to feel excluded by the use of a foreign language by family members?

[DonkeyDaddy]

My wife is bilingual. Her mother has come to stay and whilst I was sat in the kitchen sending an email and my wife was folding some clothes up, my mother-in-law walked in and started talking to my wife in their native tongue, in which they continued to chat. They are both fluent in both languages and could have flipped between the two at will. There was nobody else present other than the three of us.

I felt excluded and not especially well treated. Am I being unreasonable to object? Or am I just being sensitive (or insensitive to them)?

PorkPieandPickle Tue 11-Mar-14 11:24:40
"It would annoy me as it would make me feel uncomfortable in my own home. "

Isn't it the wife's own home? And isn't it a fair bet that she would feel uncomfortable if she was never allowed to use her own language.

"All those saying 'just learn the language' - really? As I recall from being at school, learning a new language isn't that simple, particularly when you have work and kids it is hard to make a commitment to learn anything new surely?!"

But surely this is part of the decision process when you decide to marry somebody foreign and have children with them? It's not as if the wife has sprung this on him suddenly- he must have realised she was foreign when he married her? When dh and I fell in love, he started asking me for words in my language straight away. It was part of getting to know me, wanting to understand the essential me.

What if they have children: is she to be expected never to sing a lullaby to the child in her own language, never to speak the baby language she has heard in her own childhood, never to share the jokes that used to make her laugh? And this will make her feel comfortable in her own home?

"I think this is just par for the course in a relationship across culture and language barriers. Being a bit flexible, tolerant and not take yourself too seriously will serve you well! "

YES to this.

I wonder whether there is a correlation between those who find the situation rude/not rude and those who are monoglot or polyglot?

Going only off my own experience, it has seemed to me that people who only speak one language seem more likely to be suspicious that people speaking another language may be using it to exclude or be rude about them in, regardless of whether the polyglot speaks the 'other' language being spoken.

(That's not very clear - I mean that my experience suggests that someone who speaks English and French is less likely to think that a Swahili speaker is insulting them, even though they're no more able to understand than so done who speaks English only...)

Where does the OP say its an obscure language? I can't see that the OP has come back at all yet, perhaps I read too fast.

I am with the "don't be sulky" camp. There's no reason why their conversation has to revolve around you. Would you be grumpy because they didn't speak loud enough for you to hear, or if they wandered into the garden to finish what they were saying?

Also agree with the comment on monolingual Brits being reluctant to learn another languae as if it it's really, really hard or something. In the OP's shoes I would have learned the other language. Not least so he can work out what his kids are up to when they are older. Because if they get to have a private language that Daddy can't understand, boy are they going to use that .

Beastofburden He doesn't. I said I hadn't learned DP's language as it is obscure and it was jumped on by people who couldn't understand why that should make any difference. The OP's MIL might be French for all we know .

I wonder whether there is a correlation between those who find the situation rude/not rude and those who are monoglot or polyglot?

That would be interesting, won't it? I speak (only) two languages but I love hearing people speak other language on public transport (where I live you are likely to get quite a few different ones on the bus ), especially young people. I don't know why. Perhaps it reminds me that we don't live in a monotonous world. It cheers me up. Maybe I'm odd.

Mandarin is not hard. Millions of little children speak it. My point is that all languages are hard. That's that. You need words to express everything. Foreigners, even obscure ones, don't have a restricted range of experience.

Beast, the 'obscure' language was in a post from another poster explaining why she hadn't been able to learn a language used by her family - lack of learning resources and circumstances meaning no immersion. As far as I know, the OP hasn't specified the language.

Also, speaking the same language does not mean not excluding people. The number of times I sit in utter boredom hearing English people talk about their childhood TV programmes! OMG.

OP, ever heard the expression "mother tongue" ?

This is the problem with foreign languages cause you don't know what they're saying and they could be saying nasty things or plotting world war 3! YER JUST DON@T KNOW!

Burren - I completely agree.

• with your earlier post re monoglot v polyglot attitudes.

Saw that, mrs- I was just saying that the arguments which apply to your situation might very well not apply to his. I do sympathise about learning an obscure language. Some of them are really, really hard. I only really speak European languages; if I suddenly needed to speak Korean that might test my principles

I think when ppl say, oh well, everyone in Norway can speak English, they are forgetting that it is actually very easy to learn English. For a start, our grammar is simple and there is no gender. Secondly, it is really easy for kids to be exposed to English (often American English but still) in films and music, and over the years a lot sticks. I taught English in a French Lycee for a year and there is no question the kids had far more exposure to the language that I had at their age to my languages- French and German.

But it is still true that Brits who only speak English can make an awful fuss about learning another language, even French or something

X-post with MsMischief.

I actually found standard Arabic not that hard, not compared to the appalling torture known as learning to drive, which most adults manage...

Was it Nigel Farage going on recently about feeling uncomfortable on a train heading out of London because it took several stations for English to beck e the predominant language in his carriage? Even setting aside his immigration policies, it struck me as a weird attitude? He was in London on public transport, for God's sake!

English to BECOME the predominant language. Grr.

It's arguably rude for you not to learn her language.

I think that is very rude considering your MIL can speak English, and that she is staying in your house. YANBU

Agree burren. Whereas I sit there trying to get my ear in and see if I can work out what they are saying..

it is actually truly fascinating that there are so many languages in the world. I would think there is literally nobody alive in the entire world who could actuallyspeak enough languages to make themselves understood by every other person. When you think about it, that's a really weird system for humankind to have ended up with.

no it is not rude it is normal, why should a mother and daughter have to converse in a language they may not be comfortable with or truly fluent in, just for the benefit of someone who is anyway absorbed in his laptop?

OP here's a thought - learn some of your wife's language to be 'polite'.

They were probay talking about how you don't help with the washing

actually it could be rude i remember when my ex-mil came over when the children were babies and she and my then husband were having a good old slag fest about me, i could catch about 2 words in 10.
really not nice, especially as they were talking about removing the children from me (I think)

I am bi-lingual, and am as yet unable to get my DH to show any interest in learning my 'other' language, despite being together for twenty years-he just does not want to! As we met in the UK, and we live in the UK, our family language is English. It would have been different if he had been abroad and we had met there and I had moved to be with him- I would then have expected some interest from him in the language of the country he had enticed me away from! But I think it does depend on the circumstances that you met and how she came to be here. Apologies if you have already explained this and I have missed it.

I dont know how different Cantonese is from Mandarin, but my son struggles with Mandarin as the pronunciation and intonation are so different from English (and Norwegian)

Why dont you look up on this as a good opportunity for your dc to truly familiarize themselves with the sounds of the language and how it is spoken?

I have posted this link before, on the Cunning Linguists topic, but I think it is brilliant.

sploid.gizmodo.com/girl-makes-a-perfect-impression-on-how-languages-sound-1536335825/+jesusdiaz

She is good!

In this situation it wouldn't bother me at all as I wasn't part of the conversation anyway.

It does annoy me sometimes though. A Dutch friend came to mine and brought her English friend to mine to take some photos of something I had. We were all in a close setting and the English photographer turned to my friend and switched the conversation to Dutch. Hard not to wonder if they were talking about me