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

@Coffeepot72

I realise Wales is part of the uk, but it was annexed for a reason

Care to expand, @Coffeepot72, or is this the only chance you've had for zenophobic goady fuckery today?

Dear God why can't people READ THE THREAD. Or at the very least OPs posts. I thought it was perfectly clear from the OP that she had been talking to THE CONDUCTOR not the random man opposite but, if it wasn't she has since clarified it multiple times. She was not having a conversation with him in english and then switched to welsh. She didn't speak to him at all, ever. Cancel the sodding cheque.

Just logged onto MN for the first time in months to jump into the "do people speak Welsh in Chester" debate. I grew up very close to Chester in 70s/80s/early 90s and it was very common to hear people speaking Welsh around the city.

I've spent very little time there in the last 20 years but when I was a child and teen (I went to FE college there) it was completely normal.

@TheyWentToSeaInASieve

That was rude of you. English is not my native tongue either, but I would always make an effort to speak in English where other English speakers are present. It's basic manners -- you are not excluding anyone. Your actions said: "I don't want you to know what I am saying."

So if you travel outside the UK I assume you either always converse with your travelling companion(s) in the local language, or if you are unable to speak the local language, you don't speak in public at all to ensure you don't exclude anyone?

[quote Shodan]@Texasfucked

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

Possibly because we told them? Mum was a great one for talking to people about her years in Wales, and how she tried to learn the language but hadn't succeeded.

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

No idea. It is rude, though, if you're talking to someone in one language, to abruptly switch to another, when you already know that that person doesn't speak the same language. I'm not sure that you'd understand that though, given your hostility.

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

We weren't interested enough to think that.

I get that you don't want to believe someone else's experience though, so do go ahead with your overly dramatic swearing. It wont make my experience any less true.[/quote]
No, sorry, all bollocks

I've heard it far too many times in my life and.its always unfounded

@sparklefarts

I 100% would have thought you switched language to either talk about me or to get me out of the conversation

This

With absolute respect, if I was sat on a train opposite two people who were initially speaking to me then suddenly switched to a foreign language for the duration, I'd be extremely pissed off. In fact I'm trying to decide if actually just being stuck next to people speaking a different language for an extended period of time would be beyond tolerable for ANYBODY! I'm absolutely not saying that nobody should, not at all. That would remove people's human right, of course! Just whether or not it would be irritating for anyone, not just English people.

However the hostility is almost certainly the sudden exclusion

Once more, with a megaphone, in English and Welsh, with subtitles:

OP WASN’T TALKING TO THE GUY OPPOSITE. IN ANY LANGUAGE.

Yes, feeling hostility from a strange man is definitely in the imagination of 2 women who independently both felt extremely uncomfortable

I wondered if random man knew what language we were speaking, or whether it was a knee jerk 'not English' as I don't suppose there's much familiarity with Welsh in the Midlands.

We were discussing the xenophobic angle, having not had a reaction like this before.
Thanks for the people who raised the misogyny 'how dare you not give a man who smiled at you full attention angle. We hadn't thought of that, but does resonate.

I'll let my Chester residing Welsh speaking friends know we don't exist :p

@TheyWentToSeaInASieve

That was rude of you. English is not my native tongue either, but I would always make an effort to speak in English where other English speakers are present. It's basic manners -- you are not excluding anyone. Your actions said: "I don't want you to know what I am saying."

Do all of your conversations in public places get dubbed for the benefit of passing strangers who may not speak English? Or when you are having a private conversation about the weather, do you only speak in a language understood by those actually involved in the conversation, no provision for random passers by?

@hotmeatymilk

Fucking hell, the anger and hostility on this thread absolutely shows the OP isn’t BU.

It's like banging your head against a brick wall with some people.

They just don't see how xenophobic and ego centric they really are.

@hotmeatymilk

Once more, with a megaphone, in English and Welsh, with subtitles:

OP WASN’T TALKING TO THE GUY OPPOSITE. IN ANY LANGUAGE.

This bears repeating

Some people obviously can't even understand English

@hotmeatymilk

Once more, with a megaphone, in English and Welsh, with subtitles:

OP WASN’T TALKING TO THE GUY OPPOSITE. IN ANY LANGUAGE.

Is there one up on a megaphone :D

o mam bach. the sheer amount of people who haven’t read the OPs first post correctly is ridiculous. HE WASN’T PART OF THE CONVERSATION! OP and her friend were NOT having a 3 way conversation and then they suddenly switched to a language that one member of the conversation couldn’t understand. they just started talking Welsh in front of someone who couldn’t understand it. 2 completely different scenarios.

i have no idea if he was being hostile or not @Builtthiscityonsausagerolls , dim clem. he might have been hostile, he might have been trying to work out what language it was, he might have been annoyed that he wasn’t in the conversation. all of his issues, you didn’t owe him anything.

i think that lots of the replies on this thread show that YANBU. there’s a lot of “well you can speak english so why wouldn’t you?” which i’ve come accross a lot IRL. and the reason we don’t is because when you stop using a language, that’s how it dies.

good points have already been made about how ridiculous it is to think that “we walked in to xyz and they all switched to Welsh”.

honestly, some of the responses in this thread are some of the most ridiculous things i’ve read on here in a while. not all english people have this attitude thank god, but from the replies here, i think it’s proof you’re not the only one who will have experienced this. not just for speaking Welsh, but i reckon for speaking other languages too.

To all the people saying the OP was rude, would you also think I was rude when, as a British person living in Japan, I chatted in Japanese to a train conductor or waitress or similar person (and other people in the vicinity possibly joined the conversation), but then reverted to English while speaking to my husband/children/any other English speakers I was sitting with?

Because that is something that I and every other bilingual person has probably done thousands of times without any intention of being rude - English is my home language, it is what I speak to my family and many of my friends (presumably as the OP does with her friends), so while I am comfortable switching into Japanese or a couple of other languages when appropriate, it would be totally unnatural to use them with people I normally speak English to, no matter who else is listening.

Some people obviously can't even understand English

I imagine some of the confusion arose when the OP described the man as being "very friendly". It implies that some degree of conversation had taken place between them. A smile or a nod wouldn't usually put someone in the "very friendly" category.

To add to that: I have also been on trains in the UK where families have been speaking other languages amongst themselves and have overheard hostile and prejudiced comments from British people nearby about them doing so. I think the people making hostile comments are the unreasonable ones. I never experienced any hostility speaking English in public in Japan, however.

I think perhaps you're overthinking it Op.

If I were random man on the train I'd have probably been listening intently trying to work out / guess what language you were speaking, or if I knew the language, could I pick out any words I understood. I can imagine that might come across as stare-y and intense in my face, but it wouldn't be deliberate.

Argh, reading this thread is so painful.

They were NOT chatting to the friendly/hostile man in English, then switched to Welsh.

They were talking to the CONDUCTOR in English, then switched to Welsh once the conductor had gone.

The friendly/hostile man nearby didn’t seem to like this.

I’m sure SOME people in the UK are like this about Asian people too.

@Almostmenopausal

With absolute respect, if I was sat on a train opposite two people who were initially speaking to me then suddenly switched to a foreign language for the duration, I'd be extremely pissed off. In fact I'm trying to decide if actually just being stuck next to people speaking a different language for an extended period of time would be beyond tolerable for ANYBODY! I'm absolutely not saying that nobody should, not at all. That would remove people's human right, of course! Just whether or not it would be irritating for anyone, not just English people.

However the hostility is almost certainly the sudden exclusion

Why on earth would it be annoying or irritating to have people near you speaking a different language? They're not doing anything remotely offensive or annoying, they're just talking to each other. Do you never go abroad? If you do, do you get irritated by being surrounded by people speaking the language of the country you are in? Personally I love hearing other languages, it makes me want to learn more languages.

@ImInStealthMode

I think perhaps you're overthinking it Op.

If I were random man on the train I'd have probably been listening intently trying to work out / guess what language you were speaking, or if I knew the language, could I pick out any words I understood. I can imagine that might come across as stare-y and intense in my face, but it wouldn't be deliberate.

See, this is what a reasonable comment looks like whether one agrees or not.

So weird that people feel threatened by hearing other languages spoken - I just don't get it. OP YANBU.

That story about someone going into a pub in Wales and everyone suddenly speaking Welsh to exclude them, is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard (and I've heard it many many times). I don't believe it has ever happened. I've been living in North Wales for around 15 years now, (I speak some Welsh but I am not fluent) and I have NEVER experienced this. If anything Welsh speakers go out of their way to switch languages to make me feel included.

Well, my mum’s given reason for voting for Brexit was “In the shops round your auntie’s way, you never hear English spoken, it’s all Polish”(this in London, ffs. Hardly a new thing, pockets of different foreign language speakers in London 🙄).

So, there we go, her fear and loathing of people speaking furrin was enough for her to back one of Britain’s most catastrophic ever foreign policy decisions, and I hope she’s not feeling the absence of Polish lorry drivers, dentists, plumbers and hospitality workers too much…🙄

@LittleDandelionClock

Oh and yeah, it was rude (IMO) to switch to Welsh just like that, when you started off speaking English . Why switch?

Would you have 5hought the same if they were French?

@landofgiants

So weird that people feel threatened by hearing other languages spoken - I just don't get it. OP YANBU.

That story about someone going into a pub in Wales and everyone suddenly speaking Welsh to exclude them, is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard (and I've heard it many many times). I don't believe it has ever happened. I've been living in North Wales for around 15 years now, (I speak some Welsh but I am not fluent) and I have NEVER experienced this. If anything Welsh speakers go out of their way to switch languages to make me feel included.

THANK YOU!