Bilingual People Share Their Greatest “I Didn’t Know You Spoke the Language” Stories

Overheard Insults

Chilean born Australian here. I’ve lived several years in Japan and picked up the lingo pretty quick. I got rather chubby in the winters there and loved gorging my face with katsudon every chance I got. I’d have Japanese kids call me “large” all the time on the trains. I’d usually just giggle it off.

One day, two girls were talking smack while sitting across from me and just before I got off I told them both that they’d also gotten really fat and that they had daikon legs (thick radish legs). The whole carriage just gasped and I awkwardly tripped as I left the train.

ChiRRie