Can You Speak Your Foreign SO's Native Language?

[chri'stina 190]

I am USC, I can now say some words and phrases and understand some words and phrases of Hindi. I knew no Hindi at all when we met except for maybe hearing namaste before? When he talks to his family in Hindi, I can usually understand what topic they are talking about but I don't know what they are saying about the topic.

My husband has been fluent in English since young.

I want our son to know Hindi, so my husband talks in Hindi to him often. It has helped me learn more already while Kavi is learning.

Edited March 12, 2010 by chri'stina

[alex and astrid 38]

My husband and I always rib each other about who has the correct English

[Marina-Del 10]

My poll answer is a bit messed up because when Del and I started dating I didn't speak a word of Portuguese, now that I've lived here for a year, I'm basically fluent.

Del spoke English when we started dating but not that well. Well enough we could easily understand each other, but I remember after talking to my brother on the phone after Del and I started dating my brother got mad at me for saying "you know what I mean?" at the end of every single one of my sentences!! I guess I just made it a habit of saying that to confirm with him that he did actually understand me! That was 3 years ago and now he speaks great.

Now that we live in Brazil and we both speak/read/write/ect both English and Portuguese we mix it up a lot. Here we speak mostly in English (plus it's nice to be able to speak a language that *most* people don't understand) although you always have to be careful!! And when we get to the US we plan on speaking only in Portuguese so that I don't forget what I've learned!!

We hope to have a little Portuguese bubble of a house, so our kids will learn Portuguese at home and English outside of the house.

[웃 910]

I speak Australian, Brazilian, Hispanic, and Jewish.

My wife is from Mexico so obviously I speak Mexican too.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Bump

[JIJourney 96]

yes i can

[funkymunky 11]

We both don't have a second language but my mum speaks Mandarin and Cantonese and we hope that she will teach our daughter a little.

[Chuksteddylove 22]

We are both Igbos so we have a common native language. However, since he's from Isuikwuato and I'm from Ohafia our dialects have slight differences. We both speak English too. I also speak French and Spanish thanks to many years in language school. Our kids wont have a problem learning our language Central Ibo and dialect which is Isuikwuato and Ohafia.

[Stressed Out 81]

We speak each other's languages fluently, although we prefer to speak English amongst ourselves at home here in Germany. When we're travelling in the US we end up speaking German. We both learned each other's languages in high school, and when we first met each other we just polished our skills until we were fluent. No better way to learn than by interacting with a native speaker.

And, yes, when we have children they'll be required to learn German as well as English. Otherwise it's unfair for family members visiting from overseas to not be able to properly socialize with them.

[YouAndMeForever 1,022]

My USC husband doesn't speak my native language but I speak English fluently.

[Becca and Doody 18]

When I first meet my SO we spoke exclusively in Arabic, although I only knew the khaliji (Qatari) dialect and he is from Mecca so speaks Hijazi (Saudi) dialect and I'm still getting used to that. I wasn't fluent in Arabic but am almost now after knowing him and being thrown into his big family to speak with all of them constantly. Now he's trying to learn English and we've evolved into speaking mixed Arabic-English. He must learn English to speak with my family and to get a university degree from the States. And our future children should be fluent in Arabic (both Standard Arabic and Dialect) and English. They might also learn some Burmese growing up around his family, although even my fiancé doesn't speak it, but can understand a little of it.

I also speak Russian fluently and am kind of sad I don't get to use it much. Maybe I should teach it to my future kids as well. But I think too many languages would become confusing.

I think it's not only important to learn your partner's language to commentate with them and their families, but to understand their culture and thinking on a deeper level.

[X Factor 1,112]

I only speak some words and phrases

[Pitaya 2,577]

I am familiar with several languages, and am learning phrases of Mandarin. However, it being a Category V level language, it is unlikely that I will become truly proficient. But hey, that is half of the fun of our marriage.

http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty

[ElGuapo 1]

I speak Spanish and write it as well. Still getting used to the regionalisms and stuff though.

[aminah 6]

I am the USC and I speak and understand a lot more Arabic than I think I do sometimes. I do find it phyically exhausting when we are in Morocco to follow along with the conversation. I probably only get about 25% of what's being said but I think that's pretty good.