asked my wife to translate what I'd said because she couldn't understand a word.
I have experienced something similar in Thailand. I speak Thai relatively well but there are just some people who don't want to understand you for some reason. The worst situation is when some people almost want to punish me for speaking the local language by intentionally changing the conversation to include unnecessarily complicated words.
It's almost like they are offended that you learned their super-secret-magic language.
I have only experienced this attitude with the wealthier more entitled types. I've had a similar experience here, although it's definitely a small minority of people, and poor/working class people are 100% stoked to see foreigners speaking their language.
exactly. If i ride into some random mom and pop shop in the middle of nowhere they are absolutely thrilled that I can speak the local language and will even sometimes call the other people out to revel in this very rare incident. I can't imagine why anyone out there would want to look down on you for learning what is, let's be honest, a relatively useless language on a global scale, but I guess looking down on others is what the entitled elite thrive off of.