Being bilingual comes with its own set of problems. Mainly getting the languages all mixed up and ending up with a misunderstanding.
Some misunderstandings can even offend someone if they are not familiar with the other language.
Redditor Feanace encountered this very issue with a waitress. So they turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for moral judgment.
They asked:
“AITA for accidentally calling a waitress a ‘whore?'”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“So when I went on a trip to the United States last year, I visited a pizza restaurant in Miami, Florida.”
“At a certain moment, the waitress came to our table and asked if everything was alright.”
“Now, in my country, I would have answered this question with ‘ja, hoor’ in Dutch, which basically means ‘Yes, it is’ in English.”
“But when she asked me this question, I mixed up my native language with English and answered: ‘Yeah, hoor'”
The waitress was not amused.
“Now, I know it sounded dumb when I said it, but I was really surprised when she got really angry at me. ‘Apparently I had said something really wrong?’ I thought.”
“Well it turned out that ‘yeah, hoor’ sounds exactly the same as ‘yeah, whore,’ which I had not thought about so fast….”
“She got really mad and when I tried to explain she didn’t want to believe me… maybe because me speaking English is totally not understandable.”
“Well, I never felt so stupid and this moment is still painful lol… AITA?”
Redditors gave their opinions on the situation by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Most Redditors agreed there were no a**holes here.
“NAH. She’s got a right to be mad, and language can be a nuisance that way.”
“It’s totally understandable, but so is her reaction.” ~ jinglehelltv
“I’m really disappointed you didn’t say ‘language can be a hoor.'” ~ Kari-kateora
“Is it though? He apologized for his mistake, and explained to her. She doesn’t really have a right to be mad when English isn’t his first language and he explained that after the mistake.” ~ Kingsen
“We do unfortunately live in a reality though where people lie (Sorry for sounding like a ‘we live in a society meme’).”
“After working in customer service and retail, you get people saying underhand things all day, men (and sometimes women) making comments about how you look and how you dress and I can imagine some well meaning Dutch guy going “yeah hoor” and it just being the last straw.”
“NAH.” ~ Plus-Kaleidoscope900
Many agreed the waitress had every right to be upset.
“Just to add onto this, you never know a person’s feelings on the word either. As an example, as someone with PTSD from assault trauma, this happens to be an extremely triggering word for me.”
“Now I’ve come a long way so I won’t have an episode, but I’d probably still be as upset as she is where an apology would not change my demeanor.” ~ artemis1860
“This, yeah, It could just as well have been a guy who thought he was being funny and edgy, but then tried to backpedal and lie his way out once the waitress blew up in his face. NAH.” ~ HoldFastO2
“He called her a whore?”
“She has every right to be mad even after he explained. She’ll calm down eventually and hopefully see the funny side.” ~ wildersrighthand
Some shared their experiences being bilingual.
“Tiny fun fact:”
“I’m sure you all know the English word for a pretty but very stupid woman, starting with a b and ending with -imbo. Not very nice but not one of the worst words out there, right?”
“In my native language, the same word is an insult for black people and on the same level as the n-word. You don’t say it unless you want to out yourself as a dumb, racist asshole or a dumb racist asshole whose sense of humor never developed past the 70s.”
“I absolutely know how it’s meant in an English speaking context, yet, I feel uncomfortable when I see it and don’t like typing it.”
“Now I am pretty sure if I, a non-native speaker, told English speaker that I have every right to be offended and to think they’re a dumb, racist asshole because they just called a woman another language’s version of the n-word, there’d be an outcry and lectures of,'”But… meeeaaaaning! But…coooontext! They totally did NOT call her another, as bad version of the n-word! That’s not how languages wooooork!’ and all that jazz.”
“But people here are just too obsessed with ‘feelings are valid, therefore, she who feels is in the right to feel the way she does, and if she feels like she was called xyz, insulted, bullied, mistreated, and/or slighted, then she was!'”
“To the case: she wasn’t right to be offended and ‘she has every right’ or the other reddit buzzword favorite ‘she’s allowed to…’ (god, has that one become an empty phrase) is pointless because obviously, there’s no law against it. It was UNDERSTANDABLE that she was offended because it was a misunderstanding.”
“Of course, she felt a certain way that wasn’t intended, that’s kinda the point of misunderstandings. Misunderstandings aren’t a synonym for abuse, even in customer service situations.”
“‘Being right’ and ‘having the right to’ are words that simply do not fit this situation.”
“He made a bilingual mix up, happens. She was understandably offended. He didn’t do anything wrong, he explained and if she refuses to listen or to put 1+1 together (accent, troubles with English, obviously not a native speaker, flustered and apologetic) then this has still nothing to do with ‘being right’ or ‘having the right’ (again, there’s no law against not wanting to believe others) and is simply her choice.”
“OP is NTA and she made the choice to be more miserable and offended than giving the benefit of the doubt.” ~ pokethejellyfish
“Uh, it would be valid for anyone to be upset at being called a b!mb0 whether it was sexist OR racist like literally anybody would be upset by that.” ~ nowheregirl713
“Did he apologize?”
“Or did he just explain why technically he hadn’t actually done the thing she was mad about?”
“Because ‘I’m sorry you didn’t recognize the Dutch language’ isn’t actually an apology.” ~ crashfrog
Overall, it’s an incredibly uncomfortable situation.