Language problem: my friends and my SO can't communicate. Whad do I do?

[books]

My SO is a monolingual Spanish speaker...he hasn't met any of my friends/family yet so it hasn't become an issue yet. I do see a future with him and eventually hope he can at least visit the US. I think in the beginning, I just figured I would have to serve as the translator but as time when on, I became a little frustrated that he couldn't at least make an effort to communicate in another language. Without me even prompting, he signed up for an English course yet he is totally afraid of practicing his English with me. He has been taking this course since April and has so far only said 4 words to me in English- "I love you beautiful" (haha). My 2nd language is Italian so I recently tried to teach him some things in Italian figuring he'd have an easier time understanding since it's petty close to Spanish (my Mom speaks Italian so I figured maybe this was a good option too). I was chatting with him on facebook and typed him something sweet in Italian and he just responded by saying he didn't understand me. I was like...urghhhh can you even TRY to figure out what it means? Nope.

I think I just have to accept everyone has their own comfort level with learning other languages. If my SO did visit the US, I do have Spanish speaking friends he can talk to but the family issue is still there. I think my friends would have no problem speaking just in Spanish being that he's from another country and they want to make him feel comfortable...but I would like to see him be pushed a little bit to communicate in English more.

[Kiara]

Activities are definitely a good idea. Even really basic things like board or card games can help. You don't need a lot of vocabulary for them and it's a good way to include everyone.

Yeah, that's definetly something we can do! I didn't hink about that because I stopped playing board games when I went to college, but I still enjoy them and it can be a good, cheap and with easy vocabulary activity to do with my Italian friends. I thought a lot about your previous reply, the one where you say I cannot preted my friends to speak English. it would be nice, it's true, but they didn't choose my foreign boyfriend, I did. You are right, but I still feel sad for those friends who know English and are too shy.
Probably a big mistake was to bring my SO to big parties/dinners, with like 20 people all speaking Italian. I didn't choose it, it just happened to be so because it was August: summer time. This time I'll organize things better and I'm thinking about calling a couple of friends at my University town. It should be easier to talk if you are just 4 people, and the games will definetly help (I hope!!!).
Thanks for the good advices

[kteire]

I'm incredibly nervous about exactly this!! My SO and I both speak English primarily, but he's also been raised with French as a first language. His entire extended family on his dad's side live in France and don't speak a word of English... I'm supposed to be going over to meet them in the next year or so, and I only have crappy highschool French... They're all apparently very excited to meet me and are very friendly, but my capacity for learning languages is very poor. I think my SO will have to do a lot of translating!!