Language at home? Which one?

[Lija 0]

Wow! Did I open Pandora's Box with this thread? There are so many of you out there who seem to communicate in different lamguages in different ways. . .

A few replies back, someone here mentioned that there was a difference in Puerto Rican and some other dialect (Spanish). Different dialects?? OOoooooooooooh, yes! I learned the vast majority of Spanish when I lived in Mexico. They also used a lot of slang there. Further, as a police officer, I learned even more, but it was primarily street Spanish. In the beginning, I could hear my college-educated wife grinding her teeth when I would speak to her. I recall once while we were together in Bogota, we were strolling along the street and happened to pass this extraordinarily beautiful young Colombian girl. I commented to L (only my fiancee at the time), "Mira esa chica. . . que chula!" L turned to me, eyes wide and a giggle in her throat, and in Spanish said, "She's so WHAT?" Well. . to me, having learned the Spanish if Mexico, "chula" meant "cute" or "pretty". I told this to L. but she only laughed harder. She said, "Do you know what a "chulo" or "chulo" is here in Bogota?" No, I said, I didn't. "It is," she said, "A buzzard." Hmmm. . . I had called the young girl a buzzard. How very fortunate the young girl on the street in Bogota did not hear me. I would have feared an International Incident of massive proportions.

The point is, even when a couple is better than fluent in the same language, there are STILL misunderstandings; misread from body language; a perceived bit of sarcasm when there really wasn't any; a misinterpreted phrase, a misinterpreted deed; the list goes on. Therefore, when we couples are together trying to build a life but with different cultures and different languages, the problems multiply tenfold (or more).

Therefore, to all of you new (or semi-new) couples of different languages out there, you are America's future, please be patient and understanding with one another. Thousands. . . no. . . MILIONS of other couples like us have gone before and have succeeded and have gone on to do good or even great things here. God saw fit that we should meet our respective mates the way we did. May each and every one of you give all you have to one another and meet with happiness and great success!

Lija

[Heartland 0]

If your spouse isnt good with english and lives here in the US, I suggest you mostly speak to her in English as she has to become proficient with it to go thru daily life....

with children I will speak english mostly to our daughter and any future children, and he wants to speak mostly arabic his native language to her so she retains it.

as for arguments... go with the flow LOL making up is what counts!!

Wendy http://www.freewebs.com/mrs_odeh/ * live * Laugh * Learn

Hmmmmmm. . . another circumstance that rears its controversial head with our immigrant/American relationships, in addition to the many that face any new marriage, is that of language.

I noted this subject was addressed in a few places throughout the Forum, but I’m not altogether sure it was soundly discussed. Has anyone ever tried to carry on a marital dispute in Spanish? Or German? Not as easy as you think! For the most part, most of us are probably lucky in this department; our partner in the other country either speaks English as a cultural norm (i.e., England, Australia, Ireland, Canada, etc., etc.) or, they are from a country which has stressed the English Language in their education system (Germany, for example) or, for a multitude of other reasons, our chosen mate is already fluent in English.

But what of those not fluent in English? I mean, I am fluent obviously, but my wonderful wife is not. I wrote of this once in the forum and suggestions were made “for her to begin studying English while she was awaiting the much coveted K-1 visa.” I suggested this to my betrothed in Bogotá at the time, but she informed me that in Colombia, English lessons are terribly expensive and the nearest location of an English school was quite far from where she lived, through a rather unsavory area.

Now, let’s say that actual fluency in any given language is from 0 to 100 percent; the 100 per cent being one who has a college degree and speaks his/her language flawlessly; the 0 percent being one doesn’t know a single word of the language (that would be me with say. . . Urdu or Farsi). In Spanish, I would rate myself perhaps in the realm of 85 to 90 percent, so my wife and I can communicate very well. I have heard American couples say things like, “Oh! As her American husband, you can speak English with her all the time and she will learn quickly!” WRONG! Thank you for playing, doesn’t work that way. Whether folks realize it or not, who speaks which language doesn’t matter one bit; there are still the common marital problems to deal with and communicating to be. . . communicated. Like any marriage. So, we speak primarily Spanish in our home. However, we select certain times when I will speak only English, but I. . speak. . slowly. . and. . clearly. (Please don’t shout at them. . . they’re not hard of hearing, they simply cannot understand). I also enrolled her in English classes here, which she is doing very well at. She has learned by leaps and bounds, but. . . she still prefers to speak Spanish. My Spanish has improved immensely but that does her ill will with her English.

So who learns which language first? How does one adequately communicate all those differences that arise frequently in a marriage? Relationships have unraveled and ended, marriages have been destroyed and major wars started. . . all because of “malententidos”—misunderstandings. Because statements were misinterpreted. Lord knows, there are a substantial amount of problems even among couples speaking the same language fluently, from the same country, from the same hometown. But we, who have chosen a lifelong mate way outside our known realm, the other side of the world, with another language. THAT gets interesting.

My first observation is, that if both you and your selected partner are able only to communicate in a “Me Tarzan, you Jane”, sort of mode, you are in for a VERY interesting few years ahead of you, I don’t care HOW well suited you are for one another. Secondly, assuming that at least ONE of you is fluent in the other’s language, USE that language until you are more or less accustomed to one another’s presence in your life. By all means, have your chosen one begin attending English classes ASAP, and use English most of the time with them at home, even if they only pick up on 20 or 30 per cent of what you are saying; this way, they will begin to learn the “rhythm” of English. But for the meantime, conduct those more vital affairs of a new marriage in the common language; German, Spanish, French, Russian, Yiddish, whatever.

And above all, patience. . . patience. . . PATIENCE!!

Lija

[bostonparis 0]

My SO speaks fluent English. I speak very little French. Disappointing to me and to him - he loves my American accent when I try to speak French. It's a very hard language for me to learn. He wants to know why I don't speak French with him. I tell him, "Because the car is green and the cat is is the garden aren't very stimulating conversations." And that's what I've learned so far. Well, perhaps a little more than that, but not much.

When we were at his parents' house for Christmas, by the end of the day I was exhausted from trying to understand what everyone was saying!

[SoL. 0]

My situation is trickier. I am brazilian and am fluent in Portuguese and English. Luis is puertorican and he's fluent in Spanish and English. We're living in Puerto Rico so the language here is Spanish. I'm the one who has to learn it but since I have a hard time understand what's being sad Luis talks in English to me, which is not helping my learning by one bit.

I try to speak Spanish and of course it comes off weak and wrong but I'm learning so in the end we end up in a messy convo where I use Portuguese words 'cus I didn't know it was different in Spanish, ask stuff in English to be able to say them in Spanish, and Luis answers stuff half in English half in Spanish. It's a mess, really.

It does seem like a mess...

But (and I know many Brazilians here have said otherwise) Portuguese from Brazil is pretty similar to Spanish, so it'd be easier for you to catch on the Spanish... Good luck... and again... the key word is patience...

Well, here's the thing, puertoricans have a specially difficult accent and A LOT of slangs. It's too hard to catch what they're saying. It will take me longer than I thought, I believe, to feel comfortable in puertorican spanish.

I was going to mention this when I replied to your previous post. But I thought it might be politically incorrect..

Even spanish speaking people have trouble sometimes understanding the Puertorrican spanish...

And it does have to do a lot with the accent, and the fact that they use a lot of americanized words?? I totally hear ya...

But hang in there... soon you'll be talking purro too... they are very warm people though...

This is a great topic.

OK, I am puertorrican and have to admit that we do have a ton of slang when we speak. I have friends from South America and when I get in a roll they are like ¿Qué??? And it's because of our slang, I forget and start speaking my boricua spanish LOL. And, yes, we have taken English words and made them part of our language and even made verbs, like "parisear" (to party) "parquear el carro" (to park the car) "tripiar" and so on... Plus we speak veeeery fast. Just listen to a reggaetón song, those are pure slang...

My Fiancé is Dutch but we speak English, he is fluent. But at my house, me and my kids speak puertorrican. He is trying to learn Spanish and we hope he can understand my family when we visit this year as my mother doesn't speak English, but my brothers do.

[Ladylethal 12]

Your husband knows my pain then.

Edited January 2, 2007 by Luis&Laura

['my_destiny' 0]

when my fiance went here in Philippines, we speak in english so that he can understand what we are talking (me, my family, friends) in front of him. But if my sisters cant say it in english, I just translated it to him. I also taught him some our native language which is Tagalog. I also sent him a dictionary so that he can study a little for those basic words we use everyday here in the Philippines.

[KarenCee 3]

My husband's first language is French but you wouldn't know it...he's so fluent with English and has no accent. However, I do want him to teach our daughter French. She is 7 and if he could start now, I feel she would pick it up a lot better than I am doing. This would also help her (I think) with Spanish at some point. At home, we speak English. He speaks French to his mom when she calls, or when other members of his family call. It's a beautiful language and I hope to learn it enough to converse fairly well when we eventually move to Canada.

[casechopper 0]

We speak spanish at home because I don't have the patience to try to wait for Lili to understand me in english ;-)

Her english has improved alot in the last few months, more through her talking with my family and watching tv then learning much from me. I learned spanish from her and I think it's easier for me to learn a new language then to try to teach English.

Our daughter will learn Spanish, English and possibly German if I have it down good enough before she is too big.

My wife would like me to talk to her in English but I feel weird talking to her in English when we've always talket in Spanish.

Sam

[lizroxy24 0]

We speak primarily spanish at home. Using the origional poster's scale my Spanish is at about a 90 and I use it all day at work anyway so I feel comfortable enough to express my feelings and frustrations to my husband in Spanish. His English has improved greatly over the past year that he has been here but is still at about a 50. We ocassionally have the goal of speaking more English at home to help him learn quicker but it generally only lasts an hour or so. His work and school are primarily in English and I can tell at the end of the day a lot of times he is to tired to think in English anymore. I remember how exhausting it was when I first learned Spanish and sometimes you just need a break to be able to express yourself without thinking so hard.

When we do get on an English kick, what seems to work best is to say "we are going to spend the evening just speaking English" and that seems to be a more workable goal and turns it into kind of a game. It's a trick I learned from a friend who's mom raised her billingual in German, they would have "German game time" where for an afternoon they would just speak in German. I was a member of a billingual families list serve a couple years ago and from that it gave me a lot of ideas I hope to use with my own children to help them be billingual. We are expecting our first child next month and I don't know if I will speak to her primarily in Spanish or trade off. I expect my husband to speak to her only in Spanish and I would support that compleatly.

[lucyrich 20]

We speak Spanglish at home.

We started out 100% Spanish, since she knew no English at first. When her English got good enough to carry on a conversation, we switched to 90% or so English, in order to accelerate progress in her English learning. It's HARD to change old habits and switch languages, even if you're switching back to your own native language! Now, with a baby in the home who hasn't yet learned to speak in any language, we're switching back to a bit more Spanish, because we want our child to grow up fluently bilingual. Ideally, our daughter would hear only my English and only her Spanish, in order to hear only proper pronunciation. But it's not going to be quite ideal.

If we want to be 100% certain the other understands completely, we'll each speak in the other's native language. If we want to say something fast and simple, and/or don't mind the possibility of having to repeat or explain, we'll each use our own native language.

When we're around other people, our language choice depends on whether we want our conversation to be private or not (and on what language(s) the other people understand).

[Girona40 0]

I was brought up in an English-speaking home. When I came to America I found that my American husband spoke some other dialect of English, that I didn't understand!

Things he says that I don't quite get the jist of:-

Bummer, whatever, zuccini, egg plant, rudabega, pocket-book, pants!!!

Things I say he doesn't get:-

Rubbish, swede, knickers, dosh, taking the piss!

We both claim to speak English, but both versions are totally different! lol

[pinac 0]

My wife (the american) mother tongue is french.

We speak english about 70% of the time, french about 25% and franglais the rest.

As with anything these number shift over time, and after a couple of years in Texas we are noticing more and more spanish slipping into the mix as well.

[Dr. Obvious 49]

Right now in Germany, the house language is English. My husband speaks to our daughter in German, but mostly with me he uses English unless we are being stupid or he can't figure out exactly how he wants to say what he wants to say in English (his English is excellent though and it doesn't happen often). Oddly enough, during our visit to the US last week we spoke more German to each other in three weeks than we have in six years of consistent conversation. It seemed oddly natural to switch and we went with it (my German is pretty good). When we move, it looks like we will be making German our house language for most intents and purposes.

[The_dip_sticks 0]

To make the long story short in our case.... my husband and I both speak English because we were both born in English speaking countries. Both his parents and mine speak a bit of English but not too much. That means that our kids will have to learn English, Urdu and Spanish in order to communicate with family members. In my case even though I was born here my parents would not allow English at home before we started pre school because they wanted us to learn Spanish fluently. It was not until we got to kindergarten that we got bombarded with another language. The good thing is that by that time, we were already fluent in one language and being young our brains had the ability to absorb the second language with out difficulty because our brains were still in the sponge learning stage, where everything comes naturally. You don’t know how you learn it you just do because you are exposed to it. I am grateful to my parents for what they did because knowing two languages has been a great advantage. I want my kids have this same advantage knowing Spanish and Urdu. My only dilemma is thinking that this will inflict an identity crisis.

I say this out of experience because growing up between two worlds is a bit challenging. At times you feel like you don’t belong any where. In Mexico I would here comments like oh you don’t understand your not a real Mexican you were born in the US your a "Gringo" aka American. Yet here being children of first generation immigrants we were viewed as just "Mexicans". Even after correcting people and telling them “hello I was born here I am American”, they still called me derogatory names such as "wetback”, “spick” beaner” and so on. Too all this I just say that people are ignorant. Personally I wonder if my kids will have a hard time with identity especially when they grow up exposed to four different cultures and languages ( American, British, Mexican and Pakistani/Afghani)

[SoL. 0]

To make the long story short in our case.... my husband and I both speak English because we were both born in English speaking countries. Both his parents and mine speak a bit of English but not too much. That means that our kids will have to learn English, Urdu and Spanish in order to communicate with family members. In my case even though I was born here my parents would not allow English at home before we started pre school because they wanted us to learn Spanish fluently. It was not until we got to kindergarten that we got bombarded with another language. The good thing is that by that time, we were already fluent in one language and being young our brains had the ability to absorb the second language with out difficulty because our brains were still in the sponge learning stage, where everything comes naturally. You don’t know how you learn it you just do because you are exposed to it. I am grateful to my parents for what they did because knowing two languages has been a great advantage. I want my kids have this same advantage knowing Spanish and Urdu. My only dilemma is thinking that this will inflict an identity crisis.

I say this out of experience because growing up between two worlds is a bit challenging. At times you feel like you don’t belong any where. In Mexico I would here comments like oh you don’t understand your not a real Mexican you were born in the US your a "Gringo" aka American. Yet here being children of first generation immigrants we were viewed as just "Mexicans". Even after correcting people and telling them “hello I was born here I am American”, they still called me derogatory names such as "wetback”, “spick” beaner” and so on. Too all this I just say that people are ignorant. Personally I wonder if my kids will have a hard time with identity especially when they grow up exposed to four different cultures and languages ( American, British, Mexican and Pakistani/Afghani)

I have met many here that are born from first generation immigrants and they don't know any Spanish/other language because that was a "wrong and shameful" language or "el lenguaje malo". For some of them their parent's Spanish was much better than their English but they decided not to teach them so they wouldn't suffer discrimination and now you have a lot of kids/teenagers/grown ups that wish their parents would have tought them the "other" language. Discrimination doesn't come from knowing more languages, it comes from ignorant people.

I am a true believer on teaching children those languages that connects them with their roots. When they grow up, if they decide to visit those countries, they can communicate. Everytime I see those parents that don't want to share their native languages makes me sad. In my house there is no English spoken with my kids, Spanish only. They have all day to speak English @ school.

Kudos to your parents and for you for teaching your kids in the future those languages. I don't think they would suffer an identity problem, IMO I think they would be happy to know more about their roots. Knowing more languages is always an advantage.