To use my second language to gain an advantage in the Lidl queue?

[SerenYrWythnos]

I live in a town on the Welsh border. So much on the border that parts of my town are actually in England, but the Lidl is in Wales.

It's not a Welsh speaking area at all. Welsh is taught in schools but you don't hear it being spoken out and about - I honestly can't remember the last time I heard anyone speaking Welsh outside an educational setting.

But because it's in Wales, Lidl do all their store announcements in Welsh first, including the announcement that another till is opening and the number of the till.

I speak enough Welsh to know which till is about to open before it's announced in English so I just zoom straight over there when I hear it in Welsh. This gets me dirty looks from people who were ahead of me in one of the queues, but didn't twig which till was opening until it was announced in English. Lidl tends to have mega queues so getting in first at a newly opened till is a major win round here 😁

AIBU to take no notice and carry on being first at Till 5? Or should I wait until everyone has understood what's going on, or should I even give the people ahead of me a heads up?

@KimberleyClark popty ping of course! 😁

But if you’re near the front of the queue, you have less to gain by moving and might choose to stay put. Not many people can be bothered to take their shopping off the conveyor belt and move it to another till.

But if you’re near the front of the queue, you have less to gain by moving and might choose to stay put. Not many people can be bothered to take their shopping off the conveyor belt and move it to another till
In most usual cases, they only open additional tills when there are more than 2 or even 3 people queuing. One might have all their items on the conveyor belt, but the 3 behind won't. For number 4 which has just arrive to rush to be before number 2 who might been waited 10 minutes is rude in my view.

Wyt ti’n cysgu, wyt ti’n colli - would be my very literal translation from my rudimentary Welsh 😂

similar happened to me on a boat trip in eastern europe except they didn't repeat it in english at all - went from a sunny day to a storm very suddenly, all the british/americans/australians were clustered on deck soaked and shivering when when realised the other passengers had disappeared and found a european contingent sitting smugly in hitherto locked off dry indoors bit 😄

also on a canal tour in amsterdam
guide said something in Dutch - about a third of the boat cackled hysterically
repeated it in German - some amused Teutonic chuckling
finally our turn for an english translation - and it was always something completely banal like 'These townhouses were built in 1770.' 😕
Guess the humour just didn't translate...
either that or he was saying 'Now all laugh uproariously to make the eeenglish feel paranoid.'

I think the nearest traditional saying would be "Y ci a gerddo a gaiff" or "Y ci a aiff a gaiff". Literally "The dog that moves, gets".

Quite appropriate for this context.

Our Lidl doesn't open a new till until there's at least 5 or 6 people in the queue 😬 I think there's 7 tills in total but you never see more than 3 open at once, maybe 4 if its coming up to Christmas. And there's no self service checkouts!

Guessing you are further north than me!

no one is suggesting it's one of those crazy Black Friday style rushes but I would say a new till is definitely fair game.. that said most Aldi's/Lidl's I've been in the people are usually very considerate about others who have considerably less items so they would allow them to go ahead anyway

@SerenYrWythnos We don't have any self service check outs in Lidl or Aldi over here (Ireland) wow my mind is blown!

No, I'm west, but rural!

@headstone I'd find it very difficult to learn Welsh as an adult because the courses teach colloquial Welsh not 'schoolbook' Welsh, and the sounds are not easy to get right if you haven't been saying them from an early age.
Fortunately, I don't need to, as it's my mother tongue.

Your As for people not being able to learn numbers 1-6 that is just laziness unless they have some kind of learning difficulty. comment is offensive.

And for Lidl as a company English isn't their first language

@FellowClassicsMum , your Welsh is not incorrect, but it does back my 'schoolbook' post. The colloquial way would be 'ti'n cysgu...' but 'wyt ti'n cysgu' is missing a word. Os/Yr/Nid/A etc at the front changes the meaning.

either that or he was saying 'Now all laugh uproariously to make the eeenglish feel paranoid.'

Love that idea!

Do you live in Sedbury by any chance?

I'd want to see your passport before I let you join the new queue. If it says you're English you'll have to take your place in the line. If you're Welsh, well, they come first.

@Pawparazzi ,my passport is that of a British citizen. My Welshness is only indicated by my name and place of birth.
My personal Welshness is based on my mother tongue being Welsh.

There are several queues. Would you stand like a public service announcer translating do everyone close to their till can get to the new till?
Do you also prod people ahead of you not listening or on their phones who missed the message?

What about old people who are slow who are in front of you? Do you pick them up and pop them at the new till?

They don't need to. The announcement is also said in English. They'll just miss out as the Welsh announcement is first

As I said to someone else, I presume you also translate to all the other people in all the other queues that are closer to their tills than you are to yours.

Otherwise you'd be rude huh?

@barstar

I didn't say it was as rude to respond to an announcement. I said I would not be so rude as to leave the back of the queue for an opening checkout, other people are before me.
Next you are going to suggest that it's rude if you happen finish your shopping and to walk to the tills just as a new one opens as you should have joined the back of a long queue and not go to the newly opened till. 🙄

It would be weirder to pretend you didn't hear and understand something just because other people didn't. I'd love to see you at airports waiting until all announcements are made in all languages before moving to board. Ya know. Some of the people were there before you. Wouldn't want to be rude and all 😉🙄

I mean, let's be honest, it increases the overall sum of [my personal] happiness to spend less time queueing in Lidl. Not gonna lie.

I do this in Aldi/Lidl in Cardiff. Not a Welsh speaker but I can still count to 10