What would you do if someone you're talking to pretends not to speak English

I'd ignore him from now on. It's clear that is what he wants. I never heard of pretending not to speak English as a way to avoid talking to people. Maybe he has a hearing problem and would rather pretend he doesn't understand than admit he doesn't hear well. I only say this because my father went deaf at age 23 and he never told anyone he was deaf. He spoke fine and he faked it. Still, I don't see any point in trying to communicate with someone who clearly doesn't want to communicate. Maybe someday he will talk to you and you can figure out what the deal is. Weird.

LOL If it were me I would have told him how rude it was for him not to reply LOL but thats just me LOL too straight forward sometimes LOL

Did you consider that he might not be able to hear well? I'm just looking at it differently. Maybe he really was pretending not to know English. Or maybe he just didn't hear what you said. He could be preoccupied with something and didn't really get what you said. I'm sure someone with a hearing problem would have gestured that they couldn't hear. But just a suggestion that this might be a possibility.

I have a set of neighbors who for months acted like they didn't speak any english. Every time I tried to talk to them about their kids running in my yard, pulling up my flowers, etc, they acted like they didn't understand me and would talk at me in spanish. Well, a few months later the wife started hanging her wet laundry on the fence to dry. Well....I have four dogs. You can imagine what was happenign to her laundry everytime she put it on the fence. Well, turns out the wife sure could speak english when it came to complaining about my dogs and threatening to call the cops. Long story, short. I told her to call the cops. So she did. I calmly explained that my dogs were registered with the city, contained in my yard and she was the one putting her wet laundry on MY fence. If the dogs pulled it down, that wasn't my fault, it was hers. She was so mad when the cops sided with me and told her to put up clothes lines and stop using my fence.

That's funny! That happened to my dad. His neighbor is hispanic and she had two dachsunds that she kept in the back yard. They would bark and bark and drive my dad crazy at night when he was trying to sleep. He didn't blame the dogs, but he blamed the pet owner. He tried to speak to her when she was outside with her father and they both pretended not to speak english. He says he knows that this woman can speak english because he has heard her before talking with other people in the yard. She just didn't want to deal with the situation. Anyhow, a couple of months later, she and her boyfriend knocked on my fathers door and told him that they were sorry for the trouble and that the dogs were an issue and they took care of it by finding new homes for them. My father wanted to ask them why she pretended not to speak English, but chose not to. If I were you, I would go out of my way to be nice! I would always wave and say hello and be extremely pleasant to this person. Kill him with kindness!

I would say something that are of interest to them like Do you want me to give you $100 and flash a one hundred dollar bill in front of them that will get their attention.

What a jerk! I would make a point of saying something to him in passing that would make his ears perk up. Say something to get a rise out of him.

I would simply choose to be indifferent...but perhaps if the man talks to me one day, then that's the time I will reconsider again if he can friend or not.

I will try one more time to befriend him, he's neighbor anyway, if he still proves himself to be ill-mannered, I'll forget about him....That's a cute picture that you posted in this discussion, hehe ^_^

This is going to get me into trouble, but it is the truth. I have worked with Hispanics who speak and understanding English except when they don't want to do something. All of the sudden it is "no speaka da English." I was in a car accident and the other driver tried to pull that with the police until his mother showed up and spoke perfect English.