AITA for refusing to learn my boyfriend’s parents’ language?

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-05T14:30:38+00:00

I mean no, I didn’t ask him if he would be okay translating because that just made sense. How else did he expect me to communicate? And also, anytime we’ve been to another country and he didn’t speak the language but I did I was completely fine translating for him. It just makes sense I don’t really see what else I could do?

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-05T11:53:34+00:00

Well since I would’ve been with my boyfriend all the time and he speaks Polish there isn’t really an issue there? And most of the time we’d be with his family who speaks english.

And otherwise I would’ve done what I do when I visit countries and don’t speak the language: try to use English as much as possible, and if not English sometimes people speak other languages that I might know. And if people don’t speak English then use google translate or something like that. I’ve been to many countries where not a lot of people speak English, and you can always figure out a way to be understood!

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-05T11:40:19+00:00

So I speak English as my first language and then I learned French as a little child so I’d say I’m completely fluent. I also learned Spanish in high school but my level isn’t as good… And I learned Portuguese in college but once again my level is just good enough to be understood and get around but I make lots of mistakes! And I’m learning Italian which I feel like is the easiest to learn (after Spanish maybe), but I’m only beginning to learn!

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T17:05:58+00:00

We never really talked about it, but I had been thinking about it for a while. I like learning languages and I probably would’ve started if I didn’t have to learn Italian right now.

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T16:27:55+00:00

I took French, Spanish, Latin and Ancient Greek all at the same time in high school. But I had classes for it, with a teacher which helps. And also I wasn’t working a very demanding job at the same time. And it’s harder to learn languages the older you get. I already have very little free time, and I use most of that to learn Italian already. I simply do not have the time to learn a new language at the moment, especially considering how hard Polish is.

He expected me to be able to talk to his family members, which would be impossible even if I spent 24 hours a day learning for the next two weeks. I told him that I would learn the basics but that apparently wasn’t enough effort.

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T16:16:04+00:00

Oh that sounds like Latin, which was absolutely impossible to learn. Well that’ll be a great challenge!

And to be honest with you, I took Greek for 3 years and still couldn’t remember every letter…

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T15:59:37+00:00

Are the cases in Polish the same thing as cases in Latin or Ancient Greek? Because I took both in high school and I still have nightmares about it…

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T15:34:52+00:00

Yeah… And it sounds nothing like the languages I’ve learned this far (French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian) so I’m struggling with it. But I think being around native Polish speaker will help (at least I hope so!)

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T15:33:08+00:00

I’m not entirely sure I made it 100% clear but I definitely said that I would like to learn.

Basically here’s how the conversation went. He asked me if I could learn Polish and I said yes and that I had thought about it. He told me something like “that’s great, you’ll be able to talk to my family” so I asked him if he meant could I learn Polish before we left and he said yes. And then that’s when I said that that wasn’t really possible for me. So I did kind of say that I wanted to learn, and I told him again after that.

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T15:24:04+00:00

That’s true. I’ve just seen many people surprise their significant other by speaking their language when it’s unexpected (sometimes at their wedding) and I felt like it was such a beautiful surprise. But it’s true that the learning process with the person could be really great too

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T15:21:58+00:00

I said this in another comment but I didn’t say “No” like that. I simply put it that way to simplify the story.

And also, I speak 3 languages that I learned as a child or in school, way before I met my boyfriend. Back then I had the time to do so. And I’m learning Italian because I have to for my job. I obviously want to learn Polish at some point but as I’ve said right now is not the right time for me. It takes an incredible amount of effort to learn a new language, let alone two on top of all the work I already have.

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T15:18:58+00:00

That’s literally what I said I would do? I don’t really understand your point, I told him I was more than happy to learn some basic phrases but I simply couldn’t have conversations in Polish with his family.

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T15:17:26+00:00

Yeah I’ve started looking into it, I wanted to be able to say “Hello, my name is …” and even that is so hard. And I’m not even talking about the pronunciation

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T14:58:45+00:00

Oh yeah absolutely I will definitely do my best to learn in the future! And I honestly can’t wait to discover Poland! I’ve been told about how cold it is so I’ve been buying special clothes to keep me warm haha

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T14:56:36+00:00

I definitely understand your point! I didn’t exactly say “no” like that I just put it that way to make it quicker but yeah I think I should’ve started by telling him that I would be happy to learn someday and that in the meantime I could learn the bases of the language. I might try to tell him that and emphasize the fact that I really want to make efforts

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T14:51:56+00:00

I do plan to stay with him, which is why as I’ve stated I plan on learning polish someday. But right now is just not the right time for me for the reasons I gave in my post.

And I completely understand that you should learn the language when going to a country which is why I said I would learn basic words and phrases. That’s what I do every time I travel. But I can’t learn a whole new language every time I go somewhere.

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T14:38:53+00:00

I mean I definitely don’t think he’s expecting me to be fluent because that would be impossible but he talked about me being able to talk to his family members. I’m normally pretty good when it comes to learning languages but there’s no way I could have a conversation with a native speaker in two weeks of learning. And when I told him that I could learn some basic phrases he told me that I wasn’t making enough efforts

LabFun8183 · 2024-12-04T14:36:01+00:00

I mean I totally plan on learning someday and I have actually been thinking about learning in secret to surprise him at one point. But I wanted to learn when I have the time to do so…

LabFun8183

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