Woman’s Family Keeps Responding To Her BF In A Language That He Doesn’t Understand, He Leaves Dinner

My ex is Russian, but came to the states as a teen. He's quite fluent. His mom is fluent -ish? Her boyfriend was Turkish, and accent aside quite fluent in English. He spoke no Russian, and I speak very little. We'd all have breakfast together most days. Mom did not like me. Despite a common language, she'd mostly just speak to her son in Russian. Her boyfriend had the perfect comeback... "Once, I was in a car for business. The two other men were Romanian. They spoke Turkish, but would have conversations in Romanian that I could not understand. I told them that I was okay with people talking behind my back, but it had never been done in front of my face before. That is how Lee feels, right now. You are being rude, and I understand if she wants to leave." I had already loved the man, but that just made my heart swell. OP didn't need to curse, but I completely get it.

we must take into account that his native language is Galician. He simply asks to use a common language in which both can understand each other. What he is asking for is what a German and a Portuguese would do if they did not know each other's language but both spoke English. Another issue is the bad manners of the possible future in-laws who use a language that he does not know between them when he is in front of them. It reminds me of other Bored Panda threads in which people switch to their native language to insult their interlocutor without him knowing it.

I think if there is a common tongue amongst a group of peers, you are to speak that. If we are in a group of multi linguals, when you intentionally switch to another language only understood by some, you are indeed intentionally excluding somebody you know doesn't understand. It's different to ask for a translation in the non-common-language, and it's not always offensive to speak amongst yourselves, but the best course of action here would be to determine which language we're speaking at the table. Each party was refusing to budge and each were "surprised" at each other's blatant refusal to compromise for the conversation. At that point, it's becoming Catalan VS Castilian, and we probably should have switched to English or literally any other language to keep the peace.

Just to put this into perspective. English: "This is a text example." Catalan: "Aquest és un exemple de text." Spanish: "Este es un ejemplo de texto." Those two languages are extremely similar, and it's not that difficult for a native Spanish speaker to understand the meaning of what is said. They wouldn't be able to talk badly about him and it's more like a heavy dialect than a completely different language. I'm German. In Swiss, they don't speak plain German. They can, but they have their own German version called swiss German. Here an example of the same sentence. German: "Dies ist ein Textbeispiel." Swiss German: "Das isch e Textbiispiel." You bet that Germans and Swiss people understand each other if they care enough. This guy is an AH and she dodged a bullet.

He told his gf family to go f*** themselves? Wow.. how old is OP, 15?

I lived this, but the French/English version. I did my best to learn French but I was always told by my husband's family that no one could understand me with my foreign accent. Yet, no other French has had difficulty understanding me when I speak French. I'm now divorced, and good riddence!

I'm a Spaniard living in Catalonia. I can attest what this guy says it's true. A shop: ask a question in Spanish, be answered in Catalán. I swear they prefer to lose business rather than speaking the language of the colonialists, as they call us. In Barcelona l switch to English by default and they treat me far better. My friends are all expats or children of the first wave of immigration. We tend to mingle among ourselves and leave the arian catalans to enjoy their sense of genetic and cultural superiority. It's very possible to coexist without bonding with them, and it generally doesn't go any further than awkward interactions. But if OP is planning to enter a Catalan family l should warn him that he'll never be "one of them" regardless of how long he lives there or how well he speaks Catalan.

I'm with BooksCatsnStuff on this. There are ways around the problems without getting so emotional. My ex-wife was half Polish. One of her Polish uncles came over and visited us for lunch along with her father and a Polish lady my wife knew from when she was a child. My ex spoke very little Polish (brought up in UK) so when she was in the room everyone spoke English except Uncle Romak who couldn't and felt left out. When she left the room they changed to Polish which I don't understand and so I felt left out. Turned out both Romak and I spoke enough German to get along fine but meant the other three felt left out!

Honestly. If he actually said what he claims too, to them. Bravo! Thats exactly the kind of slap in the face lay it on thr table reply those hateful, low class, disgusting bigots deserve. Maybe simply walking out would have been fun in its own way. Or only responding in a language they dont understand. In the end though that family if human garbage showed their colors and maybe best to sever ties and move on. Hard to say if GF deserves a reply or not. She might be genuinely upset but cant stand up to her parents.

Spanish is my second learned language and I'm from America, not Spain. I find Portuguese much easier to follow along to than Catalan. So idk about that yta comment, maybe some Spaniards find it easier? Anyway I think esh in this case. The family was rude and he was an a*s in his response

Seems to me like the OP was just being an entitled baby. He is in someone else's home, and he understands 1/2 - 2/3's of their language, and is all butthurt because they are not catering to him and only speaking his language? YTA dude. I only speak English, but if I had a girlfriend whose family spoke both Spanish and English but were native Spanish speakers, I don't feel like I would be offended if I went to a big family dinner at her house and her whole family didn't cater to me and speak only English the whole time. In fact, I feel like it would be rude and ridiculous to expect that. OP needs to get over himself and go with the flow, instead of feeling that the whole affair revolved around him. That's my take anyway.

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OP is a TOTAL a*****e!! If someone has bad manners in front of you, you leave. You don't curse them out in their own home and call them names!!

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This is not a foreign "language" issue but a "dialect" one. OP is trying hard not to understand.