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Poll: In my household, we speak Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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My native language, which is not my partner/wife/spouse's but is our children's.
That's for speaking. Then it gets complicated.
Philippe
[Edited at 2016-04-20 08:21 GMT]
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| Speaking vs communicating | Apr 20, 2016 |
In our multi-lingual household:
- the adults claim to speak the same language but generally still fail to communicate
- the boy child mostly just grunts
- the girl child mostly just shrieks
- the cats talk with their fists and seem to get on far better
(Mainly English with some Welsh, French and Swedish chucked in)
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Love your answer, Chris!
We speak both my husband's native language and mine. And our child just begins to say a few words, they seem mainly French.
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| our common first language | Apr 20, 2016 |
Chris... this was brilliant!
Chris S wrote:
In our multi-lingual household:
- the adults claim to speak the same language but generally still fail to communicate
- the boy child mostly just grunts
- the girl child mostly just shrieks
- the cats talk with their fists and seem to get on far better
(Mainly English with some Welsh, French and Swedish chucked in)
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I live alone, so days can go by when I don’t speak to a soul...
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Michael Harris 
Germany
Local time: 08:59
Member (2006)
German to English
Chris S wrote:
In our multi-lingual household:
- the adults claim to speak the same language but generally still fail to communicate
- the boy child mostly just grunts
- the girl child mostly just shrieks
- the cats talk with their fists and seem to get on far better
(Mainly English with some Welsh, French and Swedish chucked in)
That was a good one, and sooo true - except for the boy child - I have girl children - imagine how that is☺
But other than that my wife and I speak German with each other, I only speak GB with the children and my wife only speaks Hungarian with them (in all situations irrelevant if anyone is there or not) and funily, the girls do whatever they want
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DianeGM
Local time: 09:59
Member (2006)
Dutch to English
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... a home-cooked mix of three languages.
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John Cutler
Spain
Local time: 08:59
Spanish to English
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My wife and I speak English with each other, although it's her 4th language.
I speak either English or Catalan with my daughters. The Mrs speaks Catalan with them.
Spanish is reserved for when Spanish speaking friends or neighbors drop by.
Actually, the only "language" we all have in common as a family are the emojis from Whatsapp. Sometimes we send messages to each other at the family group we have, using just emojis, and we all know what they mean. No wor... See more My wife and I speak English with each other, although it's her 4th language.
I speak either English or Catalan with my daughters. The Mrs speaks Catalan with them.
Spanish is reserved for when Spanish speaking friends or neighbors drop by.
Actually, the only "language" we all have in common as a family are the emojis from Whatsapp. Sometimes we send messages to each other at the family group we have, using just emojis, and we all know what they mean. No words are needed at all. ▲ Collapse
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| I to her Czech, I to girls English, they to me Czech | Apr 20, 2016 |
I speak Czech to the wife and English to the children. And everyone, despite the pleas, speaks to me in Czech. (Except the dog, but he died.)
[Edited at 2016-04-20 09:25 GMT]
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Vanda Nissen
Australia
Local time: 16:59
Member (2008)
English to Russian
+ ...
Danish with my husband (it is his first language) and English with some elements of Danish with our son.
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| The language of the area we live in... | Apr 20, 2016 |
...which is also my husband's one and only language.
I am often upbraided for not speaking English to my children, but it has not been my social language since I moved to Spain 30 years ago, and I feel strange if I have to speak it in a domestic setting.
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| A language in common | Apr 20, 2016 |
My Ex was French, but we always spoke English at home to the benefit of our daughter, whose 'mother tongue' is English (and she went to international shools).
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I speak English to my dogs and they speak Canine to me.
When my husband was alive, we spoke his language (Portuguese) exclusively, regardless of where we were living.
I speak Portuguese with his daughters and other relatives in Brazil and a mish-mash of Portuguese and English with his nieces and nephews who live here in the US.
[Edited at 2016-04-20 10:53 GMT]
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| Mostly Danish | Apr 20, 2016 |
Mostly Danish, my husband's language, with bits of other languages mixed in.
We went to Italian classes earlier this year (beginners...), so we tried to use that. My husband lapsed into Spanish now and then. I got tongue-tied when it was not the same as French. Must keep practising before classes start again in the autumn!
We see a fair bit of German TV - und das kommt mit.
When our Swedish relatives visit, they speak Swedish and we respond in Danish, with ... See more Mostly Danish, my husband's language, with bits of other languages mixed in.
We went to Italian classes earlier this year (beginners...), so we tried to use that. My husband lapsed into Spanish now and then. I got tongue-tied when it was not the same as French. Must keep practising before classes start again in the autumn!
We see a fair bit of German TV - und das kommt mit.
When our Swedish relatives visit, they speak Swedish and we respond in Danish, with English as a reserve if we need it.
We play with English and I look things up in Latin when we can't solve the crosswords.
Of course, we speak English to my family when they visit and on the phone.
But as Chris S. says, communication is another matter
A lot of that is probably non-verbal. I wail that my husband doesn't understand me, but the trouble is, he understands all too well at times!
PS our son is bilingual Danish-English, lives in the UK and is good at German when required. He joins in the fun with whatever languages are in the air when he comes home.
[Edited at 2016-04-20 10:51 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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