I was workng at the grocery the other day when two young hispanic women with their children were shopping. I was busy filling the diary case with fresh milk. They paused a foot or so away from me and were talking. Now,I took spanish when I was in high school some forty years ago. My spanish is somewhat lacking and I only recognized a few words. I certainly couldn't tell the topic of their conversation. I could surmise however,from their body lanuage and their glances in my direction, that I was the topic. Whether it was good or bad I had no idea. All I noticed was a quick glance or two, a comment and some laughter. Like most everyone if you don't understand the lanuage you tend to be a bit paranoid. It is a natural human reaction.
Having almost completed my task I backed away from the case. One of the young women,with a small child in her cart,came by me. The child looked up at me and smiling said," Hola." My lanuage skills sprang into action and I replied, " Hola, como esta ? " " Como se llama ? " The little boy said a name I didn't recognize but I just smiled and said, " adios." Having now exhausted my supply of conversational spanish I left the scene. What I found most amusing was the look that came over the faces of those two young women. A look of guilt and embarassment ! They believed that I could speak and understand them. Neither one spoke to me, in any lanuage. They just hurried along without even getting their leche !
I guess the moral to the story is never assume anything about anyone. I suspect a lot of people understand other lanuages quite well but don't let on for various reasons. As I said, I can pick out certain words or phrases but I am hesitiant to try to speak to a native speaker of that tongue. I don't want to look foolish or take a chance on offending someone by using the wrong word. While I was in the Navy I picked up some phrases of a dubious nature. Best to be quiet. As my Mom always says, if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.
Now that brought back a memory. She worked in O'Mally's, waitressing, during the summers while attending college. One evening a group of Spanish speaking me sat in the area she serviced. They could plainly see that she was not a Latina woman. They began speaking among themselves about her 'structure.' She waited on them,politely and did her job to the end. When they rose to leave, she spoke to them in perfect Spanish, informing them that they'd been extremely rude to discuss in the way that they had. They made a bee-line for the door!
ReplyDeleteThey had no idea that she was studying to become a high school Spanish teacher and knew the language almost as well as they did!