Dear Prudence,
I am a casual Spanish speaker—I can understand a good bit of what I hear and read, but have more difficulty speaking it. My mom, bless her, thinks I am fluent. Normally, this isn’t a problem. She might call sometimes with a question about something she heard on TV or about something on a menu, but that’s it. Recently though, something happened that made me uncomfortable. She had some furniture delivered, and the men who dropped it off spoke Spanish. She wanted me to give them instructions in Spanish, and I told her it wasn’t necessary, as it was obvious they also spoke English. Later, when they were speaking to each other in Spanish, she wanted to know what they were saying and if it was about her. I told her I didn’t follow their conversation, but now I wish I had said that she was making offensive assumptions. Would that be appropriate next time something like this happens, if it does?