Over a week ago or more, I went to some language event where people are supposed to “practice Spanish or English.”
However, as I always say, there’s often little language practice going on and mostly it’s just an event to have some beers, meet new people, make friends, maybe hookup, etc.
Anyway, while there, I remember coming across this Mexican chick that you can read about briefly here.
She wanted to speak in English and that was fine as basically everyone else started to speak in English also.
Would be a little awkward for us to speak Spanish when everyone else is speaking English, right?
Which is a side point – I always found it slightly rude for people to speak in another language that nobody else is speaking at in any small gathering (assuming they can communicate in the language everyone else is also).
Just seems to not be very socially intelligent in my opinion but it depends on the context, I guess.
Anyway, as we’re talking about whatever getting to know each other with basic questions, I notice that her English is actually quite decent.
It has a slight accent as expected but she’s not making any grammatical mistakes, has plenty of vocabulary and is all around very understandable.
No issues whatsoever.
But, about a minute or two into talking, she then says to me “sorry for my English.”
Which isn’t entirely uncommon to hear a Latin American say that.
While you got some who are very arrogant about their English levels when their English isn’t actually as good as think it is, you got others who just feel insecure about it.
Not very confident and will say something like “sorry about my English.”
In this case, she had no reason to be sorry.
For one, it’s not her native language so why be sorry?
We’re in Mexico where the main language is Spanish and your Mexican.
Anyone expecting you to be having the vocabulary of Shakespeare is a retard.
Second, she had no reason to be sorry because, as I said, her English really is pretty damn good.
At any rate, the conversation goes on.
As I said, it really stayed on the most basic of topics getting to know each other until a little bit later when people started talking about “is Mexico violent or not?”
But, before it got to that point, her and I continued talking to each other just amongst ourselves when she said again something to the effect of “sorry for my English” after pausing and thinking of a word she wanted to say.
To which I said “no, it’s fine. Your English is good.”
When I said that, her face lighted up and said “thank you” very enthusiastically.
And the night went on.
The English Apologies Continue
As I said, the night went on and more people formed a group to talk about topics like things they like and don’t like about Mexico as I wrote here.
During the conversation, the same chick, at some point, apologized for her English for a third fucking time.
When, as I said before, she absolutely had no reason to apologize as anyone could objectively notice how damn good her English was.
Absolutely no issues whatsoever.
It was at that point when some Canadian chick complimented her English and started showering her with love for how good her English was.
Other foreigners jumped in to mutually masturbate their love for her English skills all over her face.
And her face glowed with the most positive feelings of joy and happiness and she bathed in the compliments over her English.
Literally.
On her knees, double D tits out and just screaming to everyone “YES! YES! THANK YOU! TELL ME HOW GOOD MY ENGLISH IS!! OH PAPI!!”
“Wait….what am I talking about?”
But, in reality, it was kinda like that minus the group masturbation all over her face and minus the tits.
Where multiple people joined in to compliment her English and a ray of happiness shined all over her face.
She then began bragging about all the time she has studied English since literally she was 7.
So why would she feel insecure about her English?
At any rate, as far as I can remember over a week later, I don’t think she said again “sorry for my English” in that same night.
But the moment was reflective of one habit that I notice among a certain type of Latin American down here.
The Latin American Fishing for English Compliments
I’ve talked before about Latin Americans wanting to switch the conversation to English for their own reasons.
Some are convinced – with perhaps good reason – that learning English will better their career opportunities.
Others just like learning foreign languages as a hobby.
Some want to show off to everyone else how “muy educadoooo” they are by speaking English.
Upper class folks too who are very anal about the latter.
At any rate, while maybe she could’ve fallen into the latter, I just want to talk about this type of habit as I’ve already beaten to death on my website the reasons for why some Latin Americans really want to speak English with you.
The habit in question anyhow is basically one noticeable in people of any nationality, gender or race.
The usual ol’ “fishing for compliments.”
As I said, some Latin Americans will say to you “sorry for my English” because they genuinely feel insecure about their English.
Perhaps their English actually is shit or perhaps they just don’t have confidence in themselves.
But, once in a blue moon, you notice that said Latin American is full of shit.
Their English is objectively speaking so god damn good, like that one chick, that there’s no reason to be insecure about it.
On top of that, when you assure them that they speak English just fine, you can tell that they just had an instant orgasm at hearing that their English “isn’t that bad.”
Ultimately, they’re just fishing for compliments like people do in other contexts.
Among the Latin Americans most likely to do this, the ones are, as you can guess, those with obviously good English levels and they tend to be upper class Latin Americans who are most guilty of this.
Not saying all Latin Americans who are upper class or upper middle class are guilty of this but it’s simply that anyone I have seen who is guilty of doing this tends to be from those socioeconomic backgrounds.
And women are particularly the most guilty as i can’t remember a dude ever fishing for compliments on his English like this.
But I’m sure some guys do. I just haven’t seen it.
And, among Latin American countries, Mexico is seemingly more guilty of this in my experience than other countries.
Granted, I’ve been here longer but you also notice less English speaking locals in other countries like Nicaragua or parts of Colombia for example.
Anyway, that’s all I got to say.
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Thanks for reading.
Best regards,
Matt