One’s Mother Tongue Is Not The Other Tongue

(I work in a fairly small city where there are a lot of factories, a few of which hire a lot of immigrant workers. A customer from Senegal has just gotten his beverage and gone.)

Coworker: “I don’t know how you could take his order. I couldn’t understand a word he said!”

Me: “Oh, his accent wasn’t that thick.”

Coworker: “And if they’re going to be in this country, they should speak English all the time. I mean, how do they even learn that foreign language anyway?!”

Me: “I’m pretty sure the same way we learn English: they’re raised with it.”

Coworker: “Well, you know what I mean!”