Different languages

[elina]

LOUD finns? On every flight I've been on to Finland it's quiet. All the Finns are quietly talking to each other. And the babies are so obedient and quiet!

They're definitely not always quiet .____. Like TwoThree said, especially not the drunk ones XD Flying with Finns can be a nightmare sometimes.. And if they want to show people that they're Finnish, they'll raise their voices

[enemey96]

Me and my SO communicate in English as I am English and he had lived in England for almost 6 years, and counts himself as being English.
However, he has picked up a bit of Swedish, so he can communicate with people in shops, etc, here.
Up until this summer I hadn't found it necessary to learn my SO's mother tongue, Czech, as his close family speak English. But we went to visit the rest of my SO's family this summer and I found it difficult to communicate with them as they couldn't speak much English. It was such a shame as I would have liked to have been able to communicate with them as they all seemed really nice. I have made it my goal to learn at least a bit of Czech before I see them again, which will probably be next year

[Tooki]

They're definitely not always quiet .____. Like TwoThree said, especially not the drunk ones XD Flying with Finns can be a nightmare sometimes.. And if they want to show people that they're Finnish, they'll raise their voices

Ok in fairness, most of the people on the flights are either old Finnish men with their Asian wives or families who went to Asia on a holiday.

Now on the Tallinn-Helsinki ferry? That is alcohol and party central!

[elina]

Ok in fairness, most of the people on the flights are either old Finnish men with their Asian wives or families who went to Asia on a holiday.

Now on the Tallinn-Helsinki ferry? That is alcohol and party central!

I don't want to sound mean, but those old Finnish men who you see with their Asian wives.. kinda creep me out. I mean.. yeah, I'll just leave it at that XD It's weird.

I'm gonna try and avoid that ferry for the rest of my life .___. I can just imagine all the guys with massive amounts of beer and other crap..

Why was I born here

[Tooki]

I don't want to sound mean, but those old Finnish men who you see with their Asian wives.. kinda creep me out. I mean.. yeah, I'll just leave it at that XD It's weird.

I'm gonna try and avoid that ferry for the rest of my life .___. I can just imagine all the guys with massive amounts of beer and other crap..

Why was I born here

I know how you feel about the old men! We have the same types here as well. But hey, at least I'm not the only coloured person on the flight!

And the ferry always makes my day. Watching a grown man push a trolley with 5 or 6 cases (slabs) of beer onto the boat always makes me giggle.

[lucybelle]

Now on the Tallinn-Helsinki ferry? That is alcohol and party central!

I'm gonna try and avoid that ferry for the rest of my life .___. I can just imagine all the guys with massive amounts of beer and other crap..

Why was I born here

And the ferry always makes my day. Watching a grown man push a trolley with 5 or 6 cases (slabs) of beer onto the boat always makes me giggle.

Man this ferry sounds awesome!

[Moon]

You'd be surprised. I was on a plane going from my hometown to Paris and everyone on board was quiet... EXCEPT for two middle-aged gentlemen sitting behind me, who kept talking Finnish very loudly during the whole flight I'm sure they thought they being clever since no one would understand them. Little did they know that I caught a few words, like Sunday and Family. Muahahahaha!

Nah, actually, I wouldn't The company I work for is Finnish, our CTO is Finnish and visits pretty often. Being an unpretentious kinda guy, he takes the cube in front of me to sit in. When he calls to someone in the Helsinki office, or his family, I can pick up more and more of his conversations and it makes me feel really guilty! I'm sure he feels very private being in the US office and speaking Finnish, and I don't understand much yet, but it feels a little sneaky or something. I have a ton of respect for him, so I either tune him out or go out for a smoke.

My guy was in an airport in France with some friends some years back, they were being stupid and saying awful things to each other, figuring they were safe, until they noticed a nearby group giving them the most disgusted looks, they weren't expecting a big group of Estonians to be next to them, understanding pretty much everything they were saying

[Dziubka]

Plus it's fun to be able to speak a language no one else knows and talk about people. (although that doesn't work so well since most people here know English and tons of people in the USA speak Spanish We need to learn a third language!)

Tell me about it! Poles are freaking everywhere!! We sometimes talk about people in Polish, but I'm always sort of scared they're going to turn around and be like "Oh, well, you know what? Your jacket is f*cking ugly, too!"

[makoman]

I'm interested in learning my GF's language (Romanian) she's already bilingual. She wants to improve her English. She say learing Romanian is quite easy so I'm willing to try. If she had a boyfriend in her home country she would be able to hear him say nice things to her in her mother tongue. I want to say nice things to her and I think it will really reach her heart if she hears these things in her own language.

I'm teaching someone English in my country and he really gets a kick when I try to learn Thai off him. I'm only learning a tiny bit but it really does go along way.

Russian is a hard language to learn. I bought some learning CDs off byki. I haven't used them but it was a language that was better available to get a deluxe package for.

[Tooki]

Man this ferry sounds awesome!

It is awesome! Although there is a lot more partying on the overnight Tallinn/Helsinki-Stockholm boat.

When alco is half the price, and it takes you 2 hours to get there, for $50. You do it.

[rina]

Bram speaks flemish, i speak romanian and we're both fluent in english, with a bit of french. I have an american accent, he's got a flemish accent (duh) so there's no real communication issues in between us,but i sometimes have trouble understanding 1 random word that has dutch sounds in it and he pronounces it in his tongue, but that's rare and it doesn't bother me at all.

I've started learning dutch since before we were together but i got so lazy, i'm horrible at learning stuff on my own, i'm the group study type person. Started studying it cause we were planning on moving together when we finish college and most of his family doesn't speak english, compromise on my part.

I think if there's an existing vision of the future in which you should be with your partner in their country, you should definitely learn the language, you'll need it to be able to function on your own, and you're going to be able to say sweet stuff to your partner in their own tongue, which i believe, everyone should appreciate.

[Bex2804]

I'm English and speak a bit of German but that's it really, my SO is Spanish with a mother who comes from Belgium so he speaks Flemish as well as fluent English and nearly- fluent French... So we communicate in English. I find it cute listening to him talk in his native tongue, and I am slowly beginning to pick up words he says sometimes.. Normally when I get bored I'll use a translator to send him a message in spanish and I surprised him today by translating his message by myself slowly learning the language but it's hard!!

[charly]

Me and my boyfriend both are pretty fluent in English, although I do notice that when serious subjects come up, my knowledge of English isn't always enough. By now we have developed some sort of Swedish/Dutch/English language we are talking with each other haha and that works just fine for now. For family we translate, and that goes well. His friends however don't dare to speak English with me (swedes are so shy!), so that does bother me sometimes. I am learning Swedish, but it's just too easy to go back to English. He has to learn Dutch now, since he want's to work here for a year, but that's not really working out yet....Learning a new language next to uni is just difficult and time consuming!

[jo28]

My mother tongue is Spanish but I grew up bilingual, so English comes very easy to me. In the case of my SO, his mother tongue is Italian but he majored in English and French. Random enough, I'm majoring in languages and Italian is my main language so when we met, I already spoke some of his language.

When he comes to visit is quite funny because although he knows a bit of Spanish, Puerto Ricans tend to speak quite fast and using a lot of slang so, he gets lost! Visiting him was an interesting experience...although I'm, by now, quite fluent in Italian, I found myself at a loss of words.

As some already said, language barrier shouldn't be a deal-breaker. Either you make some effort to at least learn some of the language or you find common ground. And by learning your SO's language, not only you get closer but it's a sweet gesture, in my opinion.

[Eleven]

Yes, it matters.

Sooner later you'll get used to it.
You will learn it as the time goes by.