Word Choice

My dear husband and I don't speak each others languages. Now I'm not saying we don't see eye to eye on certain things, I mean our native language is not the same. In fact when we first started dating my French was horrible and his English was almost non-existent. We used dictionaries to communicate as well as his bilingual roommate and best friend. In the beginning of our relationship I would speak French to him and he would respond in English. When we chatted online it was usually in French. From there our relationship has progressed into English when together and French over the phone or when texting. I am pretty much fluent in French (but that wasn't without the help of a French major) and Matthieu does pretty well for himself orally, though we still need to work on his reading and writing skills. I have no doubt that living in the US will do wonders for his English as living in France did for my French. Being that language has played such a vital role in our relationship, it doesn't surprise me that our communication skills are very strong. I sometimes think what it is like to be in a relationship where you aren't forced to repeat yourself or find a different way to say something. A few years ago I would long for that, but I don't anymore. I see the positive affects on our relationship because of it and I wish everyone could have a language barrier in their relationship. Besides, I am fluent in another language, a goal I set for myself in high school and that is one of my proudest accomplishments.

Yesterday we were writing thank you notes from our French wedding, thus, they were all in French. I gave Matthieu this responsibility, though I was there to help because no matter the language, he is still a guy and some men struggle with this type of task. So as we are writing the thank you note to one of his cousins, he wants to include a little something about how much he enjoyed her daughter. He writes "she is a lot of fun and has lots of energy." I ask him if he is sure he wants to write this, doesn't it sound a little negative, like "control your daughter, she has a lot of energy!" Because for me in English, to say a child has a lot of energy isn't the first thing a parent wants to hear. I would say something more like " she is very energetic" But Matthieu and his mother quickly reassured me that it doesn't mean that at all and it isn't negative and in fact my suggestion doesn't work for a person. In French, only food can be energetic. So we wrote "she has a lot of energy" and went on to the next one.

This aspect of our relationship, the sometimes, though diminishing, language barrier is something that we deal with everyday. Luckily for us it only made our relationship stronger.