Bilingual House

[LanguageDilemma]

If you have a house where one parent speaks English only, and the other parent speaks both fluent English and is first language in another language, how do you use them round the house?

If the English only parent is in the room, does the other parent switch to English, or does that parent refuse to use any language other than their first language, even though this means the English parent frequently feels isolated within their own house?

My first language is English. DH is welsh. He will speak to kids in either language. Kids are fluent in both. I can understand a lot of welsh though so am able to follow the chat (I reply in English). I’m happy for him to speak as much welsh as possible for me to learn and we live in wales so I appreciate is probably different situation to you. Dh will speak English to me and if we were playing a board game all together it would be in English

Why dont you learn the language?

We, like all the dual language couples we know, continue to speak the language we spoke together before the children were born when directly addressing one another, unless someone who doesn’t understand that language is in the house.
I have become fluent in the other language over the last five years through overhearing what is being said, though. You don’t need a translation or to understand every word, just observe and let your brain take it in. But if the other person is a prick this mightn’t work as well.

He’s using language to be controlling and abusive

the solution is not for you to learn the language

the solution is for you to leave an abusivr relationship

the language is a red herring

It kinda sounds as if the language issue is not really the issue here.

If he comes home, where he has not been all day, and starts issuing instructions to the kids that you do not understand and refuses to tell you what he has said, that is not a language problem -- that's very weird behaviour, potentially crap parenting and not great for the children, and borders on bullying you. Having you with his parents and you not being able to follow is terrible hospitality.

On a practical level, if you put a phone near him speaking to pick up his voice can you get it to translate for you? Or Alexa might do it? (I'm not sure if the tech is quite there yet for this.)

What part of the op do many of you not understand that she has tried very hard to learn then language?

We have Russian family and friends and it’s not always easy to just learn a language especially as you get older. The difference being that all the Russians we know if they have conversed in Russian will
immediately translate in English so that no one is left out.

I have tried. I've used apps, his Mum has taught me bits, the children help - I've never been able to find face to face lessons locally for this language.

They use a very local dialect as well, some of the stuff his Mum has taught me isn't in the apps or formal taught language, so I have no idea how I'm supposed to pick that up if he won't tell me what all the words mean. Once he's up to speed, it's impossible to pick out words

At least unlike the Bengali English speaker you can presumably go to classes. That poor woman was not allowed outside!

If I have understood that she was Bengali and did not speak the language then that was down to her parents. What where they thinking???

I am afraid he is on a power trip:(

I speak English and another European language to my kids. DH understands my language now, because we live in this country, but it was hard for him at at the start.
He speaks english and his mother tongue (asian language) to them. When he speaks his mother tongue i dont really understand much. I was able to follow it a bit at the beginning.. but its getting more advanced now and i cant keep up.
I dont really mind though and im glad they are learning the language. He does translate for me when i ask though, because he knows how it feels.

With his family, they all speak english perfectly. But when they are together then its more natural to speak the mother tongue and they sometimes forget me there too. I think thats normal. Just keep tapping him on the shoulder asking for translation

He's being a knob.
Yes, maybe you should have learned the language - by going to a class if available, online lessons, tutoring from some other speaker of the language, books etc,
However, some languages are notoriously difficult - if it's not related to English in any way or if there's a different script involved, that makes it even harder. Norwegian, Dutch, German shouldn't be too difficult to pick up - once you get past the basics you can understand more and more because they are logical and so many words are common to English. French, Spanish - also ok to learn.
Mandarin, Arabic etc - not easy.

The reason I say he is being a knob is because he is deliberately speaking fast and not translating. He should at least have adjusted his speed a bit from the very beginning so that you had more of a chance to understand and to build up your own fluency. He's done it deliberately to be able to exclude you from conversations he is having with the children.

I moved to another country 13 years ago. I could speak the language quite well but moved to an area with a deep dialect which was very difficult. People were really nice and accommodating - they spoke a bit more slowly and tried to use the standard version of the language (which is quite hard for them as they are so used to dialect) and also took time to help me learn dialect words by translating for me or simply teaching me new words. The dialect isn't written down so you can't just get a book and learn.

The fact that your 'D'H has made no effort whatsoever suggests he is doing this deliberately.

Fundamentally, you need to parent together and present a united front. You are in the UK and he speaks English. That means the language you speak between you as parents needs to be English. He should not be effectively excluding you by exclusively speaking his own native language.

I get that he may find it hard work to speak to you in English then to the children in his language, but that's how it needs to be to work.

You need to speak with him and explain why what he is doing is wrong. It's undermining you and fundamentally shows a lack of respect for you as his wife and the mother of his children.

The alternative is you all speak English at home and have done with it.

That’s really shit.

Not everyone is good with languages! Learning as an adult is very HARD. My DH speaks a different language, I have had years and years of weekly lessons but I'll just never, ever be fluent, I just can't do it. On top of work and kids and life, it's too much for my brain to cope with, the intracacies of the grammar and the pronounciation, I can't grasp, I just can't it's frustrating but some people aren't good at maths/sports/geography.....languages!

OP I went through years of feeling excluded at family events and my resentment grew and grew. It's so bloody rude! MIL and FIL aren't around anymore so I don't have to cope with that anymore, but I should've told them how rude they were. They weren't interested in me or the kids so we had a crap relationship but I still should've told them, at family events, how crap it was for me. If you don't tell them they won't change.

I totally get you, my DH is similar and the annoying way we deal with it is that I basically ask him to repeat in English. Our home is often fraught.

to be able to pick out words, you need to get really used to hearing the language. Are there any ressources around in your H’s language, or better yet, in his specific dialect? Movies, tv shows, radio/podcasts? Just let it wash over you until you’re really hearing all the different sounds clearly. - you should start being able to pick out words you know. Then is there anything written about this language’s (or better yet, this specific dialect’s) phonology? Phonology is the sound system of a language - so all the individual sounds or phonemes that make up words, but also prosody, or the rhythm and pitch changes that the language uses. Wikipedia is an excellent place to start on this. Just type the name of the language plus the word ´phonology’ and you should find a page if there is one. Learning about the language from a linguistic point of view can help.
It sounds like your husband has lost patience with waiting for you to master the language and is not treating you with contempt. Which is crap and unhelpful. If you’ve had enough and are being badly treated then you could leave him. You really won’t be able to persuade him to speak English to his own kids if it’s important to him to pass on his first language and it’s unreasonable to ask for that.

wer a trilingual family but we all speak each language so none of the problems you have posted. When DT’s were born, DH spoke to them in French and I, Flemish. We were living in London so DT’s learnt English (eventually!) at nursery. English isn’t spoken at home unless we have visitors who only speak English.

That should say ´and is now treating you with contempt’

I hear the language all the time. All evening, all weekend. I'm well used to how it sounds, I know many many words, if I try hard I can put together basic sentences, I can understand everything that goes on around basic family life. I can understand him asking the kids what they want for tea, to tidy up, tell them where they've left things. It's when it gets to casual conversation and the language gets more abstract and complex as the children get older, that I'm finding it impossible to follow.

I often ask him to repeat in English and after a while he just starts shouting and saying that I shouldn't be asking him and I should just learn. But offers no help to learn. I work full time, I'm not a natural linguist, I'm so tired all the time and have very little free time. If he won't help, why should I spend my precious time learning?

OMG. That's awful.
DH speaks in his native tongue to the kids, but will repeat in English, and then again in his language, if any of us don't get it.
Visits with inlaws are tough - especially as DHs grandmother in her old age now only communicates in a further dialect that DH struggles with, but I generally just roll with it - we only see them 2 or 3 times a year, and I generally duck out of one visit.

Sorry, started writing this an hour ago. Going to post, and then see how much the thread has changed while I've been away...

I've been in this situation except with no kids. Polish ex used to invite family and friends over all the time, or we'd go over to Poland, and I'd just be sat there like an awkward spare part. Particularly bad visiting his parents and having big family meals and I'd literally be sat there for hours and hours with nobody talking to me (they all spoke English so while I wouldn't have expected them to speak it just for my sake all the time at least a hello/how's work going/how's life etc would have been nice). I tried to learn but every time I tried to converse with my basic knowledge they would shush me because apparently it was annoying trying to understand me.

Note he is my ex.

Being bilingual doesn’t make you a natural language teacher, or naturally empathetic either. If you want to get over this with your marriage intact you need to find someone else to teach you and learn the grammar and spend time learning a wider range of vocabulary. It takes a huge amount of time and effort to learn a language and to get up to a level where you can converse relatively freely about lots of things. Your self esteem has probably taking a battering because if his behavior too. But from his point of view he’s just never going to get why it’s hard and why you don’t understand him despite how long you’ve been learning. Your MIL sounds more helpful.

I think reading back on the responses a lot of the problem is his lack of empathy around the fact that learning a second language as an adult to fluency is really really hard. And he resents me for not being good enough.

There is a long history of critical behaviour and him deeming me not good enough at various things and this feels like just another stick but one where he is totally in the right to insist that I learn and have no right to feel left out or isolated as it's all my fault for not learning.

It's not a language that has Germanic or Latin roots, so the grammar etc are all totally non intuitive to me. It does use the same alphabet though, which sort of helps

Like other PPs have said it sounds like there's other issues in the relationship.

We're a bilingual household. My DH exclusively speaks to the kids in his native tongue as it's the best way to bring them up bilingually. But I speak the language fluently (background in another language so I find it quite easy) . However when we first met I didn't speak a word and his friends and family didn't speak much English . DH was hyper aware though and was always on hand to translate for me.

Did he use to speak English to you? I'm struggling to understand how you ever got together! If he used to and stopped when you had kids then he needs to reassess his aporoach as it sounds like he's undermining your relationship. I speak English to my kids and dh speaks Italian but we both understand both- although he doesn't always listen "in English". 🙄

I’m going to PM you to see if I can find any language specific ressources for you OP.