Teaching your spouse English

[AKSinghSingh79 143]

I got really lucky with my guy. His English has improved incredibly over the years since I've known him (not that it was bad from the start). He worked in the UK for a year before we met and we also met in the U.S. so his speaking abilities were pretty good.

Even though English is considered a official language of India along with Hindi, in some parts it can be very difficult to communicate beyond very basic English. From what my husband has told me, most Indian students will skate through English class in school with the minimum marks. He himself has told me his English didn't improve until he was forced to use it in the UK and the US.

I'm noticing less and less grammatical errors, less gender confusion, and greater vocabulary in his everyday conversation. He also told me his dreams used to be in Hindi or a mix of Hindi and English and he now has dreams in English.

His writing abilities, however, need some serious work. Not sure why but it's common in India to abbreviate words even in professional emails (plz, ur, ty). It makes me cringe. He also forgets to capitalize words at the beginning of a sentence or proper nouns. Oh and punctuation....don't get me started on punctuation!

I can understand the level of dedication and internal motivation it takes to learn a language and follow through with it until fluency. I've faced my own struggles learning my husband's native languages, Hindi and Kumaoni and at times its so frustrating you just want to give up. But I always pick up my books again. I think its important for me to learn his language since he worked so hard to learn mine.

[bestofboston 36]

My wife reads and writes in english very well. She does have issues with pronounciation of words. I often have a hard time understanding some words she is saying. I think itt would benefit your husband a lot if he took an english speech course.

He can easily get enrolled in a course once he arrives in the USA.

He needs to be able to speak clearly and fluently in order to get a good job here unless he plans on pursing self-employment when he comes here.

I tried teaching my wife how to drive and it was the most stressful thing I have ever done. She scared me so bad and it caused so much stress. I finally paid for her to attend a driving school. She still failed the written and driving test the first time but passed both the second try.

She still scares the hell out of me when she drives. So I now always drive when we are together. She drives when she goes to and from work and when she is out running erands.

[Mrs. Childs 11]

Im currently facing the same issues... but with Spanish!!

As a teacher I thought this was gonna be easy for us but turned out that... not all the time... I think the most difficult part comes when dissapointment gets in the way. Sometimes when students face failure of certain kind they step back. This is when you have to be pushy. It has worked slowly for me! Make him practice, as much as possible and be careful when you correct his mistakes. Try to expose him to real life situations, like ordering food from a restaurant or other meaningful situations at work. (Role play can be a great tool you can use) Some mistakes are acceptable if the message was carried on successfully. Besides, later you will have the chance to correct those mistakes one by one. And praise him, everytime you can! Give him rewards for every little obstacle he overcomes! (pronunciation or grammar mistakes) Rewards can go from words or a kiss to an actual little thing you can buy. Build his confidence and everything will go fine. Just do not expect him to speak perfectly in a couple of months, remember it took you years to make your english perfect and, good luck!!

Edited February 6, 2013 by Mrs. Childs

[VivaBaños 2]

Nice reading this thread.

I think the OP is going to face some of the barriers my husband and I have faced. He and I met in Ecuador and our entire relationship ensued in Spanish. He'd taken English classes at the University, but as several of you have pointed out unless you are learning from a native speaker you tend to pick up more mispronunciations. Fast-forward to moving to the US and being forced to learn English. He attended free classes at the library, classes at local colleges, and community centers.

Anyhow, something that we continually face is the challenge to not revert back to Spanish. Sometimes it's me who slips up, because it's just easier to explain something in Spanish (for speed). Sometimes it's him who slips up and uses Spanish (especially if he's feeling down). It's hard to hold ourselves to it. We've gone for a couple of months just in English, but to be honest then I start to miss speaking Spanish. The problem with this, as if it's not already obvious, is that while he retains his grammar and vocab skills his pronunciation skills quickly deteriorate. This is really why speaking English everyday is so important here--you want to nail the pronunciation like a native speaker. So I have to hold myself to speaking only English with him.

We live in a area with a LOT of Latinos and this is great for the times when we are both missing Ecuador.

Language learning is hard. It's a never-ending process and one where each milestone should be celebrated.

Best of luck!

[NikLR 13,232]

English pronunciation can be very hard. English words do not often flow readily from one word to the next like many languages do. Even my phone has trouble with the way I talk sometimes, and I'm Canadian!! *sigh* My husband had the nickname "Boomhauer" from King of the Hill in the military. As a result he learned to better enunciate his words and probably speaks clearer than I do when he chooses to.

I like MrTBs idea of reading at night. That and some "positive" reinforcement for a job well done? LOL

Edited February 7, 2013 by NikiR

[oohpartiv 484]

English pronunciation can be very hard. English words do not often flow readily from one word to the next like many languages do. Even my phone has trouble with the way I talk sometimes, and I'm Canadian!! *sigh* My husband had the nickname "Boomhauer" from King of the Hill in the military. As a result he learned to better enunciate his words and probably speaks clearer than I do when he chooses to.

I like MrTBs idea of reading at night. That and some "positive" reinforcement for a job well done? LOL

I laughed out loud! Haha, that's definitely one way of motivating him!

[TBoneTX 46,156]

I laughed out loud! Haha, that's definitely one way of motivating him!

Reading before pleasure, see man...

[indiana_sweetie 120]

I actually only corrected her because she was going there to see if they could find her a better job, and I preferred her pronunciation.

I'm guilty of doing that with my husband. But he told me he worries people will think he's dumb because he is pronouncing words wrong. So I have been helping him. Because what I find charming other people might not. When we first started chatting I sensed he only understood shorter sentences, so I wrote that way. Over time I wrote more "normal", and he has done a great job of picking it up.

[Caryh 5,206]

I'm guilty of doing that with my husband. But he told me he worries people will think he's dumb because he is pronouncing words wrong. So I have been helping him. Because what I find charming other people might not. When we first started chatting I sensed he only understood shorter sentences, so I wrote that way. Over time I wrote more "normal", and he has done a great job of picking it up.

When first talking with my wife, I also avoided contractions and sayings. Now I don't think twice about using them. Although I still occasionally use one she doesn't understand.

My wife's new job requires contact with customers. She just started last week. She's been very nervous about her English writing skills, and this thread gave me a good idea. I told her to copy down every thing she has to write to customers, and bring it home. We'll then go over how she wrote it, and I'll make corrections where she's writing English words, but phrasing it like her native language. She wants her writing to look like she's a native English speaker. And I'll admit, there are times she phrasing things very differently than a native speaker will. It is totally understandable, but just uses a lot more words than are really required, or strangely worded.

[oohpartiv 484]

When first talking with my wife, I also avoided contractions and sayings. Now I don't think twice about using them. Although I still occasionally use one she doesn't understand.

My wife's new job requires contact with customers. She just started last week. She's been very nervous about her English writing skills, and this thread gave me a good idea. I told her to copy down every thing she has to write to customers, and bring it home. We'll then go over how she wrote it, and I'll make corrections where she's writing English words, but phrasing it like her native language. She wants her writing to look like she's a native English speaker. And I'll admit, there are times she phrasing things very differently than a native speaker will. It is totally understandable, but just uses a lot more words than are really required, or strangely worded.

I can DEFINITELY relate here. My husband does that a lot. I understand what he wants to say, but it's not the right way to say it. He'll say he "has hunger" instead of "is hungry" or he'll say "who" instead of "how" (I think this is more of a pronunciation problem). The other day he was talking to my Mom and asked her who she was in the middle of the conversation. She was like "huh?" and I had to explain the who/how confusion.