My brother is annoyed that I have learnt his wife's language

[poochuspoochus]

My brother got married yesterday and they have been together for seven years. I really love languages and although it wasn't a language I knew at all before I was introduced to his now wife I find it to be a really interesting one. So over the last seven years I have picked up enough to be able to speak quite well coversationally. I don't think he realised how much I had picked until yesterday as we are in sil's country for the wedding. He has sent me a message this morning saying it was a bit weird how I have attached myself to his wife's culture and he thinks I am obsessed with his family. Firstly why is he worrying about this the day after his wedding. Also I really wasn't making a big show of speaking the language just chatting to people normally. There's really no backstory to this as far as I'm aware. I really don't him to be upset but he's the one being weird isn't he?

Firstly, so what if she can only scrape by in a conversation. Even that level means you can make connections with people.

Secondly, why should she only use it if she visits that country? I learnt french to a high standard and still read french books and newspapers and enjoy french radio and podcasts. It gives me a whole different perspective on the world. Any language does.

I can also read Italian tolerably well which meant I was fully up to speed with the lockdowns there are and far less taken by surprise than most people when it came to the pandemic (both at work and at home)

The irony is that I suspect many of these posters would be very firm that foreigners who come to the UK must speak fluent English. In that scenario, I wonder whether the "showing off" would be the speaking of the English, or the speaking of their original language 🧐

Quite!

What lazy and small minded thinking. He didn't absolutely need to because she'd already done all the work.

The idea that he might learn some of her language to be able to interact better with her family, better understand and access her culture and maybe just occasionally give her a bit of time off from always speaking her second language... or even that it might just be a nice thing to do is just not even a consideration.

So disappointing. You can see all the Brexit types on this thread can’t you?
Living in the UK so no need to learn another language?

How thoroughly depressing! 😩

I get this as I love languages - I’m not an expert in any foreign language but I pick up words, patterns and pronunciations easily, especially where I know a similar language already. I would likely have done similar to you and tried to learn a bit out of interest. I think it’s really nice and your brother is being odd!

He sounds like a knob head. He doesn't own the language.

Did he respond nicely or apologise? I'd give him a wide berth if not.

I'd not be hosting him any time soon.

I was the one who used the term praise junkie and actually I tried to make it clear that I didn't think that needed to be the motivation for learning the language at all, only that it could have meant the OP ended up being inadvertently tactless because she was subconsciously focused on that moment when people would be pleased with how well she'd done.

I say this as someone who did well at school and really has to watch that tendency in myself so I wouldn't even criticise the OP if that was the case! The dopamine hit from being the first to get the right answer, or the person with the best answer, is strong if you've had that a lot in childhood, and it can be hard to resist. And siblings are so tuned into each other that even if that wasn't going on on this particular occasion, if it ever has in the past then it's possible the OPs brother thought it was.

Something else the OP could have done is to go to her brother sometime before the wedding and say hey, I've been really enjoying learning some of SILs language - is there anything you'd like to surprise her with by being able to say to her in her language at the wedding? That would have been a lovely way to use what she'd learned first that was focused on the actual wedding couple, and then she could still have gone on to enjoy speaking that language at the wedding.

I'm not saying she should have done that, just that it's another way the day could have gone. And like I said, she absolutely doesn't need a nefarious reason for learning a language in the first place - speaking more than one language is brilliant (I do too).

It’s not weird….. it’s nice. I would love to have an ear for languages. Your brother might feel a bit excluded from the conversation. He might think you’re talking about him …. you might be 😄

I think there are two separate points here that don’t need to be linked.

Some people do struggle with languages/aren’t interested in learning them/don’t have a need to, which I agree is fine, as in your uncle’s case. Sounds like everyone got along just fine in that situation. Dutch is a very good example of where that’s more likely to occur because it’s a challenging language for non-native speakers and many Dutch people speak such good English (including in professional settings where it’s commonly used) that it can actually be quite difficult to learn Dutch even if you live there because people do just tend to use English with you. While I do think our education system does languages very poorly and that’s a shame, that doesn’t mean it’s the fault of any individual, and Dutch is pretty niche as well.

Regarding the OP’s enjoyment of languages, I would say that just as you might not think it reasonable for anyone to criticise your uncle for not learning Dutch, that logic must similarly apply to someone who does like to learn languages. It isn’t attention-seeking to use a skill that you possess in its natural context. Conversation is how people connect and, even when language skills are quite poor, there’s often great delight taken in any effort to communicate in someone’s own language. I remember my cousin’s wedding in France - it was fascinating and lovely to see how delighted everyone was when people managed to communicate simple things like ‘It’s very hot!’ and ‘Would you like more wine?’.

I think when something isn’t a skillset that you possess it can almost like magic when someone has mastered it - for me that would be things like maths or engineering. But to the person doing them, they’re just their day-to-day knowledge and skills and they’re not showing off in using them.

This

In what way is the groom's sister circulating among and speaking to guests, "showing off"? It's being sociable, surely? Should the families stand with their backs against opposite walls, their attention fixed rigidly on the bride and groom at all times, never speaking to the other party because it's rude to admit they can speak the same language? Or are only non-native English speakers allowed to demonstrate their linguistic skills? Is the bride showing off if she speaks to her new in-laws in English? Pretending one doesn't know how to talk to people when one actually could is the rude thing in my view.

I had a whale of a time at DS3's wedding, chatting with people I'd never met before and dancing with relatives I hadn't seen for years. There is no way I would have been able to upstage my new DIL even if I tried, because she looked utterly fabulous. They seemed to believe that everyone having a good time together was a tribute to them rather than taking anything away from them. And they were right.

As an aside, someone upthread mentioned Xhosa. ExH knows a little Xhosa, but not enough to hold a conversation I don't think. It's not as obscure as one might think.

Oh, and everything UnintentionalArcher said in the post that crossed with mine. Very well put.

Can you please tell us which language this is??

I am seriously impressed. I've been learning French for 15+ years and still only speak it very poorly

Its not weird to learn a language in your spare time, it's a hobby for a lot of people. One with lots of benefits and something that would probably do a lot of people some good.
And some people just pick up languages easier than others.

Man gets upset when woman achieves something he can't. No surprises there.

Your brother is a bit of a cunt if you ask me.

Not weird in the slightest. As a nation we're complacent and arrogant when it comes to not speaking other languages and I think it's lovely that you are able to converse in a second language which takes the onus off everybody else having to make the effort to speak English as their second language with you. My partner's first language is not English (although he does speak English to a higher level than many native speakers) and I've made the effort to learn his native language despite his entire family being able to speak English with me.

I strongly suspect that the only people who would find this situation weird or think that you were 'showing off' are those who are incapable of picking up any other languages themselves or who simply cannot be bothered.

I've been rethinking this (posted already) and I'm very much team brother.

My sister married a man who speaks a different language and never learned it despite seeing his family regularly. She says they are a little unfriendly to her and i suspect they judge her harshly for this. Her attitude is that they all can speak english anyway, and i strongly disagree with her on this point and I mentioned this once years ago. But it's her life, her relationship, her in-laws and none of my business. They got married about two years ago and I think if I turned up at the wedding ready to chat to them in their language, this would be really poor form. I absolutely would expect my sister to be upset with me over that. It would be a deliberate attempt at oneupmanship and I don't think the faux innocent 'but I just love languages' would hold. It would be different if I approached her and said I wanted to learn and we could do it together etc. In this case, the brother is trying but struggling so in a way it's even worse when someone who finds language easy does this, on his wedding day of all days.

At the end of the day, only the OP knows whether deep down she was quite looking forward not just to speaking the language but also to people being surprised and impressed, and whether her brother (knowing her well) may have detected that going on.

It seems to me that everyone is jumping on the easy narrative of ha ha look at the xenophobic lazy sexist British man who hates learning languages, and missing the fact that this is also a sibling thing and those often have more complicated things going on under the surface.

In fact the more irrational someone seems to be in a sibling argument the more likely it is that things from the past could be distorting the picture and causing unfair judgements. None of which means the OP did anything wrong at all (learning languages is always good IMO), but it might mean the brother is not quite the lazy sexist xenophobe he's being accused of here, either.

I agree with what you’re saying that siblings can be very sensitive to perceived behaviour patterns stemming from childhood, and the OP might’ve got a better response if she had done some of those things. It’s hard because we don’t know her intentions for certain - maybe she just likes learning languages and is as nonplussed as she says to think anyone thought she was showing off, or maybe those things are true but she is also a tiny bit pleased with what she’s learned.

I think this very depends on how much we think we should adjust for other adults’ potential insecurities. With family, maybe we should be more sensitive to them and try to pre-empt them; I’ve certainly done it myself at times (though I don’t expect it to be done for me). Nonetheless, this can also become problematic and we should probably expect other adults to be able to regulate themselves in seemingly very innocuous situations like the one described. The brother’s response seems a big overreaction unless there’s something major missing from the OP’s story, which I suppose there could be as it’s subjective.

I don't think other countries have this hang up.

I used to watch Turkish dramas and picked up a lot of Turkish from them. My friend is married to a Turk and he doesn't speak Turkish.

If he thought I shouldn't speak Turkish with other Turks I would laugh, not that he would ever ask me.

I'm also curious that your brother appeared to have no prior knowledge that you'd been learning the language.

If my sister told me she was learning Danish as she loved the language (!) I wouldn't think too much of it it. If she turned up at my wedding and spoke Danish to people without once mentioning in 7 years that she'd been studying it (because nobody living in the UK just 'picks up' a foreign language without some degree of effort) I think that might raise my eyebrows a bit.

Maybe it's French. Who thinks to warn people they're learning a language?

I'm going to guess Hungarian or Norwegian, based on nothing, and for no reason apart from my own nosiness and hope of finding out!

Whether you let us know the language or not OP, enjoy developing your skill 😊 I hope your brother comes round soon.

I wouldn't call it a warning about learning a language, but I'd have expected it to come up in conversation in 7 years. Had the OP never tried it out on her SIL in that time?