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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask a friend to stop speaking her own language?

434 replies

jujujbel · 13/02/2015 12:23

I have a very dear friend who is from another country but has lived in the UK for 20 years. Her DC are bilingual. Often, when we are together, she will break off the conversation to speak to her DC in her own language. This makes me uncomfortable and I find it rude but I have never mentioned it. However, a few days ago my DD came home from spending the day with my friends DD (they spend a lot of time together). She talked about how she hated it when they talked in a different language in front of her as it made her feel excluded. I explained that i had felt the same way and that it was actually considered bad manners to do this. I told my DD that if she felt uncomfortable she should say to her friend in as nice a way as possible and that I would do similar with the mum. The very next day, my DD did do this when the situation arose again and explained how it made her feel. She came home quite upset as she had argued with her friend about it.

We were all meeting up later anyway. When we got together my friend immediately said to me 'have you hear detox?' She then went to say, I'll speak to your dd to explain that I'm not talking about her it's just how we speak. I then said that I agreed with my DD and it made us both uncomfortable. My friend was shocked that I found her rude. I explained that it was only in the context where we are all having a conversation in English and they then break away to speak in a different language. Although I know they are not saying anything bad about us it is a horrible feeling and I don't understand why they feel the new to do it. I compared it to whispering. I have been very clear that it is only in the context of a group conversation being started in a shared language and then being continued in a language that not all of the group can understand.

My friend has now told me she will not speak her own language in front of my DD but that she will distance herself from us. She feels I am the inconsiderate one and that I am discriminating against her.

I am so hurt and confused. I guess I am just looking for a bit of MN perspective.

Sorry for the essay.

Thank

OP posts:
ragged · 14/02/2015 16:19

I grew up in a multilingual place, it wouldn't cross my mind to find what OP describes as rude.

Original poster
jujujbel · 15/02/2015 08:14

Just wanted to update. Following a sincere apology from me to my friend for having upset her so much and an apology from her to me regarding how extreme her reaction had been, we have resolved our differences and saved our friendship.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to post, your insight helped me better understand my friends perspective.

OP posts:
MrTumblesBavarianFanbase · 15/02/2015 08:28

Good for you juju ! Flowers

UncleT · 15/02/2015 08:32

Glad you worked it out OP.

riverboat1 · 15/02/2015 08:33

Good news OP!

I am English but live in France now with French DP. If we have a child, everything in it's world - school, friends, community, background noise - will be French. Except for me. If I want my child to speak my own language, and be able to communicate with my side of the family, I am going to have to be very strict about speaking only English with it. How else will it learn? I have friends here who are really struggling to get their child to speak English, unless you can afford to send them to an international school which I definitely couldnt!

So I see your original p.o.v., but I think if the children are young your friend could well just be valuing keeping her native language alive in them for fear of them not incorporating and retaining it as a natural language if she doesn't.

GreatAuntDinah · 15/02/2015 08:55

Good for you OP! Glad it´s been resolved.

Branleuse · 15/02/2015 09:03

im so pleaswd you apologised and worked it out x

SuperFlyHigh · 15/02/2015 09:16

Well done. Good you can see both different points of views and also both realise it was not worth losing a good friendship over!

EveBoswell · 15/02/2015 09:23

We have German neighbours. Their three little girls are being brought up bilingual and that's a good thing. However, all members of the family speak German only in their home. When they have a party though, with British guests, all conversations are in English. Unless we practise our schoolgirl efforts which they welcome. That's the way to do it.

Snapespotions · 15/02/2015 09:30

Well done OP. Glad you managed to work things out with your friend. :)

Aeroflotgirl · 15/02/2015 10:15

Well done Juju, that is good news Smile

PacificDogwood · 15/02/2015 10:27

Well done, juju, glad you had a happy resolution.

Eve, that is how I was brought up bilingually.
However, that only works when both parents speak the minority language.

Our 'family language' is English, because DH does not speak enough of my language. It became harder and harder for me to be the only German speaker in the house and I have in the meantime given up Sad. DS1 and DS2 speak good German, DS3 and DS4 next to none. I feel bad and somewhat guilty about it, but it is very hard to keep this up.

KleineDracheKokosnuss · 15/02/2015 10:43

We are bringing up DD bilingual (German). I actually find it massively difficult to speak to her in English, but it's really hard in a mostly mono-lingual environment such as the UK. If we were in Germany we would at least have English and German TV/Radio/books available, but it seems so much harder to find anything other than English here.

littlemonkeyface · 15/02/2015 10:46

PacificDogwood However, that only works when both parents speak the minority language. ..., but it is very hard to keep this up.

Couldn't agree more.

TheNewStatesman · 15/02/2015 10:51

Juju--glad to hear you were able to work things out :)

Just wanted to add, for those of us who are supporting a minority language in the family: one of the reasons we do this is because otherwise we will end up with a situation where we will never be able to have a true, heart-to-heart conversation with our own child, because we will never share a native language in common. It's potentially quite scary, and it's part of the reason why many of us really fight to make sure our child grows up speaking our language, even if our insisting on speaking our native language occaisionally causes misunderstandings among others.

I can see the validity of "switching to the language everyone else in the room speaks" once a child is much older and is able to understand that "We are speaking in the majority language for a short time just now, but the rest of the time Mum expects me to answer in the minority language."

But for young kids, that can be very hard to understand, and if a parent starts frequently switching to the majority language depending on the situation, it can be the start of a long, slow downward process in which the child loses the habit of speaking to the parent in the minority language and eventually rejects it altogether.

TheNewStatesman · 15/02/2015 10:52

And yes, as previous posters said, it IS possible to do a "minority language inside the house, majority language outside the house" situation instead, but ONLY where both the parents speak the minority language very well, and even then it only works for some families.

holliebah · 15/02/2015 10:55

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Coyoacan · 15/02/2015 13:25

Well done juju.
Being able to listen to criticism and apologise is an increasingly rare quality.

GalensOyster · 15/02/2015 15:51

Thank you for the update OP. I'm glad you have managed to hold on to your friendship.

FromSeaToShining · 15/02/2015 15:52

That is a great outcome. Good for you for offering an apology.

mamadoc · 15/02/2015 16:19

Really glad this worked out well.

I have found this thread late but find it really interesting as my DDs best friend's family are bilingual (a very minority language that few people in the UK would have any hope of understanding) and the mum is a good friend of mine too.

She always talks to her kids in their language and it's never bothered me a bit. I know it is immensely important to her that her DC speak that language because they may go back one day and so they can speak to their grandparents.

I have always assumed that it is of a sort of 'wait a minute I'm busy' or 'blow your nose' type comments. Often she will translate if I look interested or it seems relevant. She and her DH do not speak their language together with other adults present only to the kids. dd goes round theirs to play and for tea often and I assume they speak English when she is there. Certainly she has never complained.

I do wonder if it will change as DC get older though. You are hardly going to be having a very secret or excluding conversation with a 2 year old but as they got older maybe you would and then I could possibly imagine myself feeling as the OP did.

I had actually never considered how hard it must be and what a minefield it is. It must be something they have thought about a lot and to my shame I have never considered it so I wanted to say thanks for the thread as it has helped me.

FrenchJunebug · 17/02/2015 16:18

So glad the friendship is saved, Juju!

I also wanted to echo what has been said by some: it feels very alien and strange and unnatural not to speak my mother tongue to my child.

itsaysonthetin · 17/02/2015 17:01

I think you are being extremely unreasonable, precious and downright rude, BUT I am really glad that you managed to patch things up with your friend.

It is really, really hard to have your children grow up in a country that doesn't speak your language. It's heartbreaking when they are better at that language than your own, and for a lot of people, trying to maintain that link through speaking in their mother tongue with their children is very important.

It doesn't matter if you don't understand a few sentences of what they are saying. You know they aren't talking about you, so don't make her feel like speaking to her children in her language is some kind of shameful act that shouldn't be done in polite company.

Basically your reaction was "you should only do that in private to spare my sensitivities", but how she interacts with her children is her own business.

I would be just as furious as your friend if someone said this to me. Especially if I had spent bloody YEARS speaking exclusively in their bloody language all the sodding time.

worksallhours · 17/02/2015 17:59

I think I see the situation a little differently. I don't think the important thing here is the way the OP feels about the situation; instead, I think the key issue is the way her DD feels about being in those particular circumstances, which is where the incident above began for the OP.

And, to be honest, I do have a lot of sympathy for her DD. It can be very alienating to be young, on your own in someone else's home, and in a situation where you don't understand what is being said around you. It can make you feel very vulnerable, particularly if you are very young and are pretty much relying on the adult in that home to act in loco parentis while you are there.

I am bilingual, and I really would not consider it appropriate to converse in my second language to my DC if they had a friend over to play and both children were under 11. In such circumstances, I feel it is important to be inclusive to create a climate of safety and trust because the people involved are not adults.

But that is just the way I feel about it.

Coyoacan · 18/02/2015 02:06

A thoughtful and insightful post, worksallhours and as the grandmother of a child that we are trying to raise to be bilingual, I am grateful for it.