AIBU to have felt slightly peeved that a waitress was speaking to my partner in a foreign language that I can’t understand

[Redrose28]

Hi all. I was out with my partner having a meal after a long and hard week. My partner is from a different country and he has another language as his first.

There was a waitress from his country in the restaurant too. When we were sat down, she was next to the table and they were speaking to eachother a fair bit in their language and I obviously couldn’t understand. They were asking where eachother were from etc. Whenever she came past either of them would make little comments in their language. Whenever she came to the table she would speak in his language to him. When the bill came, they spoke in their language too, about what I had no idea.

I was feeling a tad annoyed. What do you guys think of this? Am I justified to feel a tad annoyed? Should I mention it or let it go?

Learn his language

I just couldn't get worked up about this. How nice for them both to get the chance to speak their first language.

If you must be annoyed at anyone, get annoyed at your boyfriend.

As someone who's been married to a person from another country for 38 years , you need to accept this will happen or this isn't the partner for you, this is perfectly normal for them. Sorry if I sound harsh but you need to relax about this, it's part of who they are.

You're being silly in my opinion. My DH is from another country. He has to speak English 99.9% of the time. If he goes out and meets someone from his country it's a huge pleasure for him to speak his own language for a few minutes! Imagine if you lived abroad, never got to talk English then bumped in to an English person. Of course you'd speak English to them!!

Have you ever lived in a non-english speaking country and met another British person after not speaking your own language for a long time? If not, then perhaps you should think about what you would do in that situation.

Why? What's he done wrong exactly?

Why are you annoyed with her not him? He must have been just as involved and he's the one with the relationship with you. He could easily have stopped it by replying in English.

You didn't mind when he was taking to the other table?

I can't really see an objection to taking the opportunity to use your first language for a few minutes, the waitress cant have been at your table that much, it must be exhausting to have to use a second all along.

Do you intend to learn the language?

I guarantee any motive she had was all about the tip 😆

You'd have a point if your bf was a flirt but otherwise I would let it go- the novelty of speaking their language is nice for them.

Put yourself in both of their shoes for one moment, as somebody who has lived abroad most of my life, getting the chance to speak with someone who can relate, who can speak a familiar language and who I don’t have to struggle with to think of the words I need to use, and believe me it happens even if your partner can speak English or whatever language super super well, I love meeting people who are from the same place as me.

Nothing! But if she wants to direct her ire at someone, it would be better at him for 'excluding' her, rather than a totally random person. But i agree, she's ridiculous imo.

I'd think it was lovely he was getting a chance to use his first language and not care a jot. Are you really upset because you think he was flirting with her or something?

You sound jealous, and repressive.

Interesting that you are annoyed at this woman for speaking to your husband in their language, and not at him for speaking to her in his language, she was at work and being polite. Also it’s not ‘obvious’ that you can’t understand the language, a lot of people make the effort to learn the first language of their husband or wife, even if they don’t speak it fluently they understand it, how was she to no that you don’t understand any of it?

Weird relationship if you couldn’t simply mention it to him at the time.

Have you tried to learn this language yourself?

I'd let it go. It must have been lovely to speak to someone else who had the same 1st language.

Not quite the same thing but my daughter went to a Mediterranean restaurant while on a break in Germany. She's quite good at languages but struggled to ask a question about a Greek menu item in German with her waiter. She lived in Greece for 4 years, a number of years ago. While waiting for the Bill she heard one of the other waiters talking in Greek and spoke to him in his language. They had quite a bit of conversation - I think both of them were chuffed to bits from what I could gather. He was pleased to be speaking Greek - and she was really pleased to have the opportunity to use it and 'to keep her hand in' so to speak

Do you really not speak any of your partner's first language? Not even tried to do duolingo for a few weeks in order to be able to exchange a few pleasantries with waiting staff or understand some of the conversation? Unless you are using "partner" to mean "person I have had 3 dates with" that seems very odd. I would think the waitress expected that you would at least understand a bit of the conversation if you were clearly "together" with someone fron that country. Or in the event that you wouldn't understand, the onus would be on your partner to respect your presence and at least reply in English (or provide a translation to you of both sides) so as to keep you "in the loop"

Thanks all for the comments. I think perhaps I am overreacting here. However, when the waitress came over to the table the first time, she asked me if I understood and I said I didn’t, but they kept on talking in the language throughout the night.

You speak English because it’s probably the only language you know. Your partner and the waitress speak in one of the several languages they know. You are not the same.

Again, why be annoyed at the woman and not your DH who was speaking to her in his language all night? He could have replied in English. Not that he should have to.

You will do the same if you meet an English person while living in Japan. You have never been there so you just don’t understand.

I'm sure it was nice for both of them to be able to speak in their native tongue for a bit.

Remember, this was "just" a random waitress who you'll see once, and probably never again. Let it go.

I think they were both very rude, nobody likes to be deliberately excluded from a conversation and you’re not being unreasonable.

Incidental small talk to enjoy the pleasure of talking in your first language is a bit of light relief from using your second language as I'm sure they do aaallllllll the time.
If you haven't experienced living in your second language you might not get that without being told about it.
But really, unless they were talking about you or about topics that you wished you could join in with, then they weren't rude they were just having a pleasant foray into a language they don't get to use very often.
If friends get together and exclude one by using a language they don't speak, that's different. This was just surface level small talk in passing for the fun of dusting off their lesser used language.