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Would you find it disrespectful? | ||
Tags: Relationship | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Rykketid Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 4832 days ago 88 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: French | Message 1 of 61 15 July 2012 at 5:55pm | IP Logged |
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Imagine this scenario:
you are in a relationship with a person whose native language is not the same as yours. You speak his/her language well and that's the language you use to communicate. Instead your partner doesn't speak yours. Moreover, he/she shows no signs whatsoever of interest towards your language and does no efforts to learn a bit of it, even just the basic things. How would you react and what would you do? Would you tell him/her openly that you want him/her to study your language? And if he/she starts learning it but in a very superficial and unethusiastic way, how would you feel? (Not that I'm really in this situation, it's just out of curiosity) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
 Mae Trilingual Octoglot Pro Member Germany Joined 4990 days ago 299 posts - 499 votes Speaks: German*, SpanishC2*, Swiss-German*, FrenchC2, EnglishC2, ItalianB2, Dutch, Portuguese Studies: Russian, Swedish Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 61 15 July 2012 at 6:00pm | IP Logged |
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In such a case, I wouldn't be in a relationship with that person. Why do so, if he/she
doesn't show any interest in the language you speak, the culture you identify with, etc.? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 3 of 61 15 July 2012 at 6:02pm | IP Logged |
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Been in that position, ended up learning French better than she learned Dutch (although
we spoke English), even learned a few words of Romanian and Hebrew. She did speak some Dutch already but wasn't too interested in practicing. We're no longer together so X) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| prz_ Tetraglot Senior Member Poland last.fm/user/prz_rul Joined 4858 days ago 890 posts - 1190 votes Speaks: Polish*, English, Bulgarian, Croatian Studies: Slovenian, Macedonian, Persian, Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Swedish, German, Italian, Armenian, Kurdish | Message 4 of 61 15 July 2012 at 6:04pm | IP Logged |
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That's how the relationship between my Polish aunt and Italian uncle looks like. Shame for him. I can't imagine situation like that - it's like ignoring the part of a person.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5129 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 5 of 61 15 July 2012 at 6:56pm | IP Logged |
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I suppose it depends on circumstances.
My ex-wife and I only spoke Spanish to each other. While we lived in Mexico, she had no desire (or need) to learn English. When we moved to the US, she began learning English and ended up learning it to a fairly high level, because she needed it to live independently outside our house. We still only spoke Spanish at home, though. Had we not moved to the US, she wouldn't have learned English. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 15 July 2012 at 6:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6902 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 6 of 61 15 July 2012 at 7:21pm | IP Logged |
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I guess I could not be in a relationship with such a person as my language and culture
are an important part of me. Furthermore, I would be afraid that my desire to raise the child in my language (i.e. bilingually) would not be understood. No idea what I would do, though, it would depend on how much I would be in love with this person... I know a few couples like that but they usually make an effort to show at least some interest and learn a few basic words and phrases. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 61 15 July 2012 at 7:57pm | IP Logged |
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In the beginnings or first few months, I wouldn't care. But if I was with the person for
longer and wanted to introduce him to my family (vast majority of which are monolingual), I would expect him to learn. No need to be perfect, just to try and to show he cares so much that he wants to understand my family. My friends usually speak more or less good English, many of them one more language as well, but I probably wouldn't be comfortable to take someone regularily among them if it meant whole company would have to speak non- native language, including those who are less comfortable with it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4532 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 61 15 July 2012 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
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I just asked my wife, who I am happily married to, and to whom I can only speak rudimentary German to, and she says she doesn't feel disrespected.
I think the point is that anything less than fluency really doesn't make much difference in a relationship. She doesn't care if I don't know how to order coffee, or say thank you, or give basic directions etc (I can do all these things, but it's irrelevant to our level of communication). I am learning German, for various reasons, and in part to learn her culture better, but I (and she) doubts that we'll be able to communicate our feelings/thoughts/etc better if I speak fluent German. Her English is at an almost native level and it's hard to imagine we'll be able to say anything more to each other no matter how good I speak German. Edited by patrickwilken on 15 July 2012 at 8:07pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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