The Hidden Pleasures of Understanding a Foreign Language: Anecdotes from Everyday Life

My favorite thing about being able to speak another language is to find him in a situation where people are speaking that language around me and they don’t know I can understand them. Like obviously I live in England, everyone speaks English, especially in the rule, like there’s not that much variation. And I just got in the lift, there’s four French blocks, people like Airbnb out the apartments and they will speak in French. I can speak French, so I knew exactly what they were saying. And the guy to my left, that’s my right. With the guy to my right, we’re talking about buying an electric car. And I thought, they have no idea that I can understand them right now. And part of me wanted to like say at the end, like fortunately or just something to just like let them know. I didn’t because I was like, it’s just weird, but it’s just funny because they wouldn’t have expected that. And that’s why it’s so good to speak. And I mean, there’s many more benefits, but that’s one of them, my favorite.