Nope, wouldn’t bother me a bit. Of course I’d understand most of what they were saying if it was Spanish, but I don’t think I’d care anyway. I’m usually in my own little world when I’m getting my hair cut; if someone is going to talk about me I’d really just as soon not know what is being said.
It’s bothered me for years and I finally figured out why. Not only is it rude to talk over someone, but the people doing it know it bothers others and do it anyway. It’s very selfish and inconsiderate to dismiss or exclude someone in such a manner. It’s not really wrong to speak in a foreign language around those who don’t understand, but it’s not very nice, either.
Sometimes they are speaking about you. I am the whitest looking woman on the planet, so no one ever suspects I speak fluent spanish. Walking around stores I hear workers and customers talking about me at least once during my visit. Mostly people make comments about my appearance or wonder why a white woman is shopping in the store.
My favorite kind of gotcha is with my students. I start every year telling them I speak spanish and they never believe me. It doesn’t take long for someone to talk about me or say something innappropriate and then I get to pull out my spanish. Jaws drop, the kid looks mortified, and the whole class has a good laugh.
And I’ll mention this-- when you’re trying to learn the language, you’re more likely to be successful if you practice as much as possible. Because they never practice, too many of my students never learn enough english to be employable anywhere outside the city limits.
I meant to add that I have some experiences like Ashes mentions, but usually only when going into a “Spanish” store. There’s a couple of Latino groceries and music stores around here and going into them can be somewhat uncomfortable because I just feel like I stick out. And I’m not fluent, but I know enough to ask for what I want and understand the answer, and enough to know when I am being discussed behind my back.
However, in places like the mall, and in the stores I have worked (and still do work) in, I can’t remember being talked about* (except by idiot teens, but they’re all unlivable jerks anyway), and like bluethree says, it’s usually just idle conversation.
Now as to the rudeness thing, I’ll expand on what I said earlier. I wouldn’t find it rude in a place like SuperCuts or the barber shop I go to – the SuperCuts cause it’s not a high-end salon and the barber shop because it’s a barber shop, where casual conversation with everyone is the norm. If someone were chatting with a coworker in a $80 / cut place, then I’d be irritated.
*The exception to this is when I am having to turn away a bilingual customer for some kind of issue at the service desk. When I have to deliver “bad news” (in English) to a customer (No, Señora, you may not return this product we don’t carry that you brought in without a receipt in a bag from our competitor), she will sometimes turn to her companion(s) and say something nasty about me or my store (en español) and start to turn away. My response is usually something like “Lo siento mucho, Señora, pero no hay nada que pueda hacer pa’ usted.” Then she’ll usually get this look on her face, wondering if I understood her insults, and then I’ll say “¡Que tenga(n) buen día!” with the most ingratiating smile I can muster. This usually’ll cow her enough that she’ll just say “Igual” and scurry off.
They never expect me to understand any Spanish, cause I am a white boy in an area where the Spanish speakers are mostly Caribbean and Central American.
I’m going to treat this as an aberration, because I don’t recall you showing such bad taste before.
Same here. I’d find it equally annoying if it was in English, Welsh, Ukranian, Congolese… if I’m paying you $60.00 for an half-hour-long cut, please concentrate on what you’re cutting for half an hour!
I don’t mind, really, even if I sometimes do get paranoid that I’m the topic of conversation. However, I think I might have been conditioned to not mind. My mother is Thai, and whenever she and her friends would get together, there would be tons of conversations that went like this:
<unintelligible banter, blather, blah>Julie<uproarious laughter>.
So long as they understand enough English to understand what I want, and do it right, I don’t care what my hairdressers say, or in what language.
Then again, people talk about me all the time in English anyway, so I’m pretty much used to it.
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I agree with tremorviolet: the hairstylist should be dealing with you while cutting your hair, not with others.
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In general, if someone’s not talking to you, and they don’t have any reason to be, it is not your concern what language they’re speaking in. You shouldn’t even be listening.
Totally agree with this first part. When someone is working on me, nails, hair, etc. i expect their full attention. But when I’m in a public place with my mother or hanging out with my sister (who both speak perfect English) and I feel the need to say something in Spanish I don’t think it should be anyones business what i’m saying except the person i’m conversing with. I find it a little full of yourself (and I don’t mean you, Chanteuse, i mean anyone) to think that just because another language is being used infront of you it’s sole purpose is to disguise the conversation…Sometimes there are expressions and things you can’t translate. Not just to translate to English but to Spanish as well. I have a very good friend that speaks Spanish very well but feels a lot more comfortable speaking English so, when we go out for coffee we speak English, in Mexico (I live in a town right on the border). We get dirty looks sometimes, but the way I see it, if i’m not talking to you then what i’m saying in your presence should be none of your concern. Chances are it doesn’t involve you, anyway. 
I’m of the camp that believes that if you’re being waited on by a service provider, paid in US dollars AND you’re in a city like mine in which the white popluation has become a minority that it’s only polite to not carry on entire conversations in another language. Any other language. C’mon now, I KNOW that they’re talking about my Og-awful toenails!
But again, I usually think that everybody is talking about me. Call it ummm, paranoia? I actually got a prescription for this sort of thinking! :o
Just to clarify, xxantologiaxx, I didn’t mean that people shouldn’t speak any other language out in public places. In restaurants, grocery stores, etc, I’ve heard lots of this. What I mean is, don’t do this where there are lots of people in a common area (such as a doctor’s waiting room) and loudly speak (and in some cases, across the room) in a foreign language. It just seems rude–whether you’re in the USA, or Mexico, or Russia, or France–to carry on long and loud conversations in public this way. It feels the same as when people whisper to each other in front of you. And remember, I said it was fairly common for me to see this done deliberately to make others feel uncomfortable–so maybe I’m a tad sensitive to it.
It would bug the shit out of me. (This is a hypothetical, because I get my haircuts strictly from Mr. Wahl.)
I have an acquaintance who speaks perfectly fluent English all day long, but whose native language is Vietnamese. She likes to slip into Vietnamese every so often when she talks to her husband in my presence (he is also fluent in English but understands Vietnamese.) I’m a gentleman, or else I’d have told her to get stuffed years ago.
It doesn’t bother me. Here in NYC you get this all the time and not just Spanish. I can understand enough Spanish to know what they are talking about and it is always just chit chat. As long as they are paying enough attention to what they are doing I don’t mind. I also find that they love to tell you about where they are from, how to say some words in their language and are usually eager to ask questions about American/English idioms.
I once spent about 15 mins trying to explain “OK” to an Italian woman. The fact that the ‘way’ it is said affects the meaning so much was confusing to her.
It is rude to expect to understand conversations that are none of your business.
It is rude to talk about someone in earshot, and arguably even ruder to do it in a language you think they don’t understand.
If you work in the customer service industry it is rude to engage in any conversation in any language that makes it difficult for you to provide the customer with the level of attention needed to provide the same quality of service you would give if you were not conversing. If you can talk and do your job at the same time no problem. If not shut up and get back to work.
Yes, it is rude. But it is also rude to complain about it.
OTOH, if they “chattered” in English, they’d learn English far faster than if they keep lasping into their native tongue.
I’d just be glad I didn’t have to make uncomfortable small-talk with the stylist for twenty minutes. There is nothing quite so annoying as a chatty stylist.
It’s very rude behavior.
It’s one thing to have a private foreign language conversation on your own time but you shouldn’t do that while cutting someone’s hair.
Reminds me of all the times my mother and deceased grandmother would chatter away in Yiddish while my non-Yiddish speaking father would sit there and periodically glare at them.
I shared a room with a Chinese student my freshman year of college. He often (on the order of 3-5 days a week) had another Chinese student who also lived on the hall (and who lived with yet a third Chinese student) come over and visit him for eight or ten hours at a time with perhaps a half hour or hour break for dinner. They would speak Chinese the entire time, with the possible (and very infrequent) exception of asking me something (usually where a particular building on campus was or something like that).
On the one hand, I recognize that it’s a different situation because that was his home and if there’s anywhere he ought to feel comfortable speaking his native language it ought to be there. On the other hand, I often wished he would either make an attempt to include me in the conversation or go over to the other guy’s room.
No.
Question: What do the people who complain about non-English speakers do when they encounter a non-lipreading deaf person? Do you take pains to write out all your conversations? After all, isn’t it very rude to converse in a language someone else can’t understand? Would you be annoyed if two deaf people signed to one another while you were in the room, and expect them to write out their conversations too?
(Yes, I know the situations aren’t totally analogous since many non-English speakers can speak English but don’t want to, whereas many deaf people just can’t. But still, I’m curious.)