Well I’m sure that was embarrassing

[oftheherd1]

I'd read that as a status game. You, an American GI don't rate his attention, so he's not giving it to you. The RFPF personnel did -- so he'd listen to them. I've come across it in Vietnamese here in the US, not that I speak Vietnamese. (Butchering Spanish, and knowing a few polite greetings in other languages as well as some danger words is my limit.)

Perhaps so, but I think it can be a little more subtle than that, where it isn't always a conscious decision, but a lapse into a norm of assuming foreigners simply can't understand the language so they are not part of anything in the native language.

I get a laugh out of two things I come across with Latinos, though... The first is that, apparently, no matter how fluent you are, if you're not Latino -- you may need a drunk Latino to repeat what you just said in "drunk Spanish" word for word... I've seen this with myself and with one of my partners who is generally more fluent than I am (he grew up with missionary parents in S. America). The other is the guy who is insistently saying "I don't speak English" as I speak Spanish to them.

Yep, I think it is a learned defense mechanism. Always leave open the door for a plea of not understanding due to a language incompatibility. Plus if someone is taking time to translate, it gives the person talked to more time to think of a 'right' answer.

My best "playing dumb" story... Had a warrant to serve on a woman, and knocked on the door. Woman answers, but not close to the description. I ask for my target... and hear one of the occupants warn my target, and say they'll cover for her.

That's a funny one!