To feel annoyed English will never become the main language in DP's life...

[chicoingles]

Hi there,

My DP is Spanish and would say she was fluent in English (very good English accent and only noticeable she is foreign when she pronounces certain words, but you couldn't guess she was Spanish at all) but when she gets angry/is tired tends to switch to Spanish. We have been together for 7 years now and it has always been like this, although we did spend the first 4 years of our relationship mainly speaking in Spanish, whereas now we mainly speak English. I do have have a degree in Spanish but feel our relationship works better in English. AIBU thinking English will never become totally natural for her? Would be very interested in hearing the opinions of any foreign ladies who have an English DP.

why is it a wind up?

it is a ridiculous thing to be "annoyed" about, is what it is

[boggle]

why should she effectively give up her language because you think she ought to?

English is my husband's third language.

For many years he would talk to me in one of his other two when tired. He thought in his primary language and then had to translate it in his head before speaking.

Some years ago he woke me up and said that he'd just had his first dream in English!

Now he thinks and dreams in english and has to translate in his head into his other languages.

I would never ever EVER think that he ought to. As it happens, just through years of being here, it happened naturally.

I would never want to take it away from him or ask him to give it up.

Things don't work better in english. English isn't some super language that reaches the places other languages can't reach, for crying out loud.

She speaks both. Leave her alone.

I always win argument whatever the language cause Im a stroppy cow :)

The fair way is to speak one language up until lunch & the other till bed!
And I can't see how you could begrudge her marrying in her home country if you really loved her. Hope she reads these replies & has second thoughts as you sound really controlling!!!

YABVVVU and sound like an narrow-minded, controlling Little Englanderz

'It just works better'?

Sounds very controlling.

ToysForLuv - what's your native language then? I would say your written command of English is better than that of my fiancée's. I can't believe this thread has generated so much response! I know most of you have rightly criticised me, but really want I meant was that there are a lot of non-native speakers (or 'foreigners' if you prefer) who speak English to their partners ALL the time and as such their command of the English language is probably higher as a result. In the future, if/when we have kids, we will be adopting OPOL (well DP also speaks Catalan, although she would speak to them primarily in Spanish (although maybe a bit of 'catañol' too (mixture of Spanish and Catalan) and then they'd learn Catalan from the TV (even that may prove difficult seeing as we will probably still be living in England here).

Aurynne - ¿hablas con tu pareja en español entonces? Me ha hecho gracia lo de 'deja a ese cabronazo', es como si yo fuese un ogro jaja

Spaniard speaks Spanish shocker! Is this OP for real?

Little Englander mentality. Clearly you need to dump her and find an English Rose. But then you'll probably be upset about her accent.

Your weird mate. Date an English woman if you are against your present girlfriend being Spanish.

Weird and unreasonable. Lucky her for getting you......hope she wakes up and smells coffee soon.

Any previous convictions the police might know about per chance.... Rather worryingly controlling.

Dackyduddles - are you a guy by any chance? Just can't see a woman calling a guy mate tbh!

I still don't see the problem! Why do you need her to speak Spanish all the time? Even half the time? It is her native language, you are both lucky to be multi lingual, celebrate this! My DH is bilingual English/Spanish and I am learning Spanish to help him keep it, our aim is to have Spanish speaking days.

Msrisotto - that's fantastic! The thing is (and this may sound a bit strange) but I actually like English in a foreign accent, even though my DP doesn't have one at all!

Chico, how do you know they speak it "all" the time? You've said yourself you find it harder to speak Spanish when tired and people on here have given examples of different mixes of languages.

Why is how you want her to communicate more important than how she wants to communicate?

"but I actually like English in a foreign accent"

yes, it does sound strange and a bit pervy

Msrisotto - is your DH Spanish then or has he learnt Spanish, at uni say?

TheDoctrineinAllan - well for example a Polish girl at work has an English boyfriend and he doesn't know any Polish at all so obviously she will only speak in English to him. She does have an accent but again her command of English is higher than my fiancée's for example, although my fiancée's accent is much more native-like.

I think you showed your "true colours"when you stated that you speak in Spanish when you don't want anyone else to know what you are saying.

It is extremely bad manners to revert to a foreign language when there are people around who don't speak or understand the language.

I am saying this as a person who speaks fluent Spanish, Italian and English.

Dude, I'm sorry to say that you're now coming across as worryingly weird.

Is this some sort of bizarre fetish?

chicoingles Mon 17-Jun-13 22:58:39
"It's just sometimes I think there are people (say from Sweden, Netherlands, Germany etc) who have English speaking partners and always speak English to them even though it's not their native language..."

Not in this house they don't! I'm Swedish and this is a bilingual household, meaning that everybody speaks the language they happen to feel like at that particular time, both languages are valued equally and both cultures are valued equally. Because- surprise, surprise!- dh and I are equally important.

If you moved to Spain, would you expect an instant ban on your own English speaking? And if not, why not? Because you're the bloke?

His first language is English. The point is that maintaining two languages is about practice and as his partner, I fully support that and want to do the same myself. Maybe because you work with languages, you don't feel the need to practice. Fact is, you are lacking in understanding for her point of view. When you are tired you want to speak your first language, when she is tired, she wants to speak hers. Pretty simple concept unless you think your desire is more important than hers which I assume you don't?

And for the record, my English is good enough for my publishers, it is good enough for the university that lets me teach it, and it is good enough to allow me to coach my daughter for her drama exams. So I hardly think dh's gracious permission to use my native language has done me any harm.

Ugh. You sound horrible. Your poor DP.

Does she feel the same about you speaking English?

I think you are extremely odd.

Please ask your fiancé to join MN so we can tell her what a weirdo you are.

And on the technical side, what Cory said. If my (Italian) dp tried to make me always speak Italian he'd have a shovel in his face and be under the patio by now. I speak what I fucking well like, and always with great aplomb.

I'd like to think this OP has to be either a wind up, or a research project tbh, as if it's genuine it's just too bloody odd.

Okay, taking the whole bilingual thing out of it, I have a couple of questions.

I notice you keep mentioning women you know who only speak English with their partners. Why do you keep saying 'Oh your/writing/speaking is much better than my partner's.'

What is the actual problem? Are you ashamed of her or something?