What Makes You Think I Don’t Understand?

Translated into English!

There are interesting pitfalls when you get in an argument with people who don’t share your mother tongue. Corey Heller at Multilingual Living made me laugh when she wrote about swearing at her husband in his native language. Unfortunately she didn’t get it right and ended up making him laugh instead of conveying how mad she was.

The Not-So-Dark-Side of Not Knowing Someone’s Language

• Assuming that a person who never talks to you in your language doesn’t speak it. You might be surprised how much they know or can understand.
• Teaching a foreigner the wrong word so that you can make fun of them.
• Thinking that your body language doesn’t tell the person what you think.
• Trying not to offend non-native speakers after you laughed-out-loud at the irony of a translation.