Back in the mid-80s I was a manager at a restaurant in a Dallas mall. My roommate was also a manager there. One of his parents was Chilean, the other American. He spent his childhood in Chile and his teen years in the US, thus spoke both English and Spanish natively. He could also (poorly) speak some Portuguese and understand a smattering of French due to his time living in South America.
One day at the restaurant a French family came in and tried to order. Knowing that my roommate understood some French I called him up. As we eventually found out, this family spoke French (obviously), and could speak (poorly) some Spanish and Portuguese, due to living in the southwest part of France, but knew very little English. They proceeded to have the most bizarre conversation I have ever witnessed. He was speaking Spanish and Portuguese, they were speaking French and Portuguese, and I was understanding absolutely nothing. The family did manage to order what they wanted and were quite happy. |
