Why Don't Filipinas Speak English When Foreign Guy Is Present?

[00:00:00]Why don't Filipinos speak English when the foreign husband is present?

[00:00:09]Whether that's at the dinner table, everyday life, sitting around the house, out and about with a group of people.

[00:00:18]Why doesn't Big Pumpkin and her crew or her family speak English when I'm present?

[00:00:28]because everybody in the Philippines speaks English. I don't speak Tagalague or Bisayiah.

[00:00:36]That's what I'm going to talk about on today's show. I'm going to go over some myths, some uh reasons why I think this occurs, some of my frustrations, and the reasonable explanation as to why they do that. Is it sinister? Is it not?

[00:01:00]You're gonna find out in this video. So, without further ado, um, this is something that is not new.

[00:01:10]I've been with this old lady for 7 8 n years.

[00:01:14]As you will see on all the videos, anytime she encounters a group of ladies, they're going to switch over to either Tagalague or Bisayiah.

[00:01:24]and I'm left out in the cold.

[00:01:28]Continues to this day. Why don't you just learn to Gala or Bisayiah? You're living in their country. Good point. You got me on that one.

[00:01:40]So, anyhow, there's no script here.

[00:01:42]We're just going to have an informal discussion and I'm going to go over the canoe side and what I think the Filipino side is. Okay. So, nobody hit me. Well, I know I'm going to get hit by in so many angles, but hey, this is real life. Just real life discussions. When you're in any type of intercultural uh your wife speaks a different language, the objective of this talk is to just invoke thought and create some understanding. So, anyhow, without further ado, I'm going to flip over to the comment that made me think, hey, this is a great talk. This is a great discussion to have um because a lot of folks on here, hey man, I'd watch your show, but I don't understand a word they're saying. Can you do subtitles?

[00:02:32]No, I'm not going to do subtitles because I'm going to tell you why I do subtitles. I'm destroying the atmosphere that I'm in. There are no subtitles for me above my head or above Big Pumpkin's head on a daily basis. I don't have subtitles.

[00:02:52]I am just as lost.

[00:02:57]Maybe not to the extent that you, the viewer, are lost, but on a daily basis, I'm lost. So, when you watch my show and there's no subtitles and there's no translations, welcome to my world. If I were to put everything they say, that would skew my personal experience that I'm trying to share with you. So, no, there's no subtitles.

[00:03:23]Google has not figured out yet how to translate Big Pumpkins. Uh, well, they can't they can't translate her English or Tagala, nor her bisah.

[00:03:33]Okay, so we're going to go over to the comment right now. Okay, big shout out to Hos. Thank you very much for the comment, my friend. And I'm going to read his comment and just talk about a couple of uh issues that he brings up.

[00:03:47]When my wife's sister's family was staying with us after a while, I told them to speak English. It's my house.

[00:03:56]Well, not directly to them, but to my wife.

[00:04:00]It seemed disrespectful that their language was used in the Englishers's home.

[00:04:08]The purpose was for me to know what's going on so that if a problem arises, I can try to solve it.

[00:04:17]I had two things going against me with my wife. Number one, shyness, and two, the elder sibling is the boss sort of uh speaks above her.

[00:04:33]The message didn't get passed on. just had to deal with it sometimes in aggravation.

[00:04:41]I'm sure you can understand where I'm coming from. Thank you very much, Hos, for the comment.

[00:04:49]So, I'll go out. I'm going to go sit outside because it's a nice cool morning.

[00:04:55]And I will hit on these elements of his comment. And you're you're right on the money. You're not the only one that thinks this, hos.

[00:05:05]Trust me, it's still a frustration for me after being with with this old lady for I don't know how long we've been together. Seven, eight, nine years. I don't know. But this ain't my first rodeo. I used to be married to a Thai girl. So all of the points that will bring up on both sides of the fence, it doesn't just apply to Filipinos. it it just pick a country. You're from uh the US, you go down to Guatemala.

[00:05:38]Are your Guatemalan in-laws going to immediately switch over to English? When you walk into the room, go back outside where I've got a better view and cooler temperatures and we'll pick this up. Here we go.

[00:05:56]Okay, welcome back. Welcome back again.

[00:05:58]Thank you very much Hos for the comment.

[00:06:01]So point number one from our perspective as a canoe why why can't you speak English? Why don't you speak English when you're around me? Because you know that I don't speak Bisayiah or Tagalog.

[00:06:19]Everybody knows that everybody in the Philippines speaks English. So why not speak English when I'm present? Isn't that the most reasonable thing to do?

[00:06:32]Now again, I'm giving you this from the canoe standpoint. So just give me time to go over to the Filipina standpoint after this list. So from our perspective, everybody speaks English.

[00:06:45]Why don't you speak English when I'm around?

[00:06:48]Number two, it's easy to assume from our standpoint, especially if you're new to being around uh a different culture and people speaking a different language, you could assume that they're talking about us. They're gossiping about us and talking behind our back.

[00:07:14]I think that's a an assumption that a lot of foreigners make. Hey, wait a minute. You speak English. Why are you changing over to a language that I don't speak? You must be talking about me.

[00:07:26]What What's the problem? You know, number three, it makes us feel left out in general.

[00:07:38]Like, hey, what what about me? Don't y'all want to share the laughs? Y'all are laughing about something. Why Why aren't you letting me in on the joke?

[00:07:48]Okay, sounds like you're making plans.

[00:07:49]Why Why aren't you letting me in on the plans?

[00:07:54]And it's just a natural human reaction and emotion.

[00:08:00]Everybody's talking, then all of a sudden a certain segment of the group flips over uh to a language that nobody else understands.

[00:08:09]Why?

[00:08:11]Now we're left out.

[00:08:15]And what it makes the foreign husband feel is when everybody's talking, everybody's planning in their language, and you don't understand, and then they say, "Okay, let's go." It brings back the joke that I quote often about the four animals that a woman loves in any country, in any language.

[00:08:35]What's the four animals that a woman loves? Well, number one, they want a mink in the closet. In other words, they want very nice clothes.

[00:08:45]Number two, they want a Jaguar in the garage. In other words, they want a nice expensive car.

[00:08:53]Number three, they want a tiger in the bed. They want a good-looking dude who's in shape, you know, compatible.

[00:09:01]And number four, the most important animal that a woman wants is a jackass to pay for it all.

[00:09:11]And when everybody is speaking their language and you don't understand and the next thing you know, give me money. That's the first English out of Big Pumpkin's mouth is give me money.

[00:09:29]Well, you become I become makes you feel like you're the jackass who pays for it all.

[00:09:36]It's very easy for us to perceive that.

[00:09:39]It's only natural.

[00:09:41]Wait a minute. You You going to sit there and have an hourlong conversation in Bisayiah and the only [ __ ] English words that I heard are give me money?

[00:09:51]Anytime there's an issue or a problem or a plan or an idea, they have to start from zero. And what Big Pumpkin will do, they don't start from zero, but they have to cuz we're left out in the cold. Big Pumpkin comes up and will start at the end of the story because they've told the whole story.

[00:10:17]She's up to speed. Then she comes to me and tells me the end of the story. And I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. None. I have zero. I I don't know the people that you're talking about, the issue, when it happened, what happened. I have no idea what you're talking about. You know exactly what y'all are talking about cuz you've been talking for an hour. Now you've got to compress that hour into a story that I understand because I have no freaking clue as to what y'all are talking about, what you want to do, what y'all are planning, who's coming over. I have no idea. All I've heard is blah blah blah blah blah blah blah for an hour.

[00:11:03]And now she's got to try to compress an hour down into a synopsis, which she's not good at. And I'm like, start from the beginning.

[00:11:13]Wouldn't it be much better to just include me in the conversation, speak English, and then you don't have to translate at the end. You don't have to bring me up to speed and tell the story all over again.

[00:11:27]Again, I'm telling you from our perspective and our frustrations in our culture, it's just downright perceived as just being disrespectful.

[00:11:40]That's how a lot of us from my generation and older, the younger cats, hell, they're used to talking to [ __ ] chat bots that they don't care. But my generation and older, it's perceived as being disrespectful.

[00:11:52]You can disagree, but I think my my buddy Hos and I would agree. Hey, it's just it's just downright disrespectful. You speak English. Just speak English, please.

[00:12:04]Now, let me go over the old lady's defense.

[00:12:08]And this part, I think, will create the understanding where you see it from their shoes and it doesn't sound so sinister.

[00:12:19]I still have the frustration, but I'm not angry at her because I have the understanding of why she does it.

[00:12:27]And it's not anything sinister.

[00:12:30]Okay. Number one, let's talk about primary languages.

[00:12:36]A lot of people move here to the PI because they think I'm moving to the PI because everybody speaks English there.

[00:12:44]That's why I can't move to Thailand or I can't move to Cambodia or Lao or Vietnam because they don't speak English there.

[00:12:50]I'm moving to the Philippines because everybody speaks English.

[00:12:56]That is not true. That is 100% absolutely a myth if you think everybody here speaks English. And that's not saying anything negative. Okay.

[00:13:09]My old lady's primary language is Bisayiah.

[00:13:14]Okay. She lives down there. She grew up in Sibu. What language do they speak?

[00:13:19]Bisayiah.

[00:13:21]What is her secondary language? I would say Tagalog.

[00:13:27]What is her third language? Is English.

[00:13:32]It's not her second language. English is her third language. Now think about that. We always see her struggle through English and sort of bumble through it, what have you. She is speaking her third language. How many languages do you and I speak fluently?

[00:13:50]Okay. Most Americans speak one, not two.

[00:13:54]Certainly not three.

[00:13:58]So, we have to give Big Pumpkin a lot of credit that she is communicating with me in her third language.

[00:14:09]Think about that. She's way ahead of us.

[00:14:12]Even though it's frustrating as hell on my side of the fence, it's frustrating for her because we all think in our primary language. Okay? I don't specialize in language, a languageologist.

[00:14:31]Okay, don't let the uniform fool you.

[00:14:33]But I'm pretty sure that we will all agree we think in our primary language.

[00:14:40]Now, if you grew up speaking a combination of languages, then maybe it's all intertwined and mixed together. And maybe that's what Big Pumpkin is dealing with. But I seem to think and I think she will agree that she thinks in Bisayiah and then there has to be a translation to English.

[00:15:01]There's a lag time. There's a delay.

[00:15:05]If I'm speaking Spanish, which my Spanish is very rusty now, it used to be pretty damn good. I think in English, I I translate into Spanish, then it comes out of my mouth. There's a lag time.

[00:15:20]Okay.

[00:15:24]So if I need to talk in a hurry, obviously it's going to be in English.

[00:15:29]If there's an emergency or fight or flight type situation, the words coming out of my mouth is going to be English.

[00:15:37]Even if I was standing in the middle of Mexico, right? to insist that they speak English every time I'm around. It's just putting added processing power on their brains which slows down the communication between them unnecessarily when 95% of the conversation some mostly 99% of the conversation has nothing to do with me.

[00:16:04]So, uh, it's like, you know, spinning up the the processor for no reason. Just added stress on the processor. Number three, there's a natural shyness among Filipinos, especially those way out in the province in my experience. And there's a natural shyness of most folks in this country to talk to foreigners. Look, if you're you're old lady has a PhD in finance and she works down in Makotti, this probably don't apply. But if you go out to Fatima's village, I mean, I've I've said it many times, her brother is still so shy around me. When I show up, he leaves the village. That's how shy he is about being around foreigners.

[00:16:52]So, there's that shyness factor combined with maybe they're struggling with English proficiency. They're just too shy to speak English because they don't want to look bad, especially in front of the foreign guy who they're already too shy to speak to in the first place.

[00:17:07]They're comfortable obviously speaking their primary language. When I talk about 95% of their conversation has nothing to do with me, the foreign guy or you the foreign guy, obviously most of us there's quite an age gap, you know, between me and Big Pumpkin. And when there's there's that age gap, that generational gap, what do we really have in common to talk about for hours on end?

[00:17:38]She has a lot to talk about with other Filipinos because they have a lot of things in common. What do we have in common? I want to sit there and talk about the straight of horm. She wants to talk about magic sap or the price of tilapia went up 5 pesos.

[00:17:56]Celebrity gossip uh stuff happening in the Philippines in the village. They're they're talking about their own issues and they ain't got nothing to do with me. I'm not interested in and she ain't interested talking about Trump and how he just surrendered to Iran. She don't want to hear that. There's that huge gap.

[00:18:17]So, with that said, do I really would I really want to hear 100% of her conversations?

[00:18:26]No, I do not. It would drive me mad if I understood 100% of what she and the village or she and her homies are talking about. Holy crap. I'm glad that there's that language gap because it's a filter.

[00:18:43]Now, it's just noise in the background.

[00:18:45]But imagine my brain having to process every word coming out of that woman's mouth and the topics that they talk about, the silliness and the laughing and the giggling and the chiefness and the gossip. Oh my god, that that's just too much data coming in my ears that I don't want.

[00:19:04]So, the fact that she's not speaking English, it just sounds like noise, background noise, very loud background noise, but my brain doesn't have to process it.

[00:19:15]It just has to drown it out.

[00:19:18]Okay? It's like putting text on a screen. Your brain automatically is going to read it. You know what I mean?

[00:19:23]You're going to if if you put English if I put English on the screen and English is your primary language, you're going to have to [ __ ] read it. Your brain can't filter it out. But if I put Arabic up there, it would just be noise because you can't read it. You don't understand it, right? Put Japanese up there, Chinese, it's just background noise.

[00:19:43]So, there is a positive to them not speaking English around you 100% of the time. I really don't want her to drive me crazy. And again, the a lot of the topics that they talk about, the simplicity, that's why we love it here. That's why we love being in Southeast Asia to get away from every conversation being about the straight of hormuz or stock prices or politics or all that. That's why we love it here.

[00:20:09]She don't talk about none of that. She talks about simple things, food, family, you know, price of chicken. In the Hos's comment, he was talking about he's obviously not going to yak his his wife's sister. He doesn't have that close relationship like I have with Flo.

[00:20:27]Flo, I just yak her direct. I don't need to go through big pumpkin. She's not going to tell the ae, hey, Kono says to speak English. You don't tell the ae.

[00:20:38]There's that hierarchy, right? Got the ate up here. She's down here. She's not going to tell her ae, hey, speak English. Don't work like that. She's got the power. Now, if his wife is the ae, she can go tell them, "Hey, all y'all speak English." And they're going to do what she says because she's the ae, the oldest sister, right?

[00:20:58]I should do a video on the ai and the kuya factor. I actually wrote a article about it back years ago when I was first coming here and I realized the impact that the ae factor had on my relationship dating these chicks.

[00:21:18]Anyhow, it's it's it's pretty interesting the psychology behind it.

[00:21:23]And I basically came to the conclusion that if the girl I'm dating is the ae in the family, it's never going to work between me and her. And I'll just have to leave it at that. And I'll do a video on it later on. Leave you in suspense.

[00:21:42]Let's see.

[00:21:45]Those are my points right there, man. I got I got to the end of my points. I don't have scripts here. I just took some scraggly notes on the back of one of For scribblings right there. Mangoes, I'm going to tell you, that's a mango tree right there. Mango trees are wonderful. They provide shade. They provide food.

[00:22:05]Um right now for the past what seemed like two three months mango trees have just been raining mangoes free food to the point that you I don't know if you can see in the background there's so many mangoes on the ground you can't eat them all they fall they into the road the goats will come by and gnaw on them but the bad thing about the mangoes being on the ground is they breed a million flies so you hope the goats come eat them all if night. You got to throw them over there in the burn pile.

[00:22:37]Um or else they attract a lot of flies.

[00:22:41]I mean, I went by this mango tree. Oh, we drive by it every day. There's like 30, 40 mangoes always laying there.

[00:22:47]People just can't eat them fast enough, which is a good thing. The tropics truly provide.

[00:22:55]I've ate more mangoes in the p since we moved here and I ate the entire year of living in Angelie City last year.

[00:23:04]Love them. Especially the apple mangoes.

[00:23:07]My gosh, those things taste just like a pina colada. They're a mango, but they taste like coconut/ pineapple to this guy.

[00:23:16]All right, folks. There's my talk.

[00:23:21]It's a beautiful, beautiful morning here in the Philippines.

[00:23:26]If you're wondering, two trikes can merge and it's not wide enough for the trikes to pass. So, one dude's got to got to get off the side of the road, let the other dude pass right there, give a penny, take a penny.

[00:23:44]Uh, the kids are in school. The kids are in school. Fridays is PE day. And on Fridays at Forest G, the parents, or at least one parent, is involved with the PE activities. So, Big Pumpkins got her workout pants on, her stretchables, looking beautiful, and she's taking care of Forest G this morning. Uh, doing the PE activities.

[00:24:12]Maybe I'll do it next Friday. I'm not scared to. I just I had some stuff to do and I figured I'd let her ride that goat today, but I'm looking forward to it. Next week I'll do the uh the PE activity. Man, I sat sideways here just so you couldn't see up my damn shorts. There I am putting my legs up. Um, anyhow, folks, that's my talk. What do you think? Does it >> Good morning, sir. Good morning.

[00:24:45]What do you think? If you're married to a Filipina, if or if you're dating a Filipina or for this matter, if you're in any type of intercultural relationship where your wife speaks a different language, does it piss you off when her family and friends speak their primary language in your presence?

[00:25:09]Do you feel left out? Do you feel like they're talking about you? Are you used to it?

[00:25:18]Are you, you know, just cool with it? With the understanding that that's their primary language?

[00:25:30]I'll be honest, it is frustrating.

[00:25:32]It is frustrating.

[00:25:35]Not when they're doing the cheese miss and the gossip and the [ __ ] I don't care about. But it is frustrating when they're talking about some type of logistical issue.

[00:25:45]The logistics of okay, we're out of this, this, and this, and we want to cook this tonight or, you know, Tito so and so is sick.

[00:26:03]This is the reason he's sick. and uh everybody's trying to get money for his medicine or blah blah blah and they've had that hourlong conversation and then they show up to you and uh you know giggling and [ __ ] and you know when they're when she's laughing or giggling there's a problem and they need money to solve the problem and you're like I'm just like start from the beginning.

[00:26:29]Okay, slow down. Focus on your English sentences so I can understand what the problem is. Just like Hos said, start from the beginning.

[00:26:42]Don't start from the end of the story because I don't know who I don't know anything about what you're doing.

[00:26:49]Uh so it is frustrating on a daily basis. Could I solve the problem by merely filming the sewing?

[00:27:01]got everything from tools to whatever.

[00:27:03]He's just a mobile shop roaming around trying to make a sale or whatever he's got. Shout out to him. Appreciate your hustle.

[00:27:13]But, you know, they come here on a daily basis and you obviously can't buy something from everybody.

[00:27:21]I lost my train of thought.

[00:27:24]Leave your comments down below if you don't mind so others can learn.

[00:27:29]Again, this talk is not casting stones at anybody here. That's [ __ ] I live in the Philippines. Everybody speaks English. I went there twice. Everybody speaks English.

[00:27:42]Well, if that's the case, you probably live in Manila or Angelie City or some place like that.

[00:27:49]All you got to do is watch my show and I'll prove my point. A lot of folks can speak English, but they won't because of that shyness factor. It's the same folks. Just the other day, I was in a trike.

[00:28:07]Everybody in Subie Town knows the word Walter Mart. Hey man, stop at the Walter.

[00:28:13]My trike driver kept right on going. I Hey man, stop here at the Walter. Kept right on going cuz we'd mentioned, hey, we're going to the market. But I halfway in in the transit, I said, "No, man.

[00:28:25]Stop here at the Walmart straight to the public market."

[00:28:30]It's a beautiful day. I'll see y'all on the next one. Peace out.

[00:28:52]Wow.

[00:29:15]La a da a hey