When you and your SO's parents don't have a common language

[maielle]

Hello,

I was wondering if there are others who are in the same situation. I don't have a common language with my SO's parents. I don't speak German (I barely know how to introduce myself in German...) and they don't know any words of Finnish. Also my SO says they hardly speak English. Maybe we can say something but having a conversation is just not possible.

I haven't met his parents yet but that would be part of the agenda when I go to see him in October. He met my parents and my mom speaks fluent German so they could really talk. But I had to work as an interpreter between my bf and my dad. So it wasn't really a conversation but more questions and answers. Like an interrogation. ;P

I would like to know if you have some better ideas than just translating. The plan is that I start to learn German but I just don't have time until maybe next summer. I would also like to hear some stories how it went with you and what the parents thought of a prospective daughter/son-in-law who can't communicate with them.

[Kirschlein]

My SO lives in Sweden and i live in Austria. Our main languages are different, but we communicate in english, while we learn each others language. The same for his family. I needed to talk to them in english and happily they knew a bit, because in Sweden they don't translate everything into swedish on the TV. It was really exciting when i met them the first time and funny too, because they didn't know how to react in such a situation and they really tried hard to speak proper english. After some time they started to ask me things in German, because they also learned German once and still know a few things, but can't speak to me in my language.
My parents sadly don't know english at all (typical Germans xD) and they talked to my hun in German. He understood some things up then, but i guess the only reason why he fully understood what they said was, because they made weird hand movements and showed him everything with body language. XD Poor him!

Oh and for you: German isn't easy. Some people need 1-2 years to speak proper German because of its difficulty. I wouldn't start in that summer, if you want to live together anytime soon. And if you need any help, i found a nice site. I can send it to you. Only if you want 8D

[milaya]

^Haha I studied German for 7 years in school... but still have no clue when it comes to speaking it.

My parents can't talk with my SO at all.
My SO is from Japan and speaks only Japanese.
So Japanese is the language we communicate on. I've been learning Japanese by myself for about 2 years and is now able to speak it pretty freely.
I've met his family once, before we started dating and there wasn't any communication problems either - as long as I spoke Japanese. Only person I had problems with understanding was my SO's sister's husband, because he spoke with a heavy dialect, so the sister had to translate into more normal Japanese.

Of course, the main problem is my side of the family.
Since my SO always visits me - it's a bit of a problem.
No one in my family speaks English and, yes neither does my bf.
So I'm a full time Japanese-Danish translator.
And sometimes I feel bad for him, if I'm with other people, having a conversation and all he can do is to sit there and wait.

I would also wish introducing him to my friends would be easier, but it's often awkward.
And my mother also seems to find it a bit sad that she can't talk to her "son-in-law".

The only positive thing is, that next month I'll start university, where I will study Japanese.
Meaning all my classmates will know Japanese as well later on. So it'll be at lot easier to introduce him to my future friends. And I know he looks forward to that as well.

[Élan]

I don't share a common language with my SO's parents either. They speak Farsi/Persian and I only speak English. His mom knows a few words in English and made a point to ask to speak to me on the phone just so she could say hello and hear my voice. I think Persian is so beautiful, and being able to talk to my SO's parents is an amazing motivation to learn the language!

[maielle]

Kirschlein:

My SO is also in Austria so I guess his parents have similar English skills as yours. ;P So I'll probably need to learn some German fast if I want to talk to them. Luckily I do understand a word here and there because it's somewhat similar to Swedish as you may know. And I can speak Swedish (but not very fluently) and understand it when I read it (studied it for 6 years + one university language course later).

So learning German will be a lot easier for me than learning Finnish to him.. or learning English to his parents. We'll see how good my SO's parents are with body language! Btw, I know this one German speaking guy (not Austrian )who learned fluent Finnish in about a year because he had a great motivation: his girlfriend.

Our plan is that I move to Vienna in the fall 2011 and apply to a university to do my master's degree (I've checked that there is one really good program in English) so maybe you can give me some inside tips and Austria knowledge so I can surprise my bf with the amount of stuff I know? I really don't know yet how this forum works but I think there's a private message possibility. Would you like that? (And yes, I would love to have the link to this site you mentioned also ^^)

milaya :
Japanese probably wasn't related to any of the languages you knew before, so respect for learning it so fast!

I'm also a bit worried about meeting my SO's friends because I don't know how well they speak English. Luckily my friends are very international here so our main language usually is English.

Good luck with your Japanese studies

[BoogleBee]

I don't share a native language with my SO's mother. However her mother did live in the States for a few years with my SO when she was little and so learnt english then. But she doesn't speak it, at all...since she lives back in Germany now. I am going over to Germany for 6 weeks over christmas and new years and so will meet my SO's mother then. And while she and I have communicated in english on FB and such I know that her mum gets shy when speaking english, hehe. But she knows it perfectly so we should be fine thankfully my SO is fluent in english and german so when she met my parents everything was perfect, and we have no communication problems between ourselves.
But I know that when I visit there will be times when there won't be a chance for my SO to translate everything when we are in a group. Her best friend does know quite a bit of english, not fluenty but it's pretty good. But some people that I will meet when I am there aren't fluent in english. I want to learn German though, but yes it will take a long time.
I did take GERM102 for the first half of this year at uni, but had no room in my timetable this 2nd half of the year to do GERM10

[noodle]

well considerin my SO lives in the States and I speak fluent English it means that I could communicate with his parents ^^
And I think even if he doesnt speak german nor croatian he could still talk with my parents (at least my mum) cause like she understands pretty much everything in english but when it comes to talkin its difficult for her since she doesnt have any practise and her english lessons were like 30 years ago ^^
but my SO once said that he might take german classes at college and that for me and my family he would learn croatian but I said no its fine as long as we can communicate its alright xD

[Kirschlein]

Oooh an Austrian 8D A nice one!
And its true, its pretty similar to swedish sometimes, but there is a lot of differences too, especially in the grammar. I don't know finnish, except of on word and that is: perkele. And that i know from my SO.

And Austrians are usually really good in body language, but not as good as italian people we are just a bit aggressive and ... well... maybe you will see.

About the Austria knowledge i would love to tell you a lot of things. I am gonna add you as a friend in here and then we can PM eachother. Well for now i can tell you one thing already... haha... if you talk the next time with your SO say on the end of your sentence: Oida. xDDD
I am pretty sure he will be pretty shocked, because it is a teenager word, which is used here pretty often but the older people dont really like it xD