"The language of love" - Learning SO's native language

elenetxu · February 2012

Check this out: http://video.today.msnbc.msn.com/today/46298440/#46298440

What do you all think? Do you and your SO speak the same native language? I thought it was lucky for these couples that they each seemed to share a non-native language which they communicated in.

DH is Spanish/Basque and I'm American. We speak in Spanish, but he's (slowly but surely) learning English. I wish I had more patience when I get home from school to teach him English. Unfortunately, when I get home from teaching the last thing I want to do is teach more.

stever · February 2012

Interesting. DH and I are both native English speakers, and hooray for that! I dated one guy who didn't speak much English so we had to communicate through my dodgy French. Bad news.

ktkl09 · February 2012

DH is a native French speaker and I have learned his language. He appreciates that I've learned French and his family does too. He knew English when we met, not fluent and it has definitely improved since we began dating.

We speak English and French to each other, we go through phrases with which language we speak. We've been speaking English lately, possibly because I was in the US for three weeks not speaking any French. We should probably speak more French since my classes start again in two weeks (in exclusively French).

kelly321 · February 2012

Didn't click on the link (I'm just checking in one last time before heading to bed), but I can at least answer the question on language. :-)

DH's English is good, my German is better, and we pretty much always spoke German with each other. That is slowly changing now that DD is here, though. I always speak English with her and sometimes speak English with him when she's around. The goal is for me to always speak English and him to always speak German when the kid(s) are around.

chapinito32 · February 2012

DH is a native Spanish speaker and I'm a native English speaker. Luckily my Spanish and his English are at about the same level (non-native fluency). We usually use some strange form of spanglish together--or mostly Spanish when we're with Spanish-speaking friends or mostly English when we're with friends from his school, it just depends on the setting. We've decided that eventually when we have children we'll speak the non-native language exclusively (i.e. in the U.S. we'll speak only Spanish with the kids; if we end up in Latin America we'll speak only English with the kids... if we end up somewhere else the jury's still out :-) ).

allibally · February 2012

I'm a native English speaker and DH is a native German speaker. Our common language is English. His is really good and he mimics a pretty good american accent. Except right now it's weird because his dad's in town so he's speaking a lot of German but every time DH has been speaking English he sounds like he's talk with a Russian accent. He never sounds like that normally even when we in Zurich. It's driving me crazy.

I'm working on learning German. Before I moved to Switzerland I took two semesters of German at college. Then once I got there I didn't really learn to much. I did pick up a little. We were only able to afford one month of language lessons over there. Which sucked but I'm glad we saved money instead since we knew we were moving in a year. We speak a mix at home now and I understand pretty well. I'm taking an online class and hope to do some classroom work eventually too.

tdkandcjc · February 2012

I've made the sacrifice and effort to learn dh's native language and he mine.

I'm proud to say I'm nearly fluent in Australian. However, we currently don't speak it much since we live over here in the US but it's pretty easy to flip and speak Australian when we're over there. He now speaks American nearly fluently, though there are times i have to translate a few words that he still says in Australian. (And I have quite a few that creep into my everyday language as well).

ebartzen · February 2012

I had started studying Italian before I met DH, and have taken some courses since we've been together to try and improve. But his English is way better (given that we live and work in English-speaking environments), so we almost always speak English together. He'll speak Italian to the kids when we have them, of course.

I do have to say, though, that I LOVE being able to communicate in public or around other people without them knowing what we're saying. It's so convenient when you want to talk about someone or discuss leaving a party early Stick out tongue . I get frustrated when I'm visiting my family and can't do the same with them.

MouseInLux · February 2012

DH's first language is Luxembourgish, mine is English. We speak English together, he speaks Lux to E and I speak English to her,

I'm working on learning Lux but A) it's hard to learn because so many people here don't speak it an the classes are not very good and hard to find (I know it's strange).

I can't speak Lux but badly so I default to English around our friends, and speak Lux to DH's parents and our friends kids as they haven't gotten to English at school.

LadyMadrid08 · February 2012

H's first language is Spanish, my first language is English and we speak English only together. Now that babyMadrid is here H speaks Spanish to her and I speak English to her. Around his family we speak mostly in Spanish, but at home it's always English. I think since we got to know each other in English it's difficult for us to switch back and forth. Probably mostly my fault, but it is what it is now.