AIBU - partner wants me to stop speaking Italian with my mum

[countrywalks1]

AIBU? Me and my partner have been staying at my mum's flat because of covid issues. She told me after 2 days here that she feels it's rude that I speak Italian with mum in front of her as she doesn't know what's going on and doesn't understand the language. I replied saying I understand it must be frustrating not to know, especially as she's the kind of person who likes to know everything, and the pandemic is really tough on her as she's homesick and hasn't been home properly for months, so I can understand why as she says she feels excluded.

However, my counterpoint was that I usually (about 60%) talk with mum in Italian. Culturally, I would say I'm half British and half Italian - I've mostly grown up in the UK but was born and most of my extended family are and live in Italy. I speak Italian fluently, but if I don't speak it regularly it gets a bit worse as I get out of practice with tenses and conjugations etc.

So I speak Italian with my mum because: 1) for me it's the language we've always communicated; 2) it makes me feel more connected with my Italian culture; 3) it pleases me to practice it; 4) I'm pretty sure my mum prefers talking to me in Italian than in English as she doesn't really get to speak it with anyone after my granddad (her dad) passed away a few years ago as did my very bilingually fluent brother. It's complicated I know!!!!

So told this to my partner, she says she appreciates the reasoning but still unnecessary to speak it when she's there as it feels she's excluded. I told her I understand why but I struggle to understand why she couldn't move past it as I've been in the same situation with friends speaking a language I don't understand where I just talk English when I can, or ask what's going on. The other thing is that usually my mum will save talking to me in Italian for mum things like telling me off or telling me to do something. I emphasised that we're never using it to talk about her or be nasty, and we kind of slip into it naturally.

Still she says she feels excluded, which at this point I understand. She was also in my opinion a bit nasty and in anger said we moved over here to the UK and chose to stay so we shouldn't really be talking Italian anymore anyway, we should be British. This I put down to anger that I wasn't understanding her point of view. In her defence she did also say I could speak it if I taught her Italian, although I struggle that the emphasis is on me to teach her when we have been together for 8 years and even gone over to visit my Italian relatives in Italy and been to weddings etc - without ever having tried to learn. Albeit we've been doing vocational education together throughout this time so many other important things to learn.

So last night I worked really hard to make sure I spoke only in English with everyone, so when mum asked me something in Italian I actively made sure to reply in English.

I just need to know AIBU in feeling disappointed? I understand my partner's frustration, and I can try to cut down on the Italian for a little while because of the circumstances - it's tough being homesick and then not even being able to understand the conversation where you are. It's just the request that I cut down on speaking Italian with my mum when she's also there - as I told her, I expect that I will always see mum with her (we're planning on getting married). I also feel that she's asking me to hide away (in the context of communicating with mum) a little part of my own culture. Therefore, AIBU to not let this lie?

Can't you just swap and change as you go? Most bilingual families do that.

A lot of people have a heart's language. My children are German-English, we live in Germany, I speak German. I will never speak German to my children unless it's to accommodate a vulnerable guest (by which I mean a child who needs to be made to feel secure, not a grown adult without any special vulnerabilities nor even a child who's spent a lot of time at our house - once their friends are comfortable at our house, know where everything is and are comfortable that they can speak to me in German whenever they want, I speak English to my children in front of their friends too, just chop and change to include their friends).

Nobody should have to give up their heart's language or speak to their parent/ sibling/ child in a tongue that istn't the one they grew up speaking to them in.

Its rude to speak another language in front of someone else who cant speak it when you and your mother both speak english. I had to learn to speak french to communicate with my exs family as we lived in france. By all means speak italian when your partners not sround but very rude to do it in front of her.

It's rude to speak a different language in front of someone who doesn't understand it. do you then say in English what you have said?
I'd be well pissed off with this.

But it isn't another language if it's the future mil and her bf's is it? The op speaks the 'other' language...

The language we use to communicate is about so much more than exchanging information. It’s about emotion, connection, shared history. If you have established a relationship with someone in a particular language, it can be extremely difficult to switch to another language with that person, regardless of fluency. It often feels unnatural, as though the emotion had been leached out of the conversation.

I have cousins who grew up in a bilingual household. Their mother always spoke to them in her native language. When we were together, someone would translate anything the English speakers needed to know, but they didn’t alter their patterns of communication with each other.

I’m now part of a bilingual household myself. My husband and I speak his native language together. Though he is a highly proficient English speaker, I find it strange to communicate with him in English. His personality is somehow different.

IMO translating for your partner as needed would be the kind and polite thing to do. But it would be unreasonable for her to expect you to completely change your patterns of communication with your mother.

I should say my dp is swedish and talks to his family in swedish. I dont speak a word of it and as i am not in sweden they talk to each other in english so i understand. 60% is a very high percent not to be involved in when your trapped living in someone elses home during lockdown. Dp must feel awfully lonely and excluded.

Thank you @ArgumentativeAardvaark you made my point so much clearer . That is exactly it.

Lots of the people commenting here are not those types, though. Some Brits love languages! I think the OP‘s fiancée’s comments about being British are what have really raised the hackles!

If you’re the kind of person who’d be bothered by this, you really aren’t suited to a multicultural relationship!

Did she vote for Brexit too? 🙄

Ask her to learn Italian. She's being ridiculous.

I have several friends who don’t speak their other halves‘ languages. But they don’t get all upset about that as they knew what they were getting into... and they accept that it’s because they themselves haven’t bothered their backsides to learn... it is really only where the language is very difficult or different to their own language...

As wedonesquirrels says:

*"On the other hand, I think people underestimate how stilted and unnatural it feels to switch languages to one that you don't normally use with a particular person, even if both parties are fluent in both.

It's really not as simple as just switching languages, it's actually really difficult to retrain your brain to change the entire way you interact with someone. This is especially true for emotional / social use of language, where the exact translation doesn't carry the same 'feel' as it does in the original language.

Language and how we use it to connect with our loved ones is far more complex than just substituting one set of words for another."*

I'd go so far as to say I am actually a different person when I speak German.

It's akin to asking someone to speak to their children exclusively in estuary English using management speak jargon for weeks on end when they've always spoken to them with their native Scottish accent and regional expressions... Just because you can both use the codes/ accent doesn't mean you'd be yourselves or able to interact naturally.

She might not like it and might think it's rude, but it's really none of her business how you and your mother communicate. She's free to ask what's going on, if she's really desperate to know.

I'm married to a man from another country. Any time his parents have visited or we've visited them, they've always communicated with my husband in their own language, because they speak very little English. However, even when his siblings who do speak English fairly well have visited, they do spend at least some of the time speaking in their native tongue. It's just easier for them. Speaking English all the time is a strain for them, and they find it more comfortable to speak their own language. It's also nice for my husband to have a chance to speak his original language.

Can it be uncomfortable at times to not know what they're saying? Maybe, though I've gotten used to it. Honestly, it's a bit of a break, sometimes. When they're speaking the other language, I can zone out and not feel I have to be fully engaged. (Introvert alert.)

The bottom line for me is that it's unreasonable to try to control when two other people are "allowed" to speak another language, unless they're obviously using it as a way to talk about someone else in their presence or spitefully leaving someone out of important conversations.

A lot of people have missed the fact the OP has been with their DP for 8 years. Not 8 weeks or even 8 months. The only way it's possible to be completely out of your depth with a language your partner speaks with family over 8 years is to have pretty much decided on day one or two that "I am not even going to try". Maybe they could have disguised it or hidden a bit longer, but it's in the clear now

Yeah or maybe OP is a shit teacher.

My mum and dad were together for 35 years and my mum learned a smattering of Greek. My dad isn’t a good teacher - of anything - and he’d swiftly get annoyed with mum when she got something wrong or whatever. No he also wasn’t a particularly good partner.

Also, some people are just not good at other languages? It’s not always the case that the person is just not trying hard enough. You’d accept that of a person trying to learn maths. Of course it would be different if she was living in Italy....but she isn’t.

Also - the immediate problem is that OP wants to exclude his/her partner from conversations with his/her mum on the basis of preserving culture. It’s all very well snidely saying the partner should learn to speak Italian and hasn’t put any effort in - how does that help in the here and now?!

I stand by my first comment. It is rude to talk in a different language excluding one person. I’m surprised at those that think otherwise. Have your Italian conversations when your partner is not present.

The bottom line for me is that it's unreasonable to try to control when two other people are "allowed" to speak another language, unless they're obviously using it as a way to talk about someone else in their presence or spitefully leaving someone out of important conversations.

At the same time, it's not unreasonable to ask people to speak a language that you all understand if you're in the same room as them if they are all very proficient in the language. It's not unreasonable for a partner to decide whether or much to do with family members who can't be bothered to communicate in a language everyone understands either.

But no one is saying op cant speak italian to her mother. They are saying its rude to do so having full conversations in dps presence.

Ive been in a few multicultural relationships and have learned 4 different languages at base level to communicate even basically especially when living in them countries. When we go to sweden i will be expected to learn swedish even though they all speak english except the grandparents.

Do you know what usually doesnt encourage people to want to learn a new language? Being excluded. Even now dp teaches me some phrases in his language every so often so i can learn them a d retain them and encourages me to use them.

Relationships are a 2 way street. Not "im bilingual so you can fuck off whilst i talk in front of you so you cant understand even though 3/3 speak english and 2/3 speak italian. Afterlock down she can speak italian to her mother as much as she wants. But right now its exclusive and rude. Every other country would be pissed off with english people demanding you speam english in their country but in england if you suggest english should be spoken by those who can in company are somehow sneered at.

A lot of people have missed the fact the OP has been with their DP for 8 years. Not 8 weeks or even 8 months. The only way it's possible to be completely out of your depth with a language your partner speaks with family over 8 years is to have pretty much decided on day one or two that "I am not even going to try". Maybe they could have disguised it or hidden a bit longer, but it's in the clear now
^^

This. with bells on.

You don’t need your partner to teach you a language. There are literally thousands of online and real life courses, CDs, books, TV Programmes etc. Honestly.

The partner isn't being excluded foron 60% of conversations.

60% of conversations involving her boyfriend and his mother.

But presumably the couple have at least as many 1:1 one conversations as they do three way conversations including his mother - a normal couple would be spending more time talking to each other than in group conversations with one person's mother because they are not all in one room together all the time, unless the flat is a bedsit (in which case they have other problems!)

The girlfriend doesn't have to formulate sentences in Italian because eveyone understands English, so a natural bulingual conversation will ebb and flow between languages depending whether she joins in in English.

I think people are also missing that this is the mother's flat.

What happened to the old "your house, your rules" chestnut?

How many of the "it's rude not to speak English" posters would completely stop speaking English in their own home, to their own family if their child brought home a French boy or girlfriend who didn't speak English for six weeks?

Or completely alter their regional accent and regional terms and speak "the queen's English" at all times for the benefit of a child's boy or girlfriend from elsewhere in the UK, who found a local accent hard to follow?

The relationship has no legs anyway because the children will not be allowed to speak both their parents' native languages. How can you properly naturally connect with your child if you are not allowed to speak your native tongue to him or her?

It is a bit rude to have an extended conversation with partner excluded like that. If you're in a group and some people are speaking another language that's different as you just turn and talk to someone else. It's obviously fine and natural to make the odd remark in another language.

It's just the situation where 3 people sit down with a cuppa expecting a 3 way conversation that is odd. I'd get up and leave if it went on rather then just sitting there.

Yeah or maybe OP is a shit teacher.

You missed my point about not being required to handle international negotiations at the UN.

Even with no teacher, and just a radio on in the background, it's harder not to learn a word or two than it is to "catch" a word or phrase.

Put talking pictures like TV in the mix, and it's even harder not to connect words and what they mean.

Having a native speaker - even a shit teacher - in additional makes it harder still.

My DH got a bit huffy when I spoke German to my dad, but since he lived in Germany and we only visited twice a year, it wasn't a big issue. Buy her the language course then she can't complain.

I think the OP is at the “thin end” of bilingual. Only speaking in Italian to one, admittedly important, person 60% of the time. This is where keeping up fluency takes commitment. And the OP is making that commitment.

The partner, however, is undermining that effort.

Could there be some insecurity or jealousy of the mother-child bond, OP? One phrase your partner should understand: “La mamma è sempre la mamma.”!

If she doesn't speak it then yes it's rude to converse with someone else in that language in front of her. But she should really learn to speak Italian..

I think the OP is at the “thin end” of bilingual. Only speaking in Italian to one, admittedly important, person 60% of the time. This is where keeping up fluency takes commitment. And the OP is making that commitment.

DF sometimes finds he's forgotten a word in Italian and it can be upsetting to see.

My DGF was born in India, and learned Hindi before English (as he had a Hindi nanny). In his later years, he'd forget the English for something and have to use the Hindi word.