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Pro tip: you probably shouldn’t claim you speak a language if you don’t…because things will just get messy and embarrassing.
And a guy from Sweden wants to know if he acted like an a**hole when a girl claimed to speak his native language.
Let’s see what happened…
AITA for talking to a girl in Swedish, who claimed she spoke it?
“I’m Swedish and have lived in the U.S for about 5 years. Met my girlfriend 3 years ago and hit it off immediately.
Last week we celebrated her birthday and she had, like usual, invited friends to the party. One of them we can call Linda.
The evening was going well, we had talks, games and fun. My girlfriend and Linda spoke about some new acquaintance from Germany or something, and Linda reached out aid said she had Swedish heritage and was really proud because she spoke the language fluently because her “mormor” (grandma in Swedish, mom’s sida) taught her.
Well, you can imagine I was thrilled since the only times I get to speak Swedish now is on the phone and online in chats with friends. So I proclaimed “Ballt! Då kan vi ju snacka lite svenska om du har lust. Länge sedan jag fick prata svenska med någon i verkligheten!”, which translates to “Cool! Then we can talk a bit Swedish if you want. It’s been a long time since I could speak Swedish with somebody in real life!”.
She looked at me, and you could immediately tell from her expression “oh s**t…”. She tried to get back on track and said “Sorry, you caught me off guard. I didn’t know you were Swedish. Could you repeat that?”, so I said “Ja, jag tänkte att vi kunde snacka svenska lite granna?”, which means “Yeah, I thought would could talk a little Swedish?”.
She then said “Jag… eh, Linda namn är… hur du mår?”, which made it obvious that she knew a few words, but definitely not on a conversational level. She said “Jag… eh, Linda namn är… hur du mår?”, which while understandable is not correct Swedish. The correct sentence would be “Jag heter Linda, hur mår du?” for “My name is Linda, how are you?”.
The rest of the night was… tense, to say the least. She kept looking at me like I had ruined her plan and made her the villain. I don’t even care if she could speak it or not, I just wanted to talk to someone.
Evening went by and they all left. The next day, after my girlfriend had a talk with her, she explained that Linda was really mad at me for “embarrassing her” in front of everybody.
I told my girlfriend that I did in no way do that, since all I did was ask her if she wanted to talk to me, and then I repeat myself since I thought she didn’t hear me the first time. I thought she just hadn’t “activated” her ear for other languages, which happens to me all the time. I get just as surprised and miss out on what is said if someone suddenly speaks in another language that I understand.
Now I’m the bad guy apparently. What do you think? AITA?”
Hmmm…here’s what Reddit users had to say.
One reader said that it sounds like this woman took this lie a little bit too far.
Photo Credit: Reddit
Another Reddit user argued that you really shouldn’t say you’re fluent in a language if you’re not…because you might end up looking stupid.
Photo Credit: Reddit
And this individual shared a story about a coworker who paid a big price for lying about speaking a language.
Photo Credit: Reddit
And lastly, this reader went out on a limb with a possible explanation…take a look…
Photo Credit: Reddit
Do you think this guy acted like a jerk?
Let us know in the comments.
We can’t wait to hear from you!
