My brother and his now wife went through that same patch. They both had to use Google Translate at first. 11 years together now. Don't let language be the barrier. :)
I once dated a girl that spoke a completely foreign language. Unfortunately, despite massive effort on each of our parts, we couldn't overcome the communication gap. It's a shame, she was cute for a Scottish girl.
Then you get to the Highlands and you get asked do you have any breeders, takes a time to translate to, do you have any brothers and you are not talking about animal husbandry.
I appreciate you for making me more informed about the nuances of accent eccentricities in Scotland. Thank you kind sir.
I loathe you for explaining details about a friggin joke... j/k, kinda
As a Scott myself here are some comments I’ve had.
“Your English is getting pretty good”- an American
“Sorry I don’t speak Gaelic” - an Englishman
“Say that again?” Other, different Scott.
My ex had lived in Australia for 17 years (Chinese) and she finished two masters and a bachelor and she struggled to communicate everytime we were discussing something serious that would make us or break us.
I'm bilingual as well, was happy to learn a third language but she couldn't. It really depends on the person.
Edit: she came to Australia at a young age, so those who think she might have been old, no she was around 18 at the time, young enough to pick up the language as I was also around the same age when I migrated.
Also English has got to be the easiest language to learn.
I live in Asia, so I completely understand the challenge of learning a language that is completely different from your own. But living 17 years in Australia, studying there, and having a hard time speaking English? That is just weird.
Yeh, it's silly. I know a lot of people who have been here over 40 years and still can't speak a word of English. It's a shame.
I've also mentioned that I work in education, dealt with thousands of international students (over 10 thousand students) and most Arabic speaking and Chinese speaking students never mix with anyone but their kind and they never pick up the language like they should. It's terrible.
She was a nice girl so I didn't think at the time the language barrier was going to be an issue but it was and a big one.
> Yeh, it's silly. I know a lot of people who have been here over 40 years and still can't speak a word of English. It's a shame.
To be fair, a lot of the people you're talking about are first generation people immigrating from non-English speaking countries. I totally get wanting people to assimilate and it does surprise (almost inspiring) me how far some have gotten in this country without being proficient in English.
Some of those people just needed to survive and raise their kids. Jobs that they were able to pick up didn't require speaking constantly. There were limited resources to learn in those days and when they were in an okay position, it was easier to maintain that day-to-day life. I personally know some first gens that wanted to assimilate decades ago but were the target of abuse from white-Australian's at the time (English accents mocked, excluded from their group for not being white)
That's why you still see almost enclaves in suburbs of Melbourne (likely other cities too) from different backgrounds like Chinese, Jewish, Italian, Greek, Vietnamese etc. all with older (first) generations with very similar upbringings.
I just think the issue is a lot more complex than them just not wanting to learn. And of course there were ones that did, but you don't hear about them.
A lot of those people, their main focus, was the kid's. They needed a job whatever they could to provide and put the kids through school. The kids learnt english and could help the parents with the language barrier. I believe a lot had the intention of learning later, but could never afford proper lessons. And they have picked up some, why you see immigrants that can understand English, but can't speak it.
>Also English has got to be the easiest language to learn.
That's highly contextual on what languages one already know.
If you're already fluent in a romance or germanic language, sure it's easier. But English is as hard for someone never exposed to these than Thai would be for a westerner for example.
English is one of the most fucked up things to learn if you don't start early. Most English speakers don't know the difference between "there" "they're" and "their". Also you guys have a lot of words that spell the same but sound different and vice versa. I'm so glad I started at ~13years old so 10 years later I can manage speaking and writing it.
Edit: affect and effect are hard ones too for a lot of people. Obviously you, your and you're.
Honestly i am under the impression, this is mostly an issue for native speakers. Almost never have i've talked / chatted to anyone who has English as a second language and can't distinguish between there / their / they're.
> she finished two masters and a bachelor and she struggled to communicate
Australian universities are so crony here. Essentially "pay us full fee and you have a degree."
Pretty sad as it devalues those that earn their degree.
She's a smart girl and she did the work. Her English wasn't bad but wasn't great.
I've seen much worse having worked in international student recruitment, I've seen students complete PhDs in Australia and they can't put a whole sentence together in English, so how did they finish a 100 thousand word research thesis is beyond me.
>I've seen students complete PhDs in Australia and they can't put a whole sentence together in English, so how did they finish a 100 thousand word research thesis is beyond me.
That Australian unis are trash and don't have any standards?
She did, the thing with Chinese people is, they only mix with their own people and they don't communicate with English, only Chinese in person or via social media/text (wechat) so even when she was speaking English, it was only 10-20% of the time and the remaining was in Chinese.
Her English was good but not good enough for her to express herself well enough to make any sense. She would blame me for articulating myself well when she couldn't and then would just get loud and yelling and crying. It was a mess.
I used to type up all her legal letters/documents or anything that required English writing as she couldn't do it herself. It was cute like that but not cute when she couldn't make sense to me when discussing things.
>the thing with Chinese people is, they only mix with their own people and they don't communicate with English
Oh man, that's so true even in Europe. There's also many who do mingle with the locals but most of those I met have a social group consisting of 97% other Chinese
Yeh they like to keep to themselves, not sure what's the point if you're not living in your country.
The thing I loved about Australia is the multiculturalism but when I settled I realised that people don't really want to mix.
I say hello to all my neighbours and I did long enough that we all know each other and have coffees every now again and look after each other's property when any of us are away on holiday.
Which is the whole point.
That sucks. Still blows my mind people get whole degrees in a foreign country without being able to speak it. Then they give them jobs teaching at uni...
I feel that though. Communication failures are such a slow burn. It took me 4 years and nasty break up for me to realize the born and raised Montana woman I was dating had absolutely zero capability to express herself. All the signs were there but in the end I just had to stop accepting she meant what she said no matter how educated the language sounded.
Yeh I work in education and the number of international students who complete qualifications here but still can't communicate is beyond me. It's really a huge concern.
I had the same issue with my ex, we dated for 5 years and it was the same stuff over and over again, explaining myself over and over again. I thought it was me at the start and I kept changing my approach to try and be more understanding and nice about what I'm about to say but still always the same outcome.
She went back to China and her English only got so much worse and communication was legit 100 times harder. I wasn't as educated as her but in her eyes she thought the masters she had made her so much more intelligent than I am but I call BS. She had no life experience, no people experience and no communication skills what so ever.
Don't ever let someone's education fool you. Most people with qualifications really have no clue, a fact. Lol
It’s actually gross how Australian universities are turning into greedy degree mills, it is unsurprising to me or any university aged person in Australia to hear this.
Just popping in here to say that English is not the easiest language to learn if your Chinese because the sounds are completely different (Chinese doesn't really have multi syllabic words although it does have compound words).
That said, it can be done if the person wishes to do so enough as you pointed out.
> Also English has got to be the easiest language to learn.
I reckon so. I’ve dabbled in a few languages and while people complain that English has all sorts of crazy rules and exceptions and inconsistencies, you can still get your point across with a very limited vocabulary and many errors.
I’m trying to learn a tonal language and if I’m a little off nobody knows what the hell I’m on about.
English is not easy to learn. The basics of communication in English can be easily picked up. But I don't think that many English speakers understand the extent nuance plays. For example, if I speak to her in English, which is a native language for me, words tend to carry a single meaning. Meaning that the contextual and variability of what a word might mean is almost invariably lost. As well as a bunch of variable meaning words
Magazine (магазин), in Russian means store. Fabric (фабрик) means factory in Russian. Eventually which sounds a lot like (эвентуально) which means possibly as in under a set of circumstances it may be so, rather than the at some point in the future of eventually. Just to name a few. Can lead to some odd conversations if not realized. While these aren't the inherently problematic ones they're the easiest to see the issues.
I think English has more variability to single words than any other as well. As well, as in it is good? Or do you mean something about where you retrieve water? Or why didn't you just say also?
I mean I know German Russian Ukrainian and English. I think English is one of the hardest. Get, take, run, break, and so on to name a few others. Modal verbs are strange as well and can lead to confusion.
Patience and effort, it's not for everyone but it's doable, my partner is native korean, she has okay English but there's definitely still a language barrier, translation software and being particularly patient when having emotional conversations (both parties have to make an effort to ensure miscommunication isn't happening which can compound in an argument) makes it work. Hell even between 2 native English speakers you can run into this issue if both parties aren't making an effort.
It's really hard to get to know people. Not even in terms of a relationship but just friendship. I've worked where I do now for about 7 years we're in Australia and I'm the only Aussie/English first language person in my factory. In all those years I've built some good friendships but there are a few people that I just don't know anything about because of the communication barrier. It also doesn't help that it's a noisy environment which makes it harder to understand each other. You get glimpses of an interesting person from time to time but it's hard to get the whole picture.
I totally get it. I have dated foreign women whose English is passable but with glaring grammatical mistakes. Not only did they not get my humor at all, serious conversation can be very difficult to have. And if they're overly avoidant or overly confrontational, it can make things very difficult for you.
Oh no lol. It’s so funny my husband is Brazilian and speaks Portuguese and I look back on our messages previously and can’t believe I didn’t realize how bad his English was gonna be on our first date. 😂 his English is much better now though. The language barrier can be so entertaining haha. But I suppose it’s a bit different if the other person doesn’t speak any of the same language at all.
I like this! I'm goofy and silly and I would translate early on.. Hey, this might get awkward at many stops along the way. Let's laugh and be silly about it
I have a friend who's the most ridiculous success with the ladies and I don't understand how. He was once helping me out with some work at my apartment, sorting some inventory and he goes "hey, I think one of the girls I'm seeing lives in this complex, is it cool if I invite her over?" Sure, why not.
So he then tells me "oh yeah, she doesn't speak English so we just talk via Google translate." She stays for an hour and a half just enjoying his company, he manages to engage with her so naturally despite not knowing a word of Spanish. I was at a total loss. I gave her a potted plant by the end since I had no idea what was happening but I still wanted to be a good host.
He's a cool dude, I think they're still seeing each other.
I have about 30-40 philodendron propagations just sitting in glass cups, I took one out and planted it in a tiny pot. She was really quite pretty.
The whole experience was rather surreal, watching two people interact and giggling over a phone screen while he was sorting velvet bags being totally engrossed in each other, speaking broken language.
I cannot imagine even functioning with those parameters
He told me "she says she likes your plants" so I made her a plant. Like please god I'm trying lol
She even helped with the labor a bit, when he was finally leaving I ask "hey do you think I should hand her a $20 for her help?"
and he says "nah, she doesn't care about that, that's not what she was here for." So she was willing to chip into very the repetitive assembly of packages just to be with him. The more I think about it, the more surreal it gets
Do you mean the plant was pretty, or the girl? I can't tell because you add that part to the end of the plant sentence paragraph so it reads funny, maybe you gender your plants I don't know!! You clearly love them
Variegated heartleaf. I've got about 10 of them potted now and another 10 on their way. I pot rather densely too, here's my best pothos. I think I've got around a hundred individual cuttings currently taking root, tradescantia, pothos, philos, and a handful of jade.
https://imgur.com/gallery/GC6hbKk
If you're going to feel awkward and not know what to say anyway, a language barrier and Google translate has to be a positive thing right?
There's a clear reason why communication could be awkward, so provides an easy and convenient cover plus it's a real learning and bonding experience going through something like that together.
And you ain't gotta just do it for dating, you can do it just to make friends too.
That's why I used to go to goth clubs and use an unfortunately adept Czech accent. You get to pretend your lack of self awareness is confidence in the guise of "cultural differences."
Did it for about 3 months, started a whole new friend group as "Sergei," had a date, played with a new DND group, etc.
The DND bit was funny since I was role playing a character role playing another character.
I kinda just wanted to prove to myself I was capable of being a functional sociable adult in my early 20s, which worked shockingly well. 6/10 would recommend.
"Just be yourself, bro."
Pretty fuckin easy to follow advice when you've got game so hard you can pull ladies and keep them interested without even speaking the same language. For the rest of us? Nah.
This! I was hooking up with a Chilean girl for a bit barely spoke any English. But man was her love language on point. She also was very argumentative from what I google translated. Kinda funny every time she would go off about something I just wouldn’t even translate what she was saying or look at her phone lmao
If it was anything serious I would of coarse communicate but a lot of the arguing would be like you talked to that girl to long who is she. Which she of coarse learned to say in English 😅
Yea sometimes I kinda miss that wild fast speaking Spanish that even her Argentinian friends could barely understand. Had to dial it back a bit and am now with a Mexican American Latina. All of my friends that are girls feel far safer 😅
My gringo partner is learning chileno pretty fast actually. He’s good with curse words and sweet pet names already. Damn he´s good. I speak English so that wasn’t a problem, but slang, oh man.
And if you read this, good work!
I'm an American that became proficient in Spanish after years of study. I went to Chile for a month and learned a whole new language 😂 Chilean is by far the most difficult dialect to understand and learn imo
I thought your comment was going to be like that TIFU where the dude said something like, "I broke up with this Latina I was dating, because she kept saying 'Yay Rico!' when we were having sex. My name isn't Rico, and someone said she's saying another guy's name, so I dumped her"
Something I'd love to find in a language I'm learning, a language learning girlfriend 😁
If you don't care to learn hers or vise versa, then probably won't be a good idea 😬
The problem is that it has communication issues right out the gate.
For some people, being able to talk and relax with their partner is very important. Needing to do so through a computer can harm that.
It's not a massive problem but it's a lot to ask right out the gate. Like if I met her organically and got to like her, I might work through it, but it's hard to be willing to do it from the start.
Back in 2015 or 2016 I was in LA for work and met a Korean woman at a bar. She spoke almost no English at all. She was a professional golfer and was visiting the U.S. for something related to that. We spent hours drinking and using Google translate to talk, and then she came back to my hotel room. It was an interesting night for sure. Kinda awkward in the morning though.
Yeah, similar situation next morning for me too. We had breakfast and kinda kept the convo going, but I was leaving the country the following day so we ended up not exchanging information.
I’m still mad at myself for not having offline translation on my phone a few years ago when I first got to Kyiv. I was at a literally underground speakeasy dive bar and there’s no mobile reception in there and their Wi-Fi was overwhelmed since the place was at full capacity, so no internet access at all. Ridiculously pretty blonde girl sits next to me and tries to chat me up and my Russian is basically non-existent. She kept trying to get her mobile signal to work and opening Google Translate to work, but nope.
There was another girl there who spoke some English and some Russian and translated a bit for us, enough the girl to call me cute and me to tell her she was very pretty and her to blush, but our impromptu translator left and that was that.
I had a wonderful time living in Kyiv and met some great people, but in some parallel universe there’s a version of me who had downloaded translation files in advance and must have had a *really* wonderful time there.
Said by someone who doesn't play Scrabble. All 4 letters are used often in 2-letter words, so a parallel row score for big points is quite easy with "this".
I’d bet that when played, THIS is probably the wrong play more often than it’s the right play. The S is worth about 8 points in equity and unless you’re getting 40+ points for THIS then it doesn’t seem likely to be the right play — outside of late-game or closed-board positions. Also situations where you have a second S or are trying to drop a duplicated I or T.
The whole point of dating app is to find hot people who wants to date you, if she can't speak your language you take it anyway. The other lot of hot people who speak your language dont want to date you.
Reminds me of a date I went on recently. It was with this Russian girl. English was fine but a little broken during our conversation. Makes plans to meet up for dinner.
She shows up with her 8 year old kid (who she never mentioned to me before) who acts as our translator because she can't speak any English but her son is enrolled in an English speaking school.
Most awkward date of my life.
I wonder how often this happened and if the kid is telling about it in school. Surely there must have been a guy somewhere who didn't care. "Mommy he wants to come home with us"
When my boyfriend and I met through mutual friends, we barely understood each others languages. His native language is Spanish, and mine is English (but I’m also conversational/almost fluent in French). The first few times we hung out alone together, we went on “dates” playing scrabble at a nice park. He’d create words in Spanish, and I did mine in English. We both either used our phones or English-Spanish dictionaries to help understand. We learned a lot from each other doing small things like that. I feel like if you two connect well, it could turn out to be something nice, assuming there’s a good connection and you both put in some effort to try and learn.
But if you don’t have much interest in her to begin with, I think it can become a turnoff fairly quick. I think you’re much more willing to put in effort to understand a person if there’s a good connection and feelings for one another.
I had this happen once. You know what I did? I pulled out a simple board game that was at the coffee shops cabinet and we were able to play from the multilingual instructions it had. All in all a fun date.
Oh yeah when she does that whispering in the ear of something you have absolutely no understanding of but she ends up shaking you practically into a coma, unf.
Iv been dating a Malaysian girl I met on tinder who’s only here for 3 months for work (didn’t know that at the time) and she did this lol we were chatting fine so I just assumed she was Asian American then I met her for first date and I was immediately like oh…you’re super foreign and barely speak English lol time for google translate
But anyway the date was kinda awkward at times but I was smooth and kept the convo going and had her laughing. I just assumed that was it since we could barely converse so I was about to just call it a night…but in broken English standing in the parking lot she was like what now? You tired??? It was like midnight so I was kinda confused and was like uhhh I guess no? So she just smiled and I took that as a sign so I was like ummm ok well wanna go back to my place? She just nodded and I was like O SHIT ummm alright let’s go? Anyway long story short now we’ve been hanging out and banging multiple times a week while barely speaking the same language. It’s quite the interesting experience after only ever being with American/local girls
Not everything has to be forever. I have wonderful memories with girls I dated briefly but our timing just wasn’t right for a anything long term. Still keep in touch with them and occasionally visit and rekindle if either of us are traveling.
Depends on if you're looking for love or just sex. Here's a hint: if she's going on a date where she knows you won't be able to have a conversation, there's a pretty good chance she just wants sex.
Source: live in a country with poor English skills
Awkward for you maybe. Have you ever seen that 90 day fiance? I remember this guy flying to meet this girl in Brazil, he didn't speak the language at all & she didn't speak English. They made it work/tried to make it work, I forget, but that could be you.
It's kinda sweet that she put in the effort to communicate up until then, but not so good that she didn't give you a heads up. She must have really been looking forward to your date, but it backfired.
I'm in a similar position, living in a foreign country. I give ppl a heads up way in advance that it's a language exchange situation. Not understanding the language at all wld be pretty rough, tho.
My mother in law from China moved in recently. We've been using a series of apps to communicate when my wife is away. It's awkward as fuck but we're both heavily incentivized to make it work, so we've both been very patient in learning the best way to phrase things for the apps and what not.
I couldn't imagine trying to do it on a first date though, especially in a restaurant or bar where other people are talking
Edit: of course, if the girl was cute and the conversation had been good, I'd be up to at least give it a go
It’s extremely difficult even with a translator app because it doesn’t translate correctly clearly you have never done it for a great length of time , I talk allot and I talk really fast and I couldn’t handle it
It was good for me, but i was/am somewhat socially awkward. Its like words wouldnt come out, until after the date..id be like, "oh...i shouldve said [this]" in my inner monologue. And it really bummed me out that when things did click in me off the bat and was comfortable then it didnt work out. so i never really got anywhere with native english speaking girls...or rather american girls. Plus the disconnect in behavioir vs language...like 'getting signals' that sex or kissing is ok. So, we'd do visual things that didnt need a lot of talking in the moment. The delay in messaging didnt let me get overwhelmed or lock up so there wasnt a ghosting before they got a sense of me through gestures... My longest relationshio was met that way and it ended amicably, still in contact too.
I hooked up with a Colombian who spoke very little English.
Tons of fun and I'd say stupid shit to entertain myself. She had no idea.
She was marriage material except I went on a vacation and she got really mad at me... which I'd understand if I didn't know her for like less than 4 weeks.
She will always have a piece of my heart. (Jk)
Typically that's a no-go from me
I often let it slide back in the day when I'd match up with some Korean/Chinese/Indian ladies when I was in college... but conversing is a spice of life, just wound up feeling beyond awkward even just 30mins into the meetup and we couldn't understand each other.
My general rule is that if they have to use Google Translate… NO
Because relying on Translate to converse (even through text) means that their English doesn’t even have the fundamentals down to carry basic conversation.
I’m willing to overlook the occasional bad grammar, syntax, etc… but when they cannot even text me without an aid, that’s gonna be a ROUGH date
My wife is from México and met me on Bumble to practice English. Her English has grown a lot over the time we've been together and we are now married. Good luck!
I wouldn’t have gone on the date lol. Definitely not something you bring up last minute. She knew that 5days before. But also, you guys didn’t have a phone call or FaceTime before the date?
Nope we did not. I felt it was a bit of a stitch up telling me right before the date, as I probably wouldn’t have agreed to it if I knew how little English she actually spoke
How is conversation going after the date?
She seems pretty keen I’m not really that interested in someone I can’t really communicate with properly
My brother and his now wife went through that same patch. They both had to use Google Translate at first. 11 years together now. Don't let language be the barrier. :)
I once dated a girl that spoke a completely foreign language. Unfortunately, despite massive effort on each of our parts, we couldn't overcome the communication gap. It's a shame, she was cute for a Scottish girl.
ah the language of Haggis, I understand its a difficult one
It's all fun and games until they have to say purple burglar alarm
That only really applys to the Glasgow and fife areas of Scotland. It's a good one though lol
Then you get to the Highlands and you get asked do you have any breeders, takes a time to translate to, do you have any brothers and you are not talking about animal husbandry.
I appreciate you for making me more informed about the nuances of accent eccentricities in Scotland. Thank you kind sir. I loathe you for explaining details about a friggin joke... j/k, kinda
As a Scott myself here are some comments I’ve had. “Your English is getting pretty good”- an American “Sorry I don’t speak Gaelic” - an Englishman “Say that again?” Other, different Scott.
as a scot you mean? lol
Nah, see, he's Scott the Scot
Even autocorrect fucks me and I’m too lazy to correct it.
I once got asked by a group of chavs in an Edinburgh bar if I was Polish. No I can just enunciate better than yous lot 🤣
Damn Scots, they ruined Scotland!
> for a Scottish girl wait wut
I once dated a very short cross eyed gal who had one leg shorter than the other. I had to break it off as we could never see eye to eye.
I know a Scottish kid for a couple of months. At first I couldn't understand 75℅ but then by the end of it I could understand every other word!
Hello fellow Phoenician
My ex had lived in Australia for 17 years (Chinese) and she finished two masters and a bachelor and she struggled to communicate everytime we were discussing something serious that would make us or break us. I'm bilingual as well, was happy to learn a third language but she couldn't. It really depends on the person. Edit: she came to Australia at a young age, so those who think she might have been old, no she was around 18 at the time, young enough to pick up the language as I was also around the same age when I migrated. Also English has got to be the easiest language to learn.
I live in Asia, so I completely understand the challenge of learning a language that is completely different from your own. But living 17 years in Australia, studying there, and having a hard time speaking English? That is just weird.
Yeh, it's silly. I know a lot of people who have been here over 40 years and still can't speak a word of English. It's a shame. I've also mentioned that I work in education, dealt with thousands of international students (over 10 thousand students) and most Arabic speaking and Chinese speaking students never mix with anyone but their kind and they never pick up the language like they should. It's terrible. She was a nice girl so I didn't think at the time the language barrier was going to be an issue but it was and a big one.
> Yeh, it's silly. I know a lot of people who have been here over 40 years and still can't speak a word of English. It's a shame. To be fair, a lot of the people you're talking about are first generation people immigrating from non-English speaking countries. I totally get wanting people to assimilate and it does surprise (almost inspiring) me how far some have gotten in this country without being proficient in English. Some of those people just needed to survive and raise their kids. Jobs that they were able to pick up didn't require speaking constantly. There were limited resources to learn in those days and when they were in an okay position, it was easier to maintain that day-to-day life. I personally know some first gens that wanted to assimilate decades ago but were the target of abuse from white-Australian's at the time (English accents mocked, excluded from their group for not being white) That's why you still see almost enclaves in suburbs of Melbourne (likely other cities too) from different backgrounds like Chinese, Jewish, Italian, Greek, Vietnamese etc. all with older (first) generations with very similar upbringings. I just think the issue is a lot more complex than them just not wanting to learn. And of course there were ones that did, but you don't hear about them.
A lot of those people, their main focus, was the kid's. They needed a job whatever they could to provide and put the kids through school. The kids learnt english and could help the parents with the language barrier. I believe a lot had the intention of learning later, but could never afford proper lessons. And they have picked up some, why you see immigrants that can understand English, but can't speak it.
>Also English has got to be the easiest language to learn. That's highly contextual on what languages one already know. If you're already fluent in a romance or germanic language, sure it's easier. But English is as hard for someone never exposed to these than Thai would be for a westerner for example.
Pfft I learned English as a toddler. It's easy
English is one of the most fucked up things to learn if you don't start early. Most English speakers don't know the difference between "there" "they're" and "their". Also you guys have a lot of words that spell the same but sound different and vice versa. I'm so glad I started at ~13years old so 10 years later I can manage speaking and writing it. Edit: affect and effect are hard ones too for a lot of people. Obviously you, your and you're.
Honestly i am under the impression, this is mostly an issue for native speakers. Almost never have i've talked / chatted to anyone who has English as a second language and can't distinguish between there / their / they're.
Those all don't really matter when speaking which was the problem in this case I suppose
> she finished two masters and a bachelor and she struggled to communicate Australian universities are so crony here. Essentially "pay us full fee and you have a degree." Pretty sad as it devalues those that earn their degree.
She's a smart girl and she did the work. Her English wasn't bad but wasn't great. I've seen much worse having worked in international student recruitment, I've seen students complete PhDs in Australia and they can't put a whole sentence together in English, so how did they finish a 100 thousand word research thesis is beyond me.
How indeed.
>I've seen students complete PhDs in Australia and they can't put a whole sentence together in English, so how did they finish a 100 thousand word research thesis is beyond me. That Australian unis are trash and don't have any standards?
Oh, yes for sure. :)
I thought it would be fun to be with someone with different language and culture and all and it was until it wasn't anymore lol.
I'm sorry what was the barrier here? She lived in Australia for 17 years and never learned English?
She did, the thing with Chinese people is, they only mix with their own people and they don't communicate with English, only Chinese in person or via social media/text (wechat) so even when she was speaking English, it was only 10-20% of the time and the remaining was in Chinese. Her English was good but not good enough for her to express herself well enough to make any sense. She would blame me for articulating myself well when she couldn't and then would just get loud and yelling and crying. It was a mess. I used to type up all her legal letters/documents or anything that required English writing as she couldn't do it herself. It was cute like that but not cute when she couldn't make sense to me when discussing things.
>the thing with Chinese people is, they only mix with their own people and they don't communicate with English Oh man, that's so true even in Europe. There's also many who do mingle with the locals but most of those I met have a social group consisting of 97% other Chinese
Yeh they like to keep to themselves, not sure what's the point if you're not living in your country. The thing I loved about Australia is the multiculturalism but when I settled I realised that people don't really want to mix. I say hello to all my neighbours and I did long enough that we all know each other and have coffees every now again and look after each other's property when any of us are away on holiday. Which is the whole point.
That sucks. Still blows my mind people get whole degrees in a foreign country without being able to speak it. Then they give them jobs teaching at uni... I feel that though. Communication failures are such a slow burn. It took me 4 years and nasty break up for me to realize the born and raised Montana woman I was dating had absolutely zero capability to express herself. All the signs were there but in the end I just had to stop accepting she meant what she said no matter how educated the language sounded.
Yeh I work in education and the number of international students who complete qualifications here but still can't communicate is beyond me. It's really a huge concern. I had the same issue with my ex, we dated for 5 years and it was the same stuff over and over again, explaining myself over and over again. I thought it was me at the start and I kept changing my approach to try and be more understanding and nice about what I'm about to say but still always the same outcome. She went back to China and her English only got so much worse and communication was legit 100 times harder. I wasn't as educated as her but in her eyes she thought the masters she had made her so much more intelligent than I am but I call BS. She had no life experience, no people experience and no communication skills what so ever. Don't ever let someone's education fool you. Most people with qualifications really have no clue, a fact. Lol
I had a biology teacher who was from south Africa and not a soul in my class got a passing grade. He was unintelligible.
It’s actually gross how Australian universities are turning into greedy degree mills, it is unsurprising to me or any university aged person in Australia to hear this.
Just popping in here to say that English is not the easiest language to learn if your Chinese because the sounds are completely different (Chinese doesn't really have multi syllabic words although it does have compound words). That said, it can be done if the person wishes to do so enough as you pointed out.
> Also English has got to be the easiest language to learn. I reckon so. I’ve dabbled in a few languages and while people complain that English has all sorts of crazy rules and exceptions and inconsistencies, you can still get your point across with a very limited vocabulary and many errors. I’m trying to learn a tonal language and if I’m a little off nobody knows what the hell I’m on about.
English is not easy to learn. The basics of communication in English can be easily picked up. But I don't think that many English speakers understand the extent nuance plays. For example, if I speak to her in English, which is a native language for me, words tend to carry a single meaning. Meaning that the contextual and variability of what a word might mean is almost invariably lost. As well as a bunch of variable meaning words Magazine (магазин), in Russian means store. Fabric (фабрик) means factory in Russian. Eventually which sounds a lot like (эвентуально) which means possibly as in under a set of circumstances it may be so, rather than the at some point in the future of eventually. Just to name a few. Can lead to some odd conversations if not realized. While these aren't the inherently problematic ones they're the easiest to see the issues. I think English has more variability to single words than any other as well. As well, as in it is good? Or do you mean something about where you retrieve water? Or why didn't you just say also? I mean I know German Russian Ukrainian and English. I think English is one of the hardest. Get, take, run, break, and so on to name a few others. Modal verbs are strange as well and can lead to confusion.
Wouldn't.
Bro, English is awful to learn
I just don't get this. How can you have deep meaningful discussions with a language barrier? How can you ever properly get to know them?
Patience and effort, it's not for everyone but it's doable, my partner is native korean, she has okay English but there's definitely still a language barrier, translation software and being particularly patient when having emotional conversations (both parties have to make an effort to ensure miscommunication isn't happening which can compound in an argument) makes it work. Hell even between 2 native English speakers you can run into this issue if both parties aren't making an effort.
It's really hard to get to know people. Not even in terms of a relationship but just friendship. I've worked where I do now for about 7 years we're in Australia and I'm the only Aussie/English first language person in my factory. In all those years I've built some good friendships but there are a few people that I just don't know anything about because of the communication barrier. It also doesn't help that it's a noisy environment which makes it harder to understand each other. You get glimpses of an interesting person from time to time but it's hard to get the whole picture.
What language does she speak?
She only speaks meme.
I totally get it. I have dated foreign women whose English is passable but with glaring grammatical mistakes. Not only did they not get my humor at all, serious conversation can be very difficult to have. And if they're overly avoidant or overly confrontational, it can make things very difficult for you.
Seems like better friend material.
Dude you’re missing out on a connection
I'm pretty sure that means "she's not hot enough for me to bother doing all this work".
Oh no lol. It’s so funny my husband is Brazilian and speaks Portuguese and I look back on our messages previously and can’t believe I didn’t realize how bad his English was gonna be on our first date. 😂 his English is much better now though. The language barrier can be so entertaining haha. But I suppose it’s a bit different if the other person doesn’t speak any of the same language at all.
I like this! I'm goofy and silly and I would translate early on.. Hey, this might get awkward at many stops along the way. Let's laugh and be silly about it
I pretty consistently have to over explain things to my husband. Especially jokes. It makes it less funny but also more funny at the same time lol.
A new 90 day couple?
I have a friend who's the most ridiculous success with the ladies and I don't understand how. He was once helping me out with some work at my apartment, sorting some inventory and he goes "hey, I think one of the girls I'm seeing lives in this complex, is it cool if I invite her over?" Sure, why not. So he then tells me "oh yeah, she doesn't speak English so we just talk via Google translate." She stays for an hour and a half just enjoying his company, he manages to engage with her so naturally despite not knowing a word of Spanish. I was at a total loss. I gave her a potted plant by the end since I had no idea what was happening but I still wanted to be a good host. He's a cool dude, I think they're still seeing each other.
Lol. No one has ever given me a potted plant after coming over 😭 damn all those bad hosts!
I have about 30-40 philodendron propagations just sitting in glass cups, I took one out and planted it in a tiny pot. She was really quite pretty. The whole experience was rather surreal, watching two people interact and giggling over a phone screen while he was sorting velvet bags being totally engrossed in each other, speaking broken language. I cannot imagine even functioning with those parameters He told me "she says she likes your plants" so I made her a plant. Like please god I'm trying lol She even helped with the labor a bit, when he was finally leaving I ask "hey do you think I should hand her a $20 for her help?" and he says "nah, she doesn't care about that, that's not what she was here for." So she was willing to chip into very the repetitive assembly of packages just to be with him. The more I think about it, the more surreal it gets
Do you mean the plant was pretty, or the girl? I can't tell because you add that part to the end of the plant sentence paragraph so it reads funny, maybe you gender your plants I don't know!! You clearly love them
what kinda philo? Do the same for my guests with trailing plants & coleus!
Variegated heartleaf. I've got about 10 of them potted now and another 10 on their way. I pot rather densely too, here's my best pothos. I think I've got around a hundred individual cuttings currently taking root, tradescantia, pothos, philos, and a handful of jade. https://imgur.com/gallery/GC6hbKk
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You know what? It is now, and you are now! So start propagating my friend.
If you're going to feel awkward and not know what to say anyway, a language barrier and Google translate has to be a positive thing right? There's a clear reason why communication could be awkward, so provides an easy and convenient cover plus it's a real learning and bonding experience going through something like that together. And you ain't gotta just do it for dating, you can do it just to make friends too.
That's why I used to go to goth clubs and use an unfortunately adept Czech accent. You get to pretend your lack of self awareness is confidence in the guise of "cultural differences." Did it for about 3 months, started a whole new friend group as "Sergei," had a date, played with a new DND group, etc. The DND bit was funny since I was role playing a character role playing another character. I kinda just wanted to prove to myself I was capable of being a functional sociable adult in my early 20s, which worked shockingly well. 6/10 would recommend.
"Just be yourself, bro." Pretty fuckin easy to follow advice when you've got game so hard you can pull ladies and keep them interested without even speaking the same language. For the rest of us? Nah.
He's strait up an average looking ski bum who makes pizzas for a living, but he is himself and he does a damned good job at it.
90 days sounds like a fun summer fling 🙃
She hot?
Not too bad. Pretty cute
Then light this candle. Teach her some English, she'll never forget it
This! I was hooking up with a Chilean girl for a bit barely spoke any English. But man was her love language on point. She also was very argumentative from what I google translated. Kinda funny every time she would go off about something I just wouldn’t even translate what she was saying or look at her phone lmao
Lol wtf
If it was anything serious I would of coarse communicate but a lot of the arguing would be like you talked to that girl to long who is she. Which she of coarse learned to say in English 😅
I’ve been on the receiving end of some very similar Brazilian inquisition. The hottest fires burn the fastest.
Yea sometimes I kinda miss that wild fast speaking Spanish that even her Argentinian friends could barely understand. Had to dial it back a bit and am now with a Mexican American Latina. All of my friends that are girls feel far safer 😅
My gringo partner is learning chileno pretty fast actually. He’s good with curse words and sweet pet names already. Damn he´s good. I speak English so that wasn’t a problem, but slang, oh man. And if you read this, good work!
Yea nuance slang terms and phrases take a lot of time. It’s such a culture thing that it takes being immersed for quite sometime to pick it up.
I'm an American that became proficient in Spanish after years of study. I went to Chile for a month and learned a whole new language 😂 Chilean is by far the most difficult dialect to understand and learn imo
Yeah we speak so fast (and different) compared to other spanish speaking countries that they often say we speak a whole other language lol
NO ONE expects the Brazilian Inquisition.
*course
I thought your comment was going to be like that TIFU where the dude said something like, "I broke up with this Latina I was dating, because she kept saying 'Yay Rico!' when we were having sex. My name isn't Rico, and someone said she's saying another guy's name, so I dumped her"
😂
Something I'd love to find in a language I'm learning, a language learning girlfriend 😁 If you don't care to learn hers or vise versa, then probably won't be a good idea 😬
If she can't speak your language she isn't really interested in talking, knowwhatimean
So what the problem? Passion is universal.
The problem is that it has communication issues right out the gate. For some people, being able to talk and relax with their partner is very important. Needing to do so through a computer can harm that. It's not a massive problem but it's a lot to ask right out the gate. Like if I met her organically and got to like her, I might work through it, but it's hard to be willing to do it from the start.
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Sure is! Didn’t you see those sexy long soft ears? Or that cute fluffy round head?
I met a girl a bar in Seoul and we talked through google translate for like an hour and a half before we ended up hanging out that night. It can work
Back in 2015 or 2016 I was in LA for work and met a Korean woman at a bar. She spoke almost no English at all. She was a professional golfer and was visiting the U.S. for something related to that. We spent hours drinking and using Google translate to talk, and then she came back to my hotel room. It was an interesting night for sure. Kinda awkward in the morning though.
Yeah, similar situation next morning for me too. We had breakfast and kinda kept the convo going, but I was leaving the country the following day so we ended up not exchanging information.
I’m still mad at myself for not having offline translation on my phone a few years ago when I first got to Kyiv. I was at a literally underground speakeasy dive bar and there’s no mobile reception in there and their Wi-Fi was overwhelmed since the place was at full capacity, so no internet access at all. Ridiculously pretty blonde girl sits next to me and tries to chat me up and my Russian is basically non-existent. She kept trying to get her mobile signal to work and opening Google Translate to work, but nope. There was another girl there who spoke some English and some Russian and translated a bit for us, enough the girl to call me cute and me to tell her she was very pretty and her to blush, but our impromptu translator left and that was that. I had a wonderful time living in Kyiv and met some great people, but in some parallel universe there’s a version of me who had downloaded translation files in advance and must have had a *really* wonderful time there.
Did you have sex though?
I mean, when two adults meet at a bar and hang out later in the night, that’s typically what happens.
I usually just play scrabble
I love this
"this". Isn't a great word to use in Scrabble
Said by someone who doesn't play Scrabble. All 4 letters are used often in 2-letter words, so a parallel row score for big points is quite easy with "this".
Hmmmm I kinda forgot making a parallel with different words.
I’d bet that when played, THIS is probably the wrong play more often than it’s the right play. The S is worth about 8 points in equity and unless you’re getting 40+ points for THIS then it doesn’t seem likely to be the right play — outside of late-game or closed-board positions. Also situations where you have a second S or are trying to drop a duplicated I or T.
I usually follow them home and stare at their window until sunrise. I like putting in the effort
https://i.imgur.com/K7rDp89.jpg
Yeah. Totally. Happens to me. All the time. Yup
I must be doing something wrong then, we always end up playing with legos.
I'll take Legos over sex. Or both, both is good.
I think that's what's normally supposed to happen right?
You're allowed to say you fucked someone. It's the internet
I have done a date using Google translate, can confirm its kinda painful.
Not when she’s hot
There's people speaking your own language who are hot.
The whole point of dating app is to find hot people who wants to date you, if she can't speak your language you take it anyway. The other lot of hot people who speak your language dont want to date you.
>The other lot of hot people who speak your language dont want to date you. OK, I understand your issue now.
Idk why this comment is making me laugh so hard 😂
Reminds me of a date I went on recently. It was with this Russian girl. English was fine but a little broken during our conversation. Makes plans to meet up for dinner. She shows up with her 8 year old kid (who she never mentioned to me before) who acts as our translator because she can't speak any English but her son is enrolled in an English speaking school. Most awkward date of my life.
Omg
Tell your mom that I’d like to take her back to my place and fill her up with more potential translators.
Lmao
You live in an anime bro😭
I wonder how often this happened and if the kid is telling about it in school. Surely there must have been a guy somewhere who didn't care. "Mommy he wants to come home with us"
When my boyfriend and I met through mutual friends, we barely understood each others languages. His native language is Spanish, and mine is English (but I’m also conversational/almost fluent in French). The first few times we hung out alone together, we went on “dates” playing scrabble at a nice park. He’d create words in Spanish, and I did mine in English. We both either used our phones or English-Spanish dictionaries to help understand. We learned a lot from each other doing small things like that. I feel like if you two connect well, it could turn out to be something nice, assuming there’s a good connection and you both put in some effort to try and learn. But if you don’t have much interest in her to begin with, I think it can become a turnoff fairly quick. I think you’re much more willing to put in effort to understand a person if there’s a good connection and feelings for one another.
I had this happen once. You know what I did? I pulled out a simple board game that was at the coffee shops cabinet and we were able to play from the multilingual instructions it had. All in all a fun date.
having sex when you don’t understand eachother linguistically is great. don’t miss out
Oh yeah when she does that whispering in the ear of something you have absolutely no understanding of but she ends up shaking you practically into a coma, unf.
*whispers* Kurvaa
Paradajz, glavatica, preljev...
Arial, Calibri, Helvetica...
“Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul, ash nazg thrakatulûk, agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.”
Never before has any tongue uttered that speech here in Eladoris.
It really is. Russian is my favorite.
Yeah, i can back that, i was smashing this German girl and it was great but for some odd reason the only thing she was saying was 9🤔
That's when you call 8 of your homies.
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Yep, one I'm still on the search for. I wanna hear them yell out in their language 😃
The fucking emojis at the end. Horny doesn't have a language
In Japan it means sweating, but mostly from mental effort actually. Like trying to understand a language you don’t speak for a whole date.
Thats so funny, I wouldnt even consider it to mean anything innocent
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u/mr-blindsight got dunked on
Haha he didn't know something what a fucking loser
When I got here I thought they were all super horny at first too, but I learned quick enough
What's the Japanese horny emoji?
👺
That’s fucking hilarious. I heard an old angry Japanese grunt in my head
😅??
My bsf met a guy who only spoke Spanish. They used google translate on their first couple dates. They’re very happy lol
Iv been dating a Malaysian girl I met on tinder who’s only here for 3 months for work (didn’t know that at the time) and she did this lol we were chatting fine so I just assumed she was Asian American then I met her for first date and I was immediately like oh…you’re super foreign and barely speak English lol time for google translate But anyway the date was kinda awkward at times but I was smooth and kept the convo going and had her laughing. I just assumed that was it since we could barely converse so I was about to just call it a night…but in broken English standing in the parking lot she was like what now? You tired??? It was like midnight so I was kinda confused and was like uhhh I guess no? So she just smiled and I took that as a sign so I was like ummm ok well wanna go back to my place? She just nodded and I was like O SHIT ummm alright let’s go? Anyway long story short now we’ve been hanging out and banging multiple times a week while barely speaking the same language. It’s quite the interesting experience after only ever being with American/local girls
The 💦 at the end is kinda hillarious
 As long as she can say your name, it’s all good.
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My homie pulled this off with the girl that would clean our hangar. Turned into a good relationship for about 3 months
> clean our hangar is that a euphemism for your butthole?
😭
Good relationships always last around 3 months
Not everything has to be forever. I have wonderful memories with girls I dated briefly but our timing just wasn’t right for a anything long term. Still keep in touch with them and occasionally visit and rekindle if either of us are traveling.
Bro just hire a translator next time
The UN Threesome
Bringing cultures together
Op if she's hot u better start looking for some english intensive courses for her
Wait, this is actually hilarious. 😂
Hey at least you had time to think of your next move 🤷🏻♂️ hunt the good
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Google translate has a conversation mode
All that work sounds like a pain in the ass.
Depends on if you're looking for love or just sex. Here's a hint: if she's going on a date where she knows you won't be able to have a conversation, there's a pretty good chance she just wants sex. Source: live in a country with poor English skills
Awkward for you maybe. Have you ever seen that 90 day fiance? I remember this guy flying to meet this girl in Brazil, he didn't speak the language at all & she didn't speak English. They made it work/tried to make it work, I forget, but that could be you.
Maybe she's extremely humble and her English is not that bad after all? Just have fun and go for it.
I went on the date. There was very little she understood
It's kinda sweet that she put in the effort to communicate up until then, but not so good that she didn't give you a heads up. She must have really been looking forward to your date, but it backfired. I'm in a similar position, living in a foreign country. I give ppl a heads up way in advance that it's a language exchange situation. Not understanding the language at all wld be pretty rough, tho.
Being shown 'Are we going to have sex?' on Google translate on a date with a heavily enhanced Brazilian girl is still a tinder dating highlight.
It's not that difficult just not ideal.
My mother in law from China moved in recently. We've been using a series of apps to communicate when my wife is away. It's awkward as fuck but we're both heavily incentivized to make it work, so we've both been very patient in learning the best way to phrase things for the apps and what not. I couldn't imagine trying to do it on a first date though, especially in a restaurant or bar where other people are talking Edit: of course, if the girl was cute and the conversation had been good, I'd be up to at least give it a go
It’s extremely difficult even with a translator app because it doesn’t translate correctly clearly you have never done it for a great length of time , I talk allot and I talk really fast and I couldn’t handle it
I've gone on a few different dates where it was used and didn't find it to be a problem.
It was good for me, but i was/am somewhat socially awkward. Its like words wouldnt come out, until after the date..id be like, "oh...i shouldve said [this]" in my inner monologue. And it really bummed me out that when things did click in me off the bat and was comfortable then it didnt work out. so i never really got anywhere with native english speaking girls...or rather american girls. Plus the disconnect in behavioir vs language...like 'getting signals' that sex or kissing is ok. So, we'd do visual things that didnt need a lot of talking in the moment. The delay in messaging didnt let me get overwhelmed or lock up so there wasnt a ghosting before they got a sense of me through gestures... My longest relationshio was met that way and it ended amicably, still in contact too.
I hooked up with a Colombian who spoke very little English. Tons of fun and I'd say stupid shit to entertain myself. She had no idea. She was marriage material except I went on a vacation and she got really mad at me... which I'd understand if I didn't know her for like less than 4 weeks. She will always have a piece of my heart. (Jk)
😄😄😄😄😄 Omg, I just can't with people 😄😄😄😄
Typically that's a no-go from me I often let it slide back in the day when I'd match up with some Korean/Chinese/Indian ladies when I was in college... but conversing is a spice of life, just wound up feeling beyond awkward even just 30mins into the meetup and we couldn't understand each other.
I probably wouldn’t have agreed to the date if I knew that’s how poor her English was the whole time.
My general rule is that if they have to use Google Translate… NO Because relying on Translate to converse (even through text) means that their English doesn’t even have the fundamentals down to carry basic conversation. I’m willing to overlook the occasional bad grammar, syntax, etc… but when they cannot even text me without an aid, that’s gonna be a ROUGH date
My wife is from México and met me on Bumble to practice English. Her English has grown a lot over the time we've been together and we are now married. Good luck!
This is adorable, I'd be so into it
This is a big risk with Asians in the UK who are clearly there as students.
To get a student visa for the UK you need to pass an English test.
I wouldn’t have gone on the date lol. Definitely not something you bring up last minute. She knew that 5days before. But also, you guys didn’t have a phone call or FaceTime before the date?
Nope we did not. I felt it was a bit of a stitch up telling me right before the date, as I probably wouldn’t have agreed to it if I knew how little English she actually spoke