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Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| Language differences... |
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| Shahida |
| 03/14/03 at 02:09:30 |
| [slm] I am posing a question for a friend of mine...I don't know what to say, hope you girls can help, inshaAllah. There is a brother who is interested in marrying her. He seems good, mashaAllah, and she has no problems with him, except the fact that they do not speak the same language. The way they communicate is using a language that is her 4th and his 3rd, and neither of them are *perfect* or terribly 100% fluent in it. She likes to talk, and it is very important for her to have an intelligent converstion with someone, moreso with her husband. She wants to know whether I think it can work well, seeing that they will be speaking a language that is neither of their mother tongues... Any advice? Anyone in this kinda situation? JazakumAllah Salam Shahida |
| Re: Language differences... |
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| eleanor |
| 03/15/03 at 08:10:07 |
| [slm] well my husband and i speak German together. He is Pakistani and I am Irish. So for him German was his third language - english being his second, and for me it is also my third language - irish being my second. The reason we decided to speak german is because we met here in Germany and when I moved here my german wasn't so good so we decided to speak german until I was a bit more fluent and then switch to english. The result? My german is fluent now and his is almost as good. We have tried to speak english but always get frustrated because my husband thinks in german now and has forgotten a lot of english. Apart from that I speak english too fast for him to understand and I get frustrated when he doesn't understand. We speak german in a different way with each other than with anyone else. We have a lot of english and urdu words thrown in. For example when talking of Pakistani food we always use the Urdu names. He taught me a lot of Urdu and I was able to speak with his parents when they came to visit. I have also taught him a lot of english and german, so that now we are at a level where we can converse and understand very easily. The motto of the story - it is hard and frustrating at times but with perseverance and effort on both sides to both teach and learn, it can be done :) I think if this is her only problem with the marriage she should go for it. She will always have friends and family with whom she can talk at length. Allahu Ahlam |
| Re: Language differences... |
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| Al-Basha |
| 03/16/03 at 15:48:47 |
| [slm] Sorta off topic but is anyone here married to someone deaf? Sign language is something I have been really interested in picking up, subhana Allah how communication is not all verbal. |
| Re: Language differences... |
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| Barr |
| 03/18/03 at 12:51:13 |
| Salam :) U know, I've been wondering.. how did the sahabah and those early Muslims who travelled far and wide, brought Islam to a foreign land than their own.. marry the women there.. and mashaAllah, have a good marital relationship. Wot is their secret? Anyways... closer to our times... A Malay sister whom I knew just got married to a Russian brother, who can neither speak English nor Malay. They only communicate in Arabic.. and Arabic is her 3rd language. Being a person who's really big with communication (aka highly verbally inclined aka chatterbox ;D)... these marriages simply make me go "wow", mashaAllah. But personally, I think it really depends on the kind of person you r, how you feel... and wot is important to you. A lot of things can work out with learning, hard work, skills and a big open heart, inshaAllah. Its whether you think you can live with someone who doesn't really neccessarily speak with the same tongue as U do. [quote]subhana Allah how communication is not all verbal. [/quote] Yeah... silence is communication too :) Allahua'lam :-) |
| 03/18/03 at 12:55:08 |
| Barr |
| Re: Language differences... |
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| Road2Jannah |
| 03/23/03 at 17:09:09 |
| [slm] Subhanallah, it is enough that the men cant understand the women speaking their lango let alone not knowing the language lol. ;D I know of a Moroccan sister, who married an african America brother. He married her off from morocco without her knowing how to speak one word of English.He didn't know Arabic either, so they communicated in sign language, until she began learning how to speak English. Now she is very fluent in English and happily married mashallah. Also there is a hadith about the rasul and his marriage with Maria( she was Egyptian) It was told by Aisha that she used to get jealous of the rasul bc he went to Maria's house ALOT, bc he loved how the Egyptians spoke, their flow of words subhanallah. So maybe the lango can bring the couple together, its fun learning another lango. The only thing that scares me is the in-laws. I would want to be able to talk and understand my mother or father in law. If they knew Urdu, or Persian, and i only know Arabic and English then that would be a problem. It also scares me bc our families wont be able to communicate since they wont understand each other. But i guess every1 has to make some type of sacrifice in their marriage. anyways in due time everything works out inshallah. It all needs sabr with tawakul on Allah and you got ur self a successful marriage inshallah |
| Re: Language differences... |
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| bismilla |
| 03/25/03 at 04:31:25 |
| [slm] [color=green][font=comic SANS ms]...sometimes not being able to speak the same language prevents a lot of hurtful things being said and heard.... [/font][/color] :-) |
| Re: Language differences... |
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| eleanor |
| 03/25/03 at 07:55:42 |
| [slm] Well when my in-laws came to visit, they couldn't speak any english or german and I only knew things like "aloo-palik" and "dall-chaval" in Urdu. Okay I knew a bit more but not much more than "Shukria" or such. So we struggled of course because my husband (aka translator) was out working all day and we had no option. Yes, at times it was frustrating but it was a wonderful feeling when we finally made ourselves understood :) Funnily I could understand my mother-in-law better than my father-in-law but he could understand *me* better than she could ;D so basically we chilled, drank [] and took it easy 8) |
| Re: Language differences... |
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| Shahida |
| 03/26/03 at 00:48:21 |
| [slm] jazakum Allahu khairun all:) I have passed on the info here to her... I Just thought of something: like Bismilla said, it prevents them from saying hurtful things, but at the same time, hurtful things can be said without the person realising that it is indeed hurtful. And no matter how understanding you are that this is not *his* language, I think that would hurt anyway... Something small, like when my friend says "thank you!" her husband always used to say "nothing!". She was at first very offended, how can he grunt "nothing" at her, you know, she was used to someone saying "you're welcome", or "it's a pleasure"...he directly translated from Arabic "afwan" and made "nothing" out of it...small things like this really got ot her, until I explained that he is using Arabic terminology, and means nothing bad by it... ok then, salam:) and thanks again |
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