I am at a little espresso bar one night and I get to talking to this 20 year old Canadian guy who has been traveling around the world for about a year now. He is telling me all about his adventures to Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and throughout Europe.
We have been talking for a good 20 to 25 minutes and he asks me some questions about what I am doing in Brussels. His next phrase was the kicker. With a tilted head of encouragment he proceeded to tell me that I was doing a great job speaking English to him and that I sounded really natural.
I paused. This isn't a rare situation for me to encounter. His automatic assumption upon introduction was that someone with the name Brigitta cannot possibly be a native speaker of English. With names like Jorgen, Peder, Torsten, and Einer in the family it is a fairly typical response that I think we have gotten used to. However, this was the first time that someone still thought that English wasn't my native tongue even after chatting away for 20 minutes.
My reply was a simple "thank you. It is my native language so I hope that I speak it well." It gave Gennie and me some significant laughs later that evening when I told her the whole story.
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2 comments:
HAHA, this is so typical in Europe! Everyone is so good at English that it is hard to tell who is who...and then you are going around with such a name as Brigitta! Haha, poor guy...Next time I guess you could just tell him in French you don't know what he is talking about.... ;)
That is fantastic. :o)
Another story to add to your repertoire, my dear!
I have to apologize Brigit, I was so behind in reading your posts, but I am all caught up now!
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