talking to someone who is pretending to understand you

For over a year, I was that person. The first 8-12 months in Uruguay, I often times didn't have a clue exactly (if at all) what was being said to me. I relied on tone of voice, facial expression, context, and listening very carefully for words that I either for sure understood or possibly could guess at.

I was at a neighbor's house the other night. The primary language spoken in that household is Spanish but I figured this cousin of theirs who was younger than me probably spoke English. I was trying to fix something on their computer - the poor bastards bought a machine with Windows Vista on it. Lost cause. I keep telling them to run the restore CD and sell it as quickly as possible, then pre-order a machine with XP. But that's not my point.

Anyway I was frustrated with the computer and it takes some additional thought to talk with someone in Spanish so I figured I'd switch for a few sentences I couldn't quite process fast enough. The 13-year old daughter starts laughing. "He doesn't understand you at all, he's just pretending."

So I had a chance to ask how another person gets by in a society where they don't understand the dominant language. And the responses were the same. I listen for words I know, I watch the facial expression and tone of voice, and smile and nod when I think its appropriate. It was interesting to hear from another person going through the same thing.