Cultural Differences and Language Barriers with your SO

[Rezie]

He is British so we speak English together. I'm fairly good but I have a very american accent and vocabulary. So he sometimes doesn't understand me. He claims that I missuse words or make them up and then he looks it up in a dictionary and discovers that I'm right (as usual ).

When we first started dating he had problems understanding that it is ok to be quiet and we don't have to talk about the weather. Or tha tthe pavement for cyclist looks different from the pedestrian side. He always comes to the wrong side of the car and gets confused tha twhy there is light outside at midnight. I do feel like our main cultural differences are from our family culture. Our families are very different and we have had different upbringin. So nothing to do with nationality. It took a long time for him to feel relaxed around my overly involved family. Also our family is a lot more "everyone does everything for mutual benefit " type where as his is more private and quiet.

To be honest lately I've been feeling slightly negative about our relationship and future. We have been talking about him moving here and I can't help but to think about the language problems. I know that all the people around me are not perfectly comfortable with speaking english so I need to thik about which party I can take him with so that no one feels too uncomfortable. Not everyone in my family can communicate with him and he feels a bit of an outsider when not being involved. In a moment of crisis it's hard to think of instructions in another language. We had a car crash situation. We were getting everything out of the car and I kind of felt bad becasuse he didn't have anything to do because at that situation it's hard to change language since there were non-english speakers with us. I was thiking how we can't so to theatre together or can't see certain films. And how it must be uncomfortable for him if he can't understand the menu. or pay the invoices cause they are in a differnet language. Of course these are all valuable experiences an I gain a lot from these

[BadrulsGirl]

Reply to Lucybelle on first past of this section:
The hardest part of learning a language is learning its figures of speech, and words that are considered rude are different in every culture and language. I think its great and a good sign that you and your signifigant other are able to openly communicate and solve these language or culture related issues when they occur. Congrats on reaching this level together Badrul and I are both still learning each other's language, so there are translation issues at time, but we work through it. I never watched too much TV in Bengali, nor he in English, so we haven't had that exact issue, but although I can communicate well in Bengali, I tended to speak in a more joking casual manner than I would have liked (I learned Bengali from listening to Badrul(my beloved), and our nieces and nephews, and Badrul's mother communicate. The more I practice learning formal language skills, the more its helped me when I need to have a more serious conversation, that does not involve calling someone crazy, lovingly.

[xxcazaxx]

I really love this thread! My OH is fluent in English (better than me at times to be honest and I am a native speaker lol). His first language is Bengali, followed by English and then Hindi. I have told him that I would love to go out and surprise him by being able to speak Hindi (which would be more useful than Bengali seeing as he lives in Delhi now) but the reality is that I can't even distinguish some of the sounds of the alphabet. I know a few phrases, but that is pretty much it (and who knows what it sounds like to a native person). He has said that he will teach me, but still would like to be able to speak some.

I haven't hugely been aware of huge cultural differences so far. My OH went to a school run by english teachers in India and in the 4 years that he was guiding spent a lot of time with western people and i would say that he was very westernised. I think that the tough bit culturally will be when I meet his family. As much as he says that his family are totally laid back and cool I don't want to accidentally cause offense. Some things are going to be so new for me - like touching the feet of elders. I am certain that I have a lot to learn. Like yesterday he mentioned that when his brother's wife visits his family that they have to give her a gold bracelet as that will be the first time that she has met them since being married which was something that I hadn't heard of before.

[jperalta2018]

My man is Polish. So he obviously speaks Polish. Yet he is also Vietnamese. I love his cultural background! I actually thought it was gonna be tricky to understand his english but his whole life he went to a british speaking school. Our difference problem is when it comes to religion. I tell him that I do not mind if he is Atheist but he feels like he is bringing me and my family down. Or he will bring my family down because I am Catholic. What do i do?

[xxcazaxx]

I wonder what makes him feel that way. I guess all that you can do is remind him that you love him for who he is.

[jperalta2018]

Oh of course! I tell him all the time. It is not my fault he is an atheist nor i a Catholic. Religion means nothing in our love. It may come to topic if we even think about spending the rest of our lives together. But geez! we have a long time before anything like that comes to mind! He is just that way. Because here's the thing. Our parents have not met. We fear they will not feel comfortable since we met online. And to top off, my parents, especially my mother, are super catholic so he does not want to lose me because my parents wont accept if hes Atheist...

[BadrulsGirl]

I have found the more you learn, the more other things about a culture or language make sense... usually. I always do my best to keep my Bangla (Bengali) language skills at their best... after all, we want our daughter to speak Bengali as well as English.

[differentcountries]

It is not always easy to distinguish what is a cultural difference and what is a personal difference. But regardless of the differences, I think it is important to laugh a little when you notice that something is amiss in the understanding. Of course when something happens a lot you may consider changing something, but I realize that my SO is never going to "get" a lot of what I mean, and I am ok with that. I have tried to be loved by someone who understands perfectly jokes about Henrik Ibsen and I dont need SO to be able to do that. I may never catch all the subtleties about Turkish culture, and may offend him at some point, as I have in the past. But the most important thing is to forgive each other, and to laugh together.

[snow]

I feel like I need to update my post from 3 years ago as I have now actually spent time in America around Americans daily.

I still think the world "love" is being thrown around pretty fast. All the children at work tell me they love me daily, which is absolutely adorable and I think it's cute, but it's also a little much. My best friend told me she "loved" me after hanging out for like a week at the time - in a text and continues to do so which is cute and I reciprocate in text form but I do not use it when we actually talk face to face. She is a good friend and I enjoy spending time with her, but "love"'s too much.

I think the biggest difference between my husband and me is that my family, mostly my mom, is very superstitious and likes to cure minor illnesses by using household remedies whereas my husband likes to buy over the counter medicine for little things. One example would be a cough - my mom makes cough syrup out of an onion and sugar, he will not try it and buy cough syrup yet I make it for myself every time and it works fine for me. Sore throat? I put butter in my hot cocoa, he bought me a spray that numbs the throat.
I learned a lot of things that I do from my parents - like I don't go out of the house with wet hair since that can cause a cold, or I don't eat ice cream when my throat hurts or it will get worse, or that you don't look at a flame before bed because you'll wet the bed - my husband will tell me that wet hair has nothing to do with a cold and that ice cream has no influence on a sore throat or just shake his head at the flame thing lol. I know there are plenty more things like these, but they are so ingrained that I only notice them when my husband tells me they are silly.

HOWEVER: I do want to say that American medicine is amazing? Dayquil?? Nyquil??? That stuff just takes away ALL of your cold symptoms!!

I also noticed why he is sooo laid back - American's just do their own thing and don't care what you do as long as you treat other people with respect. I grew up being told that EVERYTHING you do reflects on your parents and siblings, so you would NEVER go outside the house with a dirty shirt or pants with a hole in as that would show the world that your parents are bad parents - he on the other hand just tells me "whatever, no one will care".

We also grew up eating different things. He was VERY hesitant to try anything I cook, because I cook with a LOT of spices (and his mother in law USES ABSOLUTELY NONE?! THAT STUFF IS SO BLAND?!?!?!) He had to grow into it and now he enjoys the food and will actually tell his family to give it a try since it will be completely different than what they have ever eaten, but they will like it. I still think American food is very sweet - American bread is very different. I eat all of the crazy things I have never seen in Europe, but SO.MUCH.SUGAR.

Other than that, language wise, I feel more comfortable making mistakes. He corrects me to help me understand idioms, but I don't seem to make that many mistakes anymore. I took me a while to correct the mistakes my teachers have made when they taught us English like medicine being pronounce medsin.. Or I like to call ibuprofen painkillers, which creeps him out a little since it's common to call them by their name here whereas to me they are what they are - allergy pills, painkillers, heartburn medicine not Benadryl, Ipuprofen/Aleve/Aspirin and Tums haha

[Harlequin]

I also noticed why he is sooo laid back - American's just do their own thing and don't care what you do as long as you treat other people with respect. I grew up being told that EVERYTHING you do reflects on your parents and siblings, so you would NEVER go outside the house with a dirty shirt or pants with a hole in as that would show the world that your parents are bad parents - he on the other hand just tells me "whatever, no one will care".

Funny you should mention "Americans just do their own thing and don't care what you do as long as you treat other people with respect", because I recently met one of my neighbors, and he was like "Yeah, it's a pretty quiet neighborhood. Everyone keeps to themselves, and as long as you're not being a nuisance, no one really cares what you do."