Language barrier between you & grandparents

[fumanchu]

So there's a thread about parents having language problems in their relationships, but I'm interested in hearing about people that cannot communicate with their grandparents due to language barriers.

My father was an orphan so i've no grandparents on his side (my Welsh/Scots/Irish side). My mother's parents have lived in HK for the past 50 or so years and speak a mix of Cantonese and their home province dialect, Nanjing Hua. I only speak English.

Now my grandparents are in their early 80's. I've never been able to hold a proper conversation with them. My grandma's kidneys are slowly failing so she has perhaps 1-2 years.

Not being able to communicate with my grandparents is probably the one major disappointment in my life to date and the only significant drawback for me about being EA (not that this is an exculsively EA problem nor a problem all EA's have). When I was young, the language thing wasn't a big deal, I was a kid and I was cute to them. Now as I've grown older, when I stay with them, I feel like I'm some mute stranger. Photos of my full chinese cousins are all around the house, but photos of me and my sisters are "prominent in their absence".

Any one else in a similar situation?

[xandra]

I can completely relate. I only have grandparents on my father's side, and they only speak Vietnamese. My grandfather doesn't seem to really talk to anyone, so it doesn't bother me that I can't communicate with him. But I'm sad that I can't speak to my grandma without someone translating. It's weird to love someone so much even though you can't even have a proper conversation with them. My family's rather lucky, though. My dad's family accepted my mom (although they are divorced now, they still like her) and we were never made to feel unloved or different. If anything, we were given a bit more special treatment since my parents brought all of my dad's family over to Canada, and my sister was the first grandchild. We also lived in a different city so when we came to visit we were spoiled.

[JohnCoolYoungHistory]

My grandma has lived in the U.S. for 20 years and her English sucks. I don't hold that against her though.

She continues to live here and sit around all day, watch bad day-time TV, skim through magazines she can barely read, just to collect her Social Security check and mail it back to our loser relatives in the Philippines who are in their 40s but continue to leach off of their 70 something yr old mother.

On top of that, when I'm back in my parents' house, she still acts like I'm the 5 yr. old kid she helped raise so I have to put her in her place.

To say the least - I'm annoyed she's not back in the Philippines where she would truly enjoy herself (my whole immediate family agrees she's living out her last years exploited away from her real home), and the fact I can't even TALK to her just makes my whole relationship with her completely HOPELESS. To say the least, I feel like I don't know my grandmother at all to the point she does not seem like a real figure in my life despite the fact we have lived in the same house for 18 years.

This may sound harsh and I may sound like a bastard grandson - but that's just how the cookie has crumbled in my relationship with her. I refuse to put on some angelic grandson act.

[fumanchu]

^ sorry to hear that exhale. My grandma is famous for being difficult, her amahs resign in quick succession. I guess the fact I see my grandparents once every two years makes the relationship (or lack of it) easier.

I can completely relate. I only have grandparents on my father's side, and they only speak Vietnamese. My grandfather doesn't seem to really talk to anyone, so it doesn't bother me that I can't communicate with him. But I'm sad that I can't speak to my grandma without someone translating. It's weird to love someone so much even though you can't even have a proper conversation with them. My family's rather lucky, though. My dad's family accepted my mom (although they are divorced now, they still like her) and we were never made to feel unloved or different. If anything, we were given a bit more special treatment since my parents brought all of my dad's family over to Canada, and my sister was the first grandchild. We also lived in a different city so when we came to visit we were spoiled.

I was spoiled when I was little, and still get given wads of cash when I visit, but not being able to communicate just makes things feel a little distant. You haven't found the relationship changing as you've grown older xandra?

[helles]

I can communicate fine with my grandma.. its more generational and cultural differences that is more of a barrier. I love her to bits, and she is really quite funny and wise tho stubborn and stuck in her ways. She cant read/write, but is goin to classes at 96 and goes to exercise every morning!

But because the chinese side arent a touchy-feely family, and I have to get used to her comments about my weight/hair/dressing etc as her way of caring and noticing me!

Funny thing is with my English grandparents, they were divorced.. I much prefered my grandma than my grandad at the time - who was more 'playful' compared to my tea drinking 'serious' grandad.. but now that i'm olderand realise things much more..thinking back, my grandad was a much nicer person than we gave credit for..

[xandra]

fumanchu said:

I was spoiled when I was little, and still get given wads of cash when I visit, but not being able to communicate just makes things feel a little distant. You haven't found the relationship changing as you've grown older xandra?

Well, it's difficult for our relationship to really expand very much due to the language barrier. She will say things in Vietnamese to me and I have to hope that someone around us is paying attention and willing to translate to me. Usually she will say that I'm pretty, or that our hands are the same size or that she's proud of my schooling. Always complimentary things, but not super deep. However, I do really appreciate her and feel close to her regardless of the language barrier. She was very accepting of my mother when many others in her place would have rejected her (and us).

[avax]

Hm. Dunno where my grandfather went for awhile but later on came back in the picture. No problems communicating with anyone in the family here. If anything they were probably on life support or too drugged up when it did get difficult. Cheers to them people upstairs.

Imo, who cares? They're alive then go gamble with each other. Take a trip to vegas together, drive the older folks somewhere, cross a suspension bridge with them, go boating, go fishing, go shopping. What exactly are you looking for? A sit-down chat like the way you do with your peers/friends? Discuss boyfriends or girlfriends or the bar you hit up the night before?

Elders are gonna fall into roles of "provider" any which way you put it, even if that means having their savings sapped by the younger generations. If there are savings. And if there's nothing, it's probably reversed. And hey, if it's anything like my case where everyone loves everyone else, there are lawyers involved. Woohoo.

For goodness sake, just take a drive, man.

[catgirl]

Only my grandparents on my mums side are alive. And my grandmother is the "immigrant". Shes British, but speaks Norwegian also. We used to speak English with her when we were younger. But I feel embarrassed sometimes when I speak English somehow.... My grandmother often switches over to English with us, but I cant manage to respond in English, just continue speaking Norwegian

I also used to speak English with my siblings before, but now its just Norwegian. I feels completely unnatural to speak to them in English at this point. We ve grown out of it I guess, lol.

[jefe]

Me and my grandparents -- let me remember this.

Maternal grandparents -- Anniston, Alabama
Problems were more cultural than linguistic -- eg, segregation attitudes. Only had occasional linguistic problems -- they use many terms local to the central South that are not immediately understood elsewhere. For example, they called milk "sweet milk" to distinguish it from Butter milk. They get water from the spigot and ate ambrosia with their fried catfish and okra. At night, we would read the Bible.

Paternal Grandparents
My grandfather spoke ONLY Toishan dialect of Chinese. Albeit illiterate, my grandmother was a native Cantonese speaker, but also learned Toishan dialect as she lived there with my grandfather before immigrating to the USA.

My grandfather died before my 5th birthday, but I seem to recall that I understood what he said to me at that time. Indeed, I still understand Toishan dialect only at an age 4 level -- I would like to learn my native dialect better at some time.

My grandmother died before my 13th birthday.
I only started to learn Cantonese at age 6, and only a few words -- I dropped out of Chinese school and did not resume again until age 15 in High School with Mandarin. I did not improve my Cantonese to a conversational level until university. So I ended up communicating with my grandmother in a hodgepodge of 90% broken English with an occasional Toishan work thrown in. Nevertheless, that woman is the one who gave me the most affection that I have ever experienced. Maybe some communication simply does not require words.

I wish they could have lived long enough until my Chinese was good enough to communicate with them.

[Freecia]

Both sets of my grandparents are still alive, and they don't speak the same language I do.

My dad's grandparents are better. They mainly speak Taiwanese and Japanese, but they can speak some Mandarin, and I can speak some Taiwanese. Communicating with them is a lot easier.

My mom's parents and my family aren't close. They started travelling back and forth between Spain and Taiwan after I was born. They speak a mixture of Spanish and Taiwanese so it was hard for me to even understand them.

[Pushnpull]

My great grandmother on my dad's side is from Germany. She spoke English until she developed Alzheimer's. Every so often she would put a German word/phrase here or there in place of an English word. When she had full blown Alzheimer's she ceased to speak English. No one, not her grandchildren or granchildren could communicate with her. Not even her own children. I remember her saying something to my grandfather and my grandpa didn't know what she was saying.

Now when i went to the Philippines....my grandmother spoke mostly Ilokano with a few English words thrown in. I was actually able to figure out what she was trying to get across based on context, facial expressions and hand gestures!

[halfbreed]

I have one grandparent left: my mother's mother. She doesn't speak English and I don't speak Mandarin. Awkward.

[saeka]

I have no problem talking to my grandparents.
My Japanese granddad passed away when I was around 9, had no problems communicating with him. Since I know Japanese :3 My grandma is still alive and I go visit her and have no problem except her country accent is sometimes difficult to understand and tends to repeat the same thing shes already told me x10 and yells at the people on tv. I dont blame her. shes nearly 90 but still ok


As for my maternal grandparents.. They just speak English .I learnt english when i was 9 and these days I have no problem communicating with them. except I dislike talking with them.

[chlorine]

Both of my grandparents are dead, my grandfather before I was even born, and my grandmother just last year. It does make me sad that she and I could not communicate on a meaningful level (she does not speak any English at all), but the geographic barrier was much more heartbreaking, since I've never met any of my paternal family. All I can think of when I look back is when she talked to me on the phone, and I heard her voice, before my grandfather translated and told me she kept a picture of me at all times and loved me very much.

[yalanrei]

I can relate! My grandparents speak their ethnic dialect, hakka. My hakka is terrible. They barely speak mandarin, which I speak fluently and they dont speak a WORD of english.