smile66 – I have had the same experience but in Spanish. A clearly intoxicated or drugged man in Manhattan told his friend upon seeing me – Que judio cabron – which would be – oy a yid a mamzer.
I turned around and said, Si, pero un cabron que habla Espanol – yes, but a mamzer who speaks Spanish.
He was too far gone to even hear what I said :).
I once had a problem with ElAl in CDG Airport in Paris, and as I knew I would get nowhere, just to give them a hard time I refused to speak French and made their local “customer service” personnel speak English to me. Suffice it to say that I translated everything they said behind my back when I sent ElAl a (useless) complaint letter.
While I don’t think it should be done in a tryfe university setting, it is very important to learn at least one major foreign language (of course Ingarisch is the real mameloshen and therefore not foreign, or as Michoel Schnitzler – (Snicler Miklos bacsi) – once said, when I got off the plane in Beedapesht I called my mother and told her it was a mokoim koidesh because everyone was speaking Hungarian!)