The Languages of UTAs by Juliette Leeth

Juliette

jleeth1 — 2025-04-14 21:27:53 UTC

Sometimes when I get around my grandparents I start switching to how they talk. For my mom's side I try to use Jamaican patois more. Around my dad's side I start using more "southern slang" and phrases

Kinga

2025-04-15 20:28:53 UTC

I have a lot of Hungarian-American friends and we speak "Hunglish" which I'm sure is a thing in a lot of languages. When everyone in a group is fluent in both languages, I will blend the words and grammatical structures of English and Hungarian such that if you only spoke one or the other it would probably be pretty confusing. For me it is mostly a convenience thing, where I can just say the word that first comes to mind without being concerned with what language it is from. It eliminates the frustration from the gif lol.

Neeha

2025-04-15 20:29:44 UTC

I actually talk in 3 different languages and 4 different accents and at this point I don’t even notice when I switch. My mother tongue is Telugu, which is a South Indian language and most of my friends are North Indians so I speak to them in Hindi and I speak English in Indian and American accents depending on the person I’m talking to and I don’t even do it intentionally.

2025-04-15 20:29:52 UTC

When I am at my friend's house, his mom speaks in Spanish to make me practice. I usually forget and arrive so unprepared to speak Spanish.

Anonymous

2025-04-15 20:31:14 UTC

When I am around my parents I do not understand a word they are saying and I don't pretend to. We have a mutal agreement here when It's time to speak English I'll jump in and contribute if not than, nothing I can do. Im not really interested in learning a new language if I am totally honest.

Eason

2025-04-15 20:31:24 UTC

I can pretty easily understand the Chinese my parents speak, but the slightly different dialect and accent of the Chinese my grandparents speak makes it almost impossible to understand what my grandparents say. I usually have to ask my parents to translate between me and my grandparents, though otherwise I can speak with my parents pretty comfortably in English while they might speak Chinese towards me.

Saga

2025-04-15 20:31:27 UTC

With my childhood friends, I often find myself speaking more slang, specifically using slang we would often speak growing up. Nowadays though, my best friend will be throwing some slang at me that I have never heard before and when she realizes I'm confused, she says something like "sorry, I'm chronically online" or "I have brain rot."

Axel

2025-04-15 20:31:29 UTC

My mom only speaks to me in Mandarin, but I usually respond back to her with a mix of mostly English and a bit of Mandarin. Some phrases just make more sense in one language or the other to me, and my processing time is much faster if I can respond in broken English than making my family sit there and wait for me to say something.

Yusara

2025-04-15 20:31:45 UTC

Whenever I go back home to El Salvador, I make sure to not let say anything in English as that is frowned upon from where I'm from given the history with America (who is considered to be the face of English). By making sure I don't speak English, I don't get the "gringo" treatment such as ignored, raised prices, etc.