Maintaining Friendships Without A Common Language

[Baburra]

I have a Japanese friend living in our country and he barely speaks English or our local language, yet because we share a lot of common interests, we hang out a lot together and we communicate mostly by his extremely broken English, and my extreme patience with deciphering them. That, and of course, a lot of hand gestures. I'm doubtful he will ever learn more than he already knows when it comes to language, since he doesn't really seem that interested, and yet I think it adds a great deal of charm to our relationship.

Any of you out there ever had a close friend like this? Care to share your stories?

[KC]

I experienced a relationship similar but also very different. I can speak and understand english but a friend I met communicates through sign language because she is mute. We found unique ways to communicate. Written notes, hand gestures and music. We maintain a relationship with our unique communicating style. We also went to a party together. I never understood the disability until I met her. They are just like you and me.

[Sarah676]

I imagine if your friend stays in your country for an extended period of time, he probably will improve at the language without even trying, simply by virtue of being surrounded by people who speak it all the time. I found that when I visited Japan for a month, my Japanese improved a lot with minimal effort on my part.

[writeletters]

I have a French friend who lives in Belgium. She speaks French and very little English, and I am the opposite. I speak English and very little French. It is always difficult for us to communicate, but we try and it sort of works out. We write in both languages so we can both practice our parts.

[xxxxxx]

I had met a friend who is a half Korean Chinese but she can speak and understand English just a little. While me aside from my mother tongue I speak English well. I am now here living in their country because she and my husband had the same nationality. But we are able to maintain our friendship because we are both learning from each other languages and at the same time if we have free time we teach other so the friendship is growing strong to be good

[Qamra]

I had a Hungarian friend once in London. We had a lot in common and always found a way to communicate although she didn't speak English (she knew maybe 50 words). I used my phone to translate words and we taught each other some stuff (I taught her some Polish words, she taught me Hungarian). It was an interesting experience. Shame we are not keeping in touch anymore.

[BWL]

It's difficult and rare but it is not impossible. However personally I always find it easier to make friends and to maintain that friendship when we have a common language. I guess that's why I joined this forum!

[thekernel]

I find it hard to maintain any relationship without a fundamental basis of communication. An old co-worker did not speak any English (and I didn't speak any Cantonese), and I found it very challenging to teach him the nuances of the work space. Fortunately another co-worker was able to translate.

As far as friendships go, you would need mutual interests to bond over.

[LauraM]

I think it would be very difficult to maintain a long-term friendship, but not impossible.  I have not had or sustained a long friendship in such circumstances but I have been in some short-term situations with people where there was a language barrier.

I remember a particular long distance bus trip in which I was sitting beside someone who was quite friendly and she and I communicated mostly through gesture.  She seemed like someone I would have liked getting to know better if we had a common language. 

[Rosa]

back in high school I had a pen friend from Germany. I had no knowledge at all of her language but she knew a little English and that was the way we corresponded through writing. She did a lot of messing up and I tried correcting her all the time, which she very much appreciated. I was young and did not think of trying to learn her language, something I regret today.The friendship however, was great.

[Trellum]

One of my closest friend is Egyptian, he speaks very good English tho, so it's very easy to have conversations with him.  His account is funny, so sometimes I have a hard time trying to understand certain words he says, specially words with ''p'', he seems to confuse that sound with ''b''.  So it can be a bit confusing at first if you aren't familiar with his English, but we have handled it well

I also tried to talk with a Hebrew speaker a while ago, his English wasn't very good either... actually it was awful, lol.  He was an Israeli Palestinian, meaning he is Palestinian but has an Israeli passport.

[Trellum]

I experienced a relationship similar but also very different. I can speak and understand english but a friend I met communicates through sign language because she is mute. We found unique ways to communicate. Written notes, hand gestures and music. We maintain a relationship with our unique communicating style. We also went to a party together. I never understood the disability until I met her. They are just like you and me.

Back when I was going to junior highs cool I met a lot deaf people, I actually tried to communicate the best I could with them.  I learnt some words in sign language as well, but mostly bad words because that's all they taught me   I was actually amazed to see how rich sign language they can be, those folks might seem different to us, but they are just like us.  I could see it, since we were all teenagers and had very same interests

[LindaKay]

I definitely think it would be difficult to be friends with someone who doesn't speak the same language as you at all. It seems like you would have to at least know a few common words between you. Otherwise, how can you communicate at all?

[whnuien]

Oh I have few friends who barely speak English and neither I know their language very well. But because we have common interests we do find ourselves laughing and have fun a lot. And it is more fun when we get to skip a more serious conversations including judging others and so on. I don't really mind about language that much when it comes to friendships and common interest.