She doesn't speak English - pointless meeting up

[Dannnyy]

My brother recently got engaged, he and his fiancée are coming to visit next week, we have met her briefly but have no relationship with her really.
My parents really want us all to go out for a meal, however she speaks 3 languages none of which are English. I know my brother could just translate and I have school level knowledge of one language. However I think it would be extremely awkward, and just not very fun. Apparently she is learning English but my brother says she's not in any hurry to get "good" at it.

AIBU to think it's pointless meeting for a meal in these circumstances?

You don't need to share a language to communicate! Just being together, gestures, body language, facial expressions, atmosphere, these all work fine, in fact they will all be heightened if verbal communication is tricky.

As it happens, you DO share a language, just one that you're not very good at.

Your brother is going to marry this person, so I suggest you start learning her native language. Right now. You could master some basic phrases in the week before this dinner, and your efforts would go a long way to making her feel welcome.

Or start improving the language you do share. The absolute state of you judging her lack of English when you are so linguistically lazy yourself!

One of my favourite, relaxing, cosy things is eating out with others, surrounded by languages I don't really understand, basking in warmth and laughter and good food and conviviality. Home.

Don't be scared, OP. Just try it. And get a wiggle on with DuoLingo or similar in the meantime.

Do meet her! She’s joining your family after all. Put your school-level language to work (we really must value language education more!).

It sounds like you and your brother aren't close if it met his partner at a wedding and made little attempt to speak to them. I'd have thought you'd have been curious to meet her. It's up to you how much you want to put yourself out for someone you aren't close with.

Jesus. Really?

YABU! I think you're being very short-sighted and unfriendly. This is the lady your brother loves and wants to marry. Of course wants to introduce her to his family so you can all get to know her. If she already speaks four languages, she must have an ear for them and the chances are she's probably already trying to learn English. You could even learn some phrases in her language to make her feel welcome. Nothing too complicated, just a hello and welcome to the family kind of thing.

Just go along with an open mind and a kind heart, because it looks like she's going to be around for a while. Do you really want to be labelled the a-hole sister who wouldn't go to a special family dinner because it was going to be a bit boring?!

Is this a wind-up?

She will have learned some English at school for sure. But she probably just doesn't speak it well - like your average Brit with their school french.

However I'm wondering if this is a reverse and making a point about Brits going abroad with no local language. That's very common!

She speaks three languages, all of which are commonly taught in UK schools, and yet you don’t know a few words of any of them? And aren’t prepared to learn?

Well this is a depressing thing to read. Your poor brother.

My FIL was Polish. The relatives live in very rural Poland and only one of them speaks English. None of us speak Polish.

We visit them every few years, and are very fond of them. If the English speaker is around, he translates for us. If he's at work and unavailable, we all smile a lot and my SIL dredges up random bits of Polish vocabulary (single words) that she's gathered over the years. We have a lovely time.

Yep, totally unreasonable.

YABVU

Of course it’s worth meeting up. It will be a bit more difficult but people muddle through.

Are you seriously saying you’ve never spent time with anyone who barely speaks English before and have no experience of making conversation work with either someone translating, muddling through with bits of each other’s language or (these days) google translate or similar.

Many of the richest experiences of spending time with others can be in this sort of scenario.

And the language you speak a bit - can you try to improve that with some Duolingo language or similar?

It will be hard work, and probably not very relaxing or enjoyable, but this is going to be your sister in law. You show willing and you make the effort because he’s your brother and you love him and she needs to feel welcome and included in your family.
Each time will get easier and you could forge a lovely relationship… or of course you could not bother going and send a competent different message to them both.

There's loads of non-white people in the North! Have you never left your town? Does she speak some basic English? If she's in a hurry to learn English then you should be in a hurry to learn French.

One of my favourite, relaxing, cosy things is eating out with others, surrounded by languages I don't really understand, basking in warmth and laughter and good food and conviviality. Home.

That's exactly how I feel when sat around the farmhouse table with the Polish relatives.

A hug or smile are the same in any language

I do think it's reasonable to expect some knowledge of English in certain situations, though. Would I expect a Catanian nonna to speak English? No. Would I expect a trilingual young Western European woman (all four of these demographics are overrepresented in multilinguals) to speak at least some English? I'd say it's highly unlikely she wouldn't.

I think for some British people there's an element of embarrassment/guilt/self hatred that we've 'cheated' somehow by already speaking the world's lingua franca from birth. There has to be a global/regional common language (and there has always been one throughout history to some extent, whether it's French, Latin, Greek, Persian in Asia, whatever), we are just lucky we don't have to learn it.

Putting it another way - if a Hungarian goes on holiday to France, would you call her lazy for speaking English there?

Edit - I'm getting off topic a bit really. It's VVVU of the OP not to want to make her feel welcome and meet her, and it's good he (I assume given the name) has seen the error of his ways

To be fair until I started seriously learning German in my 40s I only had 2 years of bad school.French and a Spanish evening class.....not much for an interesting conversation. I'd give German a really good go now though. 🇩🇪

Have you considered the fact that this is going to be far more difficult and awkward for her than it is for you? She’s going for a meal with a group of English speakers who don’t speak any of her 3 languages, in England, in a part of the country where there are barely any non English speakers. Yet you’re the one whinging that it’s going to be hard. If she can make the effort, why can’t you?

You haven't even met her yet, you have no idea how it's going to go. Give her a chance! If she's managed to get by in 3 languages, it doesn't seem like she'll have much of a problem with English

You sound very annoyed and hung up on the fact that she doesn't speak any English living in the region that she does? Oh, and very ignorant

You could play charades after dinner.

Wow so unreasonable. My BIL is from another country his English is very good but his parents (particularly the dad) spoke no English at all. Obviously we met them in run up to the wedding and I tried my hardest to ensure old dad was OK, learned the words for his favourite drink so I could ensure he was looked after, if he was hungry etc. I'm not telling you to download duo lingo but it's really not hard to make an effort!

I think it will do good for you to join them and expand your world.

Only French is commonly taught in state schools. Italian isn't taught. I'm not sure if Swiss German is different to German. However, OP should learn French to communicate with her SIL. Really surprised that she lives in England but she's never come across anyone other than English.