day because you called him friendly
Then you switched languages

I would think that was rude.

People speak their language as they will. I have Indian friends who will speak in Hindi to other Hindi speakers in front of me, Arabic speaking friends who use that together and Welsh speaking friends and colleagues who switch from one to the other like it's nothing at all. Which it is; if I speak in English to my family when we're on holiday in France, or in Welsh to my children when we visit family in England, we're never talking about them... Just to each other like perfectly ordinary people.

I've experienced this too, we were on a train in England and I was speaking Welsh to my husband and our sons and a man started telling us we should go back to where we came from. He was telling other passengers that we were taking their jobs etc. We tried to ignore him but it was quite frightening. He became so abusive the train conductor had to intervene.

Nope. People don't often speak Welsh in Chester. I know coz I bloody lived there for years, and only recently moved. It's practically bloody Merseyside, and more people sound scouse than Welsh!

Loads of towns and cities are close-ish to Wales, Whitchurch, Shrewsbury, Parts of South Shropshire and Herefordshire. And they don't speak Welsh. Even some of WALES don't speak Welsh. Rhyl, for example, and some other parts.

Blimey @LittleDandelionClock - did you not get out much?

Even Chester Zoo offers Welsh lessons! Chester Uni teaches Welsh, there are myriad social groups & immersion mixers, & plenty of folk speak Welsh there. I've even done it myself, though I can only manage common greetings & a few stock phrases.

She didn’t speak to the man. Presumably he dared to smile when op was chatting to the conductor. Then stopped smiling when op started speaking Welsh.

How would you feel if the same thing happened to you?
We weren't there, but sounds like you offended him

I can't believe people are saying you were rude. Or are pretending not to know what it means to sense hostility from a man in the vicinity. I think the main problem here was not language, but that a man realised you were not going to entertain or amuse him, and that speaking another language meant you - as two women in his environment - were not interested in including or focusing on him, or making him feel comfortable or important. And that, to some men, is a grave, grave insult. Hence, the tangible shift in his demeanour.

Oh, and I always hear Welsh spoken in Chester, but I know what I'm listening out for.

What ‘hostility’ are you talking about?

I think you’re making a thing out of nothing tbh 🤷🏼‍♀️

[quote Shodan]Actually,@Texasfucked, it might not all be as bollocks as you charmingly put it.

I spent many summers in Wales, and then a year at polytechnic, and there was a certain amount of hostility, in some places. Or if not hostility, at least some rudeness of the type described- abrupt switching of language in front of us.

I think we noticed it more, because my mother felt a bit hurt, being, as she was, half Welsh herself, although she sounded very English. After spending 6 years in the Rhondda, during the war, she felt more at home in Wales than anywhere else, so to find some of this rudeness from strangers was unpleasant.

But it just goes to show really- one's own experiences colour our views.[/quote]
Ok

1. How the fuck would they know you don't speak Welsh too

1. Why the fuck would they switch from English to Welsh. Welsh speakig people do tend to speak Welsh to eachother.

The ego centricity of some people is mind boggling.

I've live with an Arabic woman who had friends over regularly to break her Ramadan fast and they would all speak Arabic in the kitchen.

I've mixed with a group of French people who would turn to one another and have quick side conversations in French.

Not once did I think there was some fucking conspiracy against me.

I’m genuinely surprised at how many people think this is rude. And not just a bit rude, but enough to get people quite worked up on this thread. I used to work with women who chatted all the time in Russian and knowing one of them, a lot of that would have been bitching about the rest of us - it was mildly irritating at most. But then, I found the story of the Portuguese family who switch to English if they are even in the vicinity of English speakers sad rather than an example of good manners.

Given how many posters seem to think it would be normal for someone to be unreasonably discomforted by having a conversation in another language take place near them (even when they were never part of the conversation), I tend to think the answer to op’s opening question is yes.