I dunno if this is appropriate for this site...

[state.unknown]

I don't even know if this kind of post is appropriate for this web site...but I've been coming on this site for the last couple of years and I always found it to be really helpful. So here it goes...

I have been seeing this girl for the past 2 months and last sunday she decided that she wanted a break to think things through cause we did go a lot fast and etc. Today she told that one thing that bothers her is the language barrier between my parents. I'm French and she's English...my parents speak perfect English but think that it is inappropriate to speak another language when they are in "their" house. They feel like they shouldn't have to. On the other hand, I think that it would be the respectful thing to do to just speak English when my "gf" is around. Is there somebody else that think that they shouldn't speak another language to communicate with someone else such as your son's gf? My mother refuses to talk to me in English which is I think is really self-centered and disrespectful...

In my opinion, if one of my kids brought someone who speaks another language that I know, I think it would be the respectful thing to do to just speak it when that person is around. Even to my kid.

I just don't want the relation to end for something like that. Any advices ?
Talking about it to my mother doesn't help...she just starts yelling at me about "it's a French house and a French province, ect."

Any kind of help would be much appreciated...



Oh, and I apologize if this kind of thread isn't really permitted on the forum since it is a web site concerning information about sex and clearly this isn't my problem right now heh.

[ua322]

Seemingly, this type of thing only happens with French speaking people. All of us dirty Anglophones are supposedly eroding the superior French culture.

It sounds like your folks simply don't want you to see her. Since you've only been dating 2 months, it'll probably all blow over eventually and you'll find someone else anyway.

[Brandye]

Now, now, pull in those Canadian talons.

My father was a Scot; mother, German; fiance Croatian with a German mother; my sister engaged to a Dutchman; my brother to a Francophone Canadian. As a group we each spoke whatever we wanted and someone would respond. Only when I went to my weak Gaelic would anyone look dumbfounded.

Language is such an artificial boundary. If she learns a few French pleasantries it would go a long way to building bridges. Like most mothers, your's is certain that a monoglot is not worthy of her wonderful son.

[WallyLlama]

Yup, balance and respect. I don't pretend to understand the politics... and I think they may play a role in this.

Personally, I find that more often than not bi-lingual people tend to speak the language others don't understand to exclude them from the conversation and exercise some superiority.

But what's interesting about this particular situation is the polarization. Unless you are spending huge amounts of time together with your parents, this simply shouldn't be that big an issue at this point.

You can't force a solution, obviously. But you can agree to find one.

[sdrawkcab m'i]

i second the suggestion to try and teach your girlfriend a few french words, maybe enough to carry on a small conversation with your mom. I think it will score major points, and maybe if she sees that you and your girlfriend are both trying to adapt to her silly rule(well, i think its silly, sorry if its not) she may just let up, and speak english.

[dancingdoc2]

My wife is Amerasian having grown up in Japan and only living full time in the U.S. after 18. Her dad was in the service so while she grew up in Japan, she did attend U.S. schools albeit in traditional school uniform. She speaks perfect English without accent; her mother's English is heavily accented. Her parents speak to each other in English yet when my wife and mother get together even with us guys present, they converse in Japanese. This used to bother me quite a bit, yet as the relationship matured in the early stages of the relationship I came to terms with it and realized that it was no big deal because it was just "girl talk".

[champloo]

lol doc, girl talk. i hear that alot lol..

but since my gf is english, i can hear what she says if im close enough

[nursefluffykins]

here's my 2 cents ;

im english, my bf is french ... well actually im half and half, my dad being a "quebecois" and my mom an english quebequer.... but i consider myself english because its my mothertongue although i did go to french elementary school, and my moms mom from egland lived with us growing up so we spoke english to her always ...
When i go to my bf's house, we speak french , although sometimes with his sister it turns into kind of a half and half thing because she speaks pretty good english, having studied in ottawa for university... but my bf's parents really dont speak english that well, so i go with the french in that case...

at my house, we tend to speak english out of habit, but my dad being french i can tell although he doesnt say it that he is happy that im dating a francophone person so he will sometimes talk to my bf in french and then i'll reply in english lol

ok im not sure what the point of that story was, ive been up all night correcting papers (end of semester is just as hard on teachers as it is on students heh), so anyway yah my thought process is pretty blurry right now and this is kind of serving as a break for a few minutes before i shower and leave for class....

so right , the language thing,... ok so what im trying to say i guess is that in my family, anything seems to go, but we all seem to fall back on the language that we're more comfortable with... and in your parents case that seems to be french.... of course its more complicated for you cuz ur gf doesnt understand french (whereas at my house we all understand eachother, we just have different preferences for expressing ourselves...)... so it can work in different ways , i can definitely see how ur parents may wish to speak the language they're more comfortable in, but again that depends on the reason.. see in my case im just shy and words dont come out as well in french as it does for me in english... but if your parents have other motives, such as wanting to exclude your gf on purpose knowing she doesnt speak french (or if it has anything to do with seperation of Quebec), than thats not cool in my opinion lol

if u think there could be real potential with this girl then its definitely worth discussing with both ur parents and ur gf or semi-ex or whatever.... ("we were on a break!")...

another personal side note, when my mom met my dad's family back in the early 1970's, she barely spoke a word of french... so they got by with mostly hand gestures and smiles and other non verbal communication seeing as my dads family barely speak any english... come to think of it my dad barely spoke any english when he met my mom, so i dont even know how they communicated, or what they had in common, or what they did other than talk to pass the time, seeing as they couldnt, but thats a whole other story, and one that i do not wish to know about at that...

so yah your gf should definitely make plans to learn some conversational french, it will benefit her personnally and probably professionnally as well if u guys plan to stay in Quebec in the future ...

these things can be worked out ; my dads mother once referred to my mother as "the calice d'anglaise" LOL... but that was like 30 years ago and since then my mom and her mother in law have grown really close and we were actually the ones that took the most care of her when she passed away... if your parents can see that your gf is a good person (presuming she is of course), than at some point the language issue should become less of an issue...

another side note, my ex bf that i dated for almost five year (before my french bf) was from Argentina, so his mothertongue was spanish, so sometimes if the parents were talking to eachother they would talk away in spanish, but not to the point of excluding me intentionnallly, it was more something they would do if they were talking to eachother and i was sitting with my bf.. if it was just me and the parents, then they would usually speak french....

beyond language, it sounds like you're probably partly torn between what your parents want and what u want... so take some time and think it over and talk talk talk to these people (or parler, if u prefer).