The most problematic situations in a multilingual relationship
Your multilingual relationship with someone who doesn’t speak your language should not be seen only through rose-colored glasses of a new adventure. There is work to be done.
We in Vocabulary Miner have proof that such multilingual love can surely last. We did small research for first-hand experience and advice from people in bilingual relationships.
What situations have brought our 10 respondents in multilingual relationships the biggest problems?
Family meetings in bilingual relationships
“My partner comes from a small town in Tuscany with a specific dialect. It was such a fail to listen so thoroughly to his family speaking and yet not understand a single word. And his granny…she was a real head-scratcher. I usually answered something totally different than what she asked me. Now I can chat with her and that’s something.”
Míša about Italian family issues
The problem is especially visible when the partner does not speak the language of the partner’s parents.
“The language barrier rises up every time we visit my parents in the Czech Republic. They do not speak neither English nor Italian, so they cannot even chit-chat.”
Markéta who now teaches Italian
In such cases, it can be helpful to learn the very basics of the “parents” language. Look for the Word list “Travel” in Flashcard app Vocabulary Miner for useful words like Goodbye, Hello, I need…in 15 languages.
Arguments and emotional deep talks
Most of our respondents agreed that they really feel the language barrier when dealing with emotions.
The language barrier in multilingual relationships is a problem because partners are not able to express exactly what they want. Language barriers are often felt the most when speaking about emotions and abstract elements. Each partner has their own cultural and language boundaries and they prevent them from both — fully understand the other and making themselves fully understandable.
Michaela living with an Italian agrees:
“In the beginning, it was a real challenge to discuss emotions without getting into a heated debate .”
“The biggest misunderstandings arise when you start to boil with emotions and need to express your grievance. You need to speak clearly, simmer down but exactly in these moments you are especially hindered by language barriers.“
Eri recalls when looking back at their Czech-American relationship
Unique cultural words
There are words in every language, even better to say in every dialect that are very specific and you just need to learn them along the way to understand your partner.
Martina who married a Turk (see her minimalistic traveling on her blog) argues that they bump into such untranslatable words now and then especially when trying to translate Czech to English. Some Czech words she uses do not have an equivalent in English — her partner’s language.
If you, too, are struggling with translating words, such as “červánky, otužilec, or fiflena”, to your foreign partner, the Flashcard app Vocabulary Miner includes a list of Untranslatable Czech words. This was created with the Czech expat media PragueMorning.
Another group of words unique for each region consists of food-related words and idioms. Food-related words and idioms are often very unique for every region.
Johana living with a Congolese learned Congolese food vocabulary very early since they are very helpful to create a homey kitchen.
There is no question that Italian culture is about food, too. That motivated also Barbora who writes about her life in Italy to learn such vocabulary quickly.
Michaela realized that the new country, Italy, is not only about food but also about superstitions. She learned the special idioms and proverbs and also created the Word list “Superstitions” in the Czech-Italian-English-Slovak combination that you can find in Vocabulary Miner.
Offices and legal forms
Dating someone who speaks a different language can end up living in a different country and becoming an expat. It is questionable whether it is important to learn the local language once you have moved abroad but dealing with public offices and filling the forms in is definitely necessary.
Míša’s Italian boyfriend helped her in the beginning with local offices and forms since no one wanted to speak English in a small Tuscan town.
It is advisable to check the most common “office” words ahead. For such situations, Vocabulary Miner cooperated with expats from 7 countries and created a special expat vocabulary list for dealing with public offices. Find it in the Flashcard app under the keyword “expat”.
Now that we know what situations are the biggest problem, it would be useful to know HOW to deal with them, wouldn’t it? Read more on how to overcome language barriers in a multilingual relationship in THIS article.
