To those of us who are married to a Japanese national or have a Japanese partner, a little question to hopefully kick off a discussion.
I've been happily married for over 10 years to a Japanese lady. At home we speak both Japanese and English; probably in a ratio of 70-30 or 80-20. I'm not some Japanese whizz, but my Japanese is better than her English just by virtue of having lived here for 20 years. She's still quite competent in English, and I'm sure that if the situation were reversed, her English would eclipse my Japanese quite handily.
One thing she said recently struck me as quite interesting. She likes to go and meet her various friends, from work and elsewhere, and one of the reasons is "so I can really speak Japanese". I know what she means; it's nice to really go all out in your native language, and for all that I've been here a long time and can get by fine, I'm not and never will be a native speaker of Japanese. When one of her friends visits our place and the two of them get chatty, I often find myself completely lost as the conversations get very, very fast.
How does it work with everyone here? Are you fluent enough to follow absolutely everything your spouse / partner says? Do they also feel the need to occasionally talk with a native to really let it all hang out, linguistically speaking?
by Tasty_Comfortable_77