How to teach your mother tongue to your spouse
The Attitude to Have
The method highlighted here demands time, and learning a language is a long process anyway. Patience and discipline from you and your partner are thus the key to success.
For instance instead of looking for immediate, impressive results, have the discipline to move on little by little every day, even if it looks as if you’ll never make it given the project’s sheer size; progress will follow.
Have also the patience, for example, of letting your spouse remember things at his/her own speed. It could mean letting him/her answer in the common language whenever you use your mother tongue – in the beginning at least. Contrary to what it seems, s/he is indeed learning. And one day – when s/he is facing someone who only speaks your mother tongue – s/he will use it and you’ll see the results of your efforts.
Remember also that your goal is to allow your partner to understand the language and to be understood, and not to speak correctly. In practice it means that whenever s/he uses sentences that are incorrect (grammatical aspect, conjugations…), the only question that matters is: “do we understand what s/he means?” No? Correct right away. Yes? Continue teaching and mention the mistake much later – if at all – when the student has become more comfortable using the language and is ready to remember and apply your feedback.
Finally, try to avoid translating a whole sentence as soon as it’s not understood. Instead try to identify where the problem is, if possible simply by “reading” your student. Indeed, it is exhausting and frustrating to repeat all the time “I don’t understand a thing!”, so spare your student this trouble by identifying what s/he doesn’t understand by looking at his/her attitude, facial expression, by remembering what s/he already knows or not, etc.
Then it’s up to you to decide whether the element is unimportant and you shouldn’t spend more time on it, or on the contrary whether it’s key and must be understood. In this case try first and foremost to have your spouse guess the meaning (guide his/her thinking, repeat, mime, use synonyms, point with your finger…). Translating the problematic part should be kept as a last resort.
4 Comments
Elise
Super article !
Exactement ce que je cherchais.
Mon copain est Japonais, et on communique 100% en japonais. Il a des bases d’anglais (puisqu’il l’a étudié à l’école) mais c’est très limité.
J’aimerais lui apprendre un minimum de français pour qu’il puisse communiquer avec ma famille. En partant de zero, cela semble insurmontable cependant.
Au bout de combien de temps pouviez-vous avoir des conversations simples en français avec votre partenaire ?
Votre article m’a motivé !
David Gay-Perret
Bonjour Élise et merci pour ce commentaire ! (qui était perdu au milieu des 110 spam… T_T Heureusement que, pris d’une inspiration, je suis allé regarder de plus près !)
Honnêtement je ne me souviens plus très bien du moment où on a pu plus ou moins discuter, toutefois je me rappelle avoir débuté en janvier de manière très (trop ?) intensive, et quand mes parents sont venus en juin ma compagne pouvait discuter avec eux. Sur des sujets simples bien sûr, et ma mère a un don pour parler lentement et s’adapter aux étrangers tandis que mon père parle anglais et pouvait donc traduire les mots difficiles. Mais c’était tout de même une belle victoire !
Le plus important est de commencer et de persévérer. Il est très facile de remettre à plus tard ou d’utiliser la langue commune “juste pour cette fois parce que sinon il faut 3 fois plus de temps pour se comprendre”. Mais résultat dans 5 ans rien n’a changé. Autant s’y mettre le plus vite possible et passer le cap galère tôt pour ensuite se faire plaisir (car ce cap ne va certainement pas disparaitre avec le temps !).
Quoi qu’il en soit bon courage et n’hésite pas à revenir faire part de ton expérience si tu appliques les quelques conseils de cet article !
Christine Crews
This was so helpful! I have struggled to teach my husband (Italian) my native language (English) for so long. I’m definitely going to try some of the tips you mentioned! It is also hard for people outside the relationship to understand why it is so hard to teach him.
David Gay-Perret
Thanks Christine for taking the time to leave a comment and glad you found these articles of some use!
Agreed, people outside the relationship and especially people who don’t have the experience of a multicultural, multilingual relationship can have a hard time understanding what it implies.
Good luck in any case! Learning English shouldn’t be so hard if your husband is motivated!