If I get introduced to someone new, and they hear I‘m American, they immediately assume I can‘t speak a word of their language. They start speaking English automatically.
I sometimes prank them, too. When checking into my usual hotel in Brussels one time, I was introduced to a new assistant manager who was from Sweden. She immediately spoke English, since Americans are incapable of learning Swedish, right? So I told her no problem, all she had to do was hold up the palm of her hand vertically 1 centimeter from mine for 30 seconds and the language fluency would transfer. She had to think only in Swedish for those 30 seconds for it to work. She laughed at the notion, but went along with it. After about 30 seconds, I said OK that‘s close enough, and she could now speak Swedish with me. She said she didn‘t think so, but I insisted (still in English) that she start speaking Swedish with me. So she said a few words, and I answered her in fluent Swedish. Her eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped to the floor.
Hur har du gjort det?? How did you do that? I just said no one ever believes that my palm language fluency transfer works, but she had just seen it work in person.
I could no longer keep a straight face and laughed. I told her I had spoken Swedish for decades, but since I was American, I would never know Swedish, would I? I told her I bet she had met dozens of Americans who spoke perfect Swedish, but she never thought they were American because her pre-formed opinion prevented her from thinking that some of us were just as capable of learning her language as she was of learning ours. She admitted she had never given the possibility a thought, but it made a lot more sense than my „palm telepathic transfer method.“
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