Group Blog: Bilingualism in expat couples

I have often stated that Hubby and I speak French at home. Well, this is not exactly accurate I’m afraid and so, in honour of the Group Blogging topic of today: Bilingualism in Expat couples, I’d like to rephrase that sentence and say that Hubby and I speak Sprenchlish at home.

In case you’re wondering, Sprenchlish is a mix between Spanish, French and English.


You see, over the years Hubby and I have not only gotten to know each other well, we’ve also gotten to know each other’s mother tongue well too. And so this has somewhat shaped our relationship and the way we communicate in it.

Take our pet names for instance. They’re in Spanish. No need to go into detail but let’s just say that the first time I called him this particular pet name it came out naturally in Spanish. I was so surprised at the time, first of all because I’d never had pet names with any of my previous boyfriends and second because of all the pet names out there to choose from, I’d used one of the most corniest available in the history of Spanish language. Except that for Hubby it didn’t sound corny at all. To his French eyes this particular pet name didn’t have any of the cultural baggage that may come associated with it. To him it sounded simply like an original, cute and perfect name for us. This works for me too because through him I no longer associate this pet name to past references either, it’s now a direct reference to us and is described as such in our own personal Sprenchlish dictionary.

Then there is the question of missing words. As any bilingual couple knows (and any bilingual person for that matter), sometimes there is a term in one language that you can’t find in the other and that explains exactly what you want to say. I’ll usually get all pissed because there’s no such thing as the word “Privacy” in French, not in that exact term. But there is one in Sprenchlish: Privacité. Privacité comes from the word “Privé” (Private) and the ending letters “ –ité ” that in some warped Fned-inventing-grammar-rules-again way gives the exact same meaning of Privacy. Nobody else gets it. But Hubby and I do.

And what happens when we each get mad you ask?… I mean, like really, REALLY P.O.? Well, in my case even if the rest of the argument continues in French, I’ll bounce to Spanish without even noticing it and swear in my mother tongue. Save for a couple of exceptions, somehow French and English swear words simply don’t carry enough…. ehm… meaning for me when I’m that mad. Spanish swear words do. As for Hubby, well, I have to confess I’ve never seen him that P.O. yet so I don’t know in which language he swears when he gets really mad. *lol*

But the opposite is also true. Haven’t you ever noticed how great the English language is for expressing excitement? Hubby and I’ll be talking, going all “*French* blah, blah, blah *French* blah, blah” and suddenly one of us will cry “awesome!!” or “that is SO cool!!”. Thanks to us both being fluent in Sprenchlish, we can actually FEEL those exclamation marks and understand the proper level of excitement associated with whatever the other was talking about. It doesn’t always ring the same way when either of us uses “incroyable” or “c’est genial”… sometimes these terms sounds so…. serious…. especially once you’ve understood the level of excitement carried by their equivalent in English.

That’s the thing with Bilingual couples I guess. You get to a point where you can take the best out of each language and progressively apply it to your communication method until it becomes an important part of your relationship and of who you are as a couple. It’s like the two of you have invented a whole new language (like Sprenchlish in our case) that applies to you two alone and which only you are fluent in.

Awww… love really is magnifique, verdad?

Check out some other cool takes on Bilingualism in Expat couples:

Bee Ean : A Malaysian in France (English / French / Chinese)

Andromeda : The adventures of an American Blonde in France (French / English)

Jennifer: Italian Trivia (English / Italian / and a little Veneto).... and a practical case

Minshap : Both sides of the coin (English / Spanish) and a published article on the subject

Leilani : Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (English / French / Spanish / German / and four more languages!!!)

Francine : Callaloo soup (English / French)

Poppy Fields : Poppy in Provence (English / French)

Chris : A Pretty How Town (English / French)

Cancuck Canuck : A Canuck in Cancun (English / Spanish (and a little Mayan? lol))

Emily : Don't call me Gringa (Spanish / English)

Natasha : The Ex Monologues (English / Spanish)

Arlet Grace : Little something about me (Filipino / Korean / English)

Lydia : Just smile and nod (English / Spanish)

Cherise : Adventures with Angelina (English / French / Thai and soon German!!)

Sarah : Misplaced Texan (English / French)

Clare : Musings from inside, outside and underneath (English / Spanish (and Roumanian and Japanese!))

Ale : Letters from Wonderland (English / Spanish)

Karina : Milk Jam (French / English)

Rebecca : Trente-trois-mille (English / Spanish / French)

Kumichan83 : Tales of a Japanese Gringa in Quito (English / Spanish / French / Japanese)

Beth : Planting the Mexican Seed (English / French)

Jonnifer : I have no title donc je suis (English / French)

nyGRINGAinCHILE : Just one more gringa's thoughts about living in Santiago, Chile (English / Spanish / French)

La Chilengüita : Half chilean, Half gringüita (Spanish / English)

Fned.



.