The Language That Baffles Each Country

Languages are complex and fascinating, often leading people to describe unfamiliar ones as perplexing or incomprehensible. There's a popular idiom in English, "it's all Greek to me," used to convey confusion, as if something were as challenging as understanding the Greek language. Interestingly, many cultures have similar idioms, but the language of reference changes. For example, in France, they might say "it's Chinese to me," expressing the same sentiment. In Italy, it's "Arabic," and in Greece, they turn the tables by saying, "it's Chinese." These idioms don't reflect the true complexity of a language but rather its perceived foreignness to another culture. Each culture has its own 'mysterious' language, a testament to our shared human experience of feeling baffled by the unfamiliar. This phenomenon showcases how cultures perceive each other and highlights the shared human experience of navigating linguistic diversity.

[martinschmiedt]

In Hungary we also say “Are you speaking Chinese?” but when somebody’s cursing we go “Don’t speak German/French to me!”

[FireworkerK]

German is a fun mix too.
If you don't understand something, you say "I only understand train station".
For when someone doesn't understand something you said, you ask "Am I asking Chinese?"
And when something doesn't sound right and you're suspicious, you say "This seems Spanish to me."

[emile_fa]

Petition to make "are you speaking birds" an actual phrase

[Marcin_Bytniewski]

In Poland, we have an old saying, regarding being among people whose speech we don't understand: to sit as if at a Turkish sermon ('Siedzieć jak na tureckim kazaniu")

[cyldavor]

I love that chinese is so complicated that they don't even turn to another language when something is confusing, they just ask if someone is speaking bird lmfao

[NikkiBdraws]

I like how Mandarin is so hard to learn that their analogies involve ghost and animals, like the the only way to get a harder language is the switch realms. 😂

[eltrr]

In Polish we say "mowie po chinsku?" Which means "do i speak chinese?" when we ask if we are not understood by the person we speak to

[a.z.]

In former Yugoslavia, when we don't understand something or don't know about something, we say: "these are Spanish villages". In German, someone would say :"I only understand train station".

[k_gold]

When you speak a language so hard you can't even mock other languages😭

[friendoffrancis]

I love that the Chinese response is, 'Well, if I don't understand it, it must've been written by ghosts'

[hadihijazi]

in arabic, my mom would always say “what, am I speaking sanskrit?” and it took me so long to realize that’s a real language

[aidarradulescu]

Romanians often say "vorbesti chineza" wich translates to "are you speaking chinese" rather than Turkish

[thechallenger_]

as a bird, i can approve that we ask “are you speaking human?” when we don’t understand something

[McBehrer]

My favorite response to when someone says something you don't understand is a quick, concise, "gesundheit."

[edwardnbuckland]

In Japanese, people say “What’s that? Is it tasty?”

[xDmtm]

As an Arab, it's the first time I hear that we refer to incomprehensible speech as "Chinese." Usually, we describe incomprehensible speech as a form of "talisms".

[DTNN]

In danish, "it's a town in Russia" is a way to sarcastically imply that something is not done or unknown to another person, like saying "for politicians, abiding the law is a city in Russia". Usually, if we don't understand something, we say that it's pure Volapük

[MrSeventyAce]

In the UK you'll occasionally hear someone say "Am I speaking Swahili?" if they're not being listened to/understood

[quinnrosenvold]

In Danish we would also say "That is pure Volapük". Volapük was a conlang that died out fairly quickly.

[AnActualElf]

Apparently I, as a tiny North American child, once looked up at a man speaking to me with a very strong (French) accent and asked him "why are you speaking Chinese to me?"
So apparently even a miniature Californian whelp with next to zero experience with the world at large had some bone-deep instinctive sense of the confusion engendered by Mandarin