I think I have discovered the one disadvantage of bilingualism.
Because I often tutor in public places (bookstore, Starbucks), I have a lot of people-watching opportunities. What I am never prepared for, though, is the amount of people-listening that my brain wants to do. I can be teaching in English – usually describing how to approach an SAT problem – and also paying attention to the Spanish conversation at the next table. It is to be expected that you would overhear bits and pieces of private discussions in a public space, but what if it’s not just background noise and you hear every word?
It’s amusing that the one thing I have worked so hard to maintain is the same thing I wish I could shut off: the ability to eavesdrop on Spanish conversations!
Of course, I don’t care about strangers’ chit-chat in Spanish any more than in English, but I have to listen to double the conversations that a monolingual person does! (Especially in Orlando, there truly are about the same number of Spanish speakers as English.)
The positive side of this indirect snooping? I get repeated confirmation that people who are speaking their native language around me (in their eyes, a monolingual white American) are NOT talking about me! However stereotypical, the assumption that speaking a “foreign” language in front of English-speaking Americans is rude and must be for the purposes of talking about them perpetuates in many communities. At least I do not have to worry about a Spanish speaker caring more about what I am doing than about his or her own life – I know for sure that most of the time, they are talking about their own affairs just like English speakers!
I suppose I would have to delve into cognitive psychology to understand why my mind gets so hung up on the sounds of the Spanish language, sometimes to the point of overpowering my English thoughts. Instead, I’ll just look to hear about some of your experiences with this phenomenon.
A question for native speakers: do you pay attention to the conversations in the air around you in both English and Spanish? Does it sometimes seem like it’s more of an annoyance than a benefit? I wonder if it’s just my non-native way of listening to Spanish that makes me pay more attention to it.
photo by: nimble
I feel the same way in terms of my ears not shutting off. But I like it. I feel like I’m in on some secret. I am Latina and I speak Spanish, but I think Latinos don’t know what to make of me based on my appearance (from what I’m told bc I think it’s obvious, pero quien sabe) and I’ve had Latinos speak about me, directly in front of me in Spanish, as though I would not understand. In those instances I’d let them bring foot to mouth and then castigate them in Spanish for their ill manners. That’s been fun – and it has been the exception. I agree with you that mostly people aren’t talking about the strangers around them.
My ears are always on. I must be a snoop. With what little French I remember from 3 years of classes, I strain to understand. I sometimes I wish I knew every language so I could communicate with everyone ( guess I’m having a sharing moment here LOL).
Great post!!!
Best,
Li
What I find most interesting when that happens is that is unconscious. But what is the most interesting is that I pick up when the accents from those Spanish speakers vary from mine. My parents are central American and I was born here and my husband is south American. So as you can seek have all these different versions of Spanish floating around in my head. So I find myself trying to figure where those people may come from based on how they speak…just another mystery to solve:)
I’m a native English speaker and I can tell you when I am in out and about within our neighborhood, my ears seem to have super-hearing to catch English in a native speaker’s accent. I have a thought like: hey, here’s one other fish something like me, who is swimming around in this pond over here. I’m usually going to say a brief hello to the person. I remember my daughter sometimes struggling when she was younger being the only non-immigrant and non-person-of-color in many situations. I can’t say we are always completely welcomed without any suspicion, and it gets your guard up if you let it. Maybe my ears are on hyper radar so that I can say a little something to a person and help them feel a little less alone, and that helps everybody.
I hate to admit it but when I’m in public and I hear a Spanish conversation, my ears perk up. It’s completely subconscious but sometimes it throws me off…especially if it’s a juicy conversation! LOL! Sometimes it happens when I’m in mid-sentence, and I find myself forgetting what I was about to say. My husband says it’s a nosy Puerto Rican thing. But I just tell him I’m nosy in general, no need to name call! I live in a very culturally diverse area. Whenever I hear other languages being spoken, my first thought is “man, I wish I knew what they were saying.” Not because I’m suspicious they’re talking about me, but because I just want to know what they’re saying.
Which brings me to a memory: During college I worked in a department store. It was one of those “back to school” sales and the line was as long as the day. A customer got snotty with me over a price and said something really nasty about me in Spanish to her friend, never realizing I could understand. Without even thinking, I rung up the sale and informed her the total was $xx.xx in Spanish. The mortified look on both their faces was priceless.
It would bother me to listen to any language that I can recognise the same way, just because I would try to see if I can understand it. I speak only English, Spanish and Catalan, but I can understand some Italian, French and Portuguese, as well as a bit of German (I did German at uni, but I can’t remember how to speak it). I also love the sound of Russian, Japanese, Chinese and many other languages, and so if I hear someone speaking a language that is not Spanish or English, I will always pay attention first to see if I can recognise the language, and then to see if I can guess what they are talking about.
Yes, I am nosey, but I am even more curious, and as a curious person, I can’t help it but being interested on these things.