Do you believe that it really can work good as a relationsheep, I mean comunication betwen partners is already not easy when both share the same language and when it cames from totally different languages…
I have seen many couples and most of then say the same they comunication are terrible.
let me know your opinion
I think that, if both partners are committed to learn the other’s language (or to improve it), communication problems can be overcome.
For my part, one of my goals is to marry a woman coming from another country and speaking another native language, in order to have bi- or trilingual children!
By the way, what do you mean with TOTALLY different languages? What language pairs do you consider as being TOTALLY different?
My wife’s first language is different from mine, but my English is near-native, so there is no communication problem. She also speaks French fluently. Our kids are indeed bilingual. To me, communication is not as much a problem as acceptance of the other’s culture and language. If my wife didn’t completely agree that my culture and language are as important as hers, I doubt the relationship could have ever worked. That’s why I’d be worried about relationships were one of the partners is not learning or doesn’t speak the other’s language.
To me a marriage is a relationship between individuals and not cultures. I know many successful marriages where spouses do not try to learn the other’s language.
I feel we should learn the languages we are interested in. Having a spouse who spoke a certain language (which might be Finnish, or Latvian, Georgian, or Laotian) may be a powerful motivator, but then again it may not. It might also depend on the intrinsic interest of that language for the spouse.
Steve is probably right. I was going by my own personal experience – my wife didn’t know any French when I first met her, and had she not been motivated to learn it, I’m not sure I’d have had as much respect for her. In our relationship, in the environment we were in, it was a must. Had she spoken any other language, I’d have learned it out of respect for her and her family. Then again, I love languages, so this may not be everyone else’s opinion.
My girlfriend is Ossetian-Russian and we use english as common language… We don’t experience any particular problem. I started learning Russian last year and she also decided to learn French (my first language).
For us it’s a great motivator to learn faster. I know that thanks to her I will speak a good Russian way faster than if I had to do everything on my own. I do belive it will be the same for her too.
I’ve already been in this situation in the past as I had a relationship with a Hungarian women for a while, and at the time I didn’t speak a word of Hungarian so we used Italian as common language.
I remember that this relationship helped me to develop my knowledge faster since I had to do efforts everyday to communicate and make myself understood.
I don’t think there is any problem in a relationship about using a different language if people already know enough to express common ideas. I am convinced the situation is even very beneficial when it comes to develop natural fluency.