Apologies if this is something that’s been asked before. I looked through and didn’t find the exact question I’m asking, so I thought I’d post it myself.
My boyfriend and I have been together for a bit now and at this point we have talked about future marriage and children, but I’m still in graduate school so we decided not to rush things like marriage yet until I have a full job. However, my parents decided to come visit during Christmas/ New Year times. When I told my boyfriend, he offered to drive us up to Nagoya for Christmas Eve/Christmas day and take a day off work to see the illumination together. However, my boyfriend has never met my parents and I’ve never met his, so I’m a bit nervous because I don’t know how the whole parent introduction stage goes. In fact, this is the first time I’m ever introducing any romantic partner to my parents so I’m very nervous.
The other thing I’m worried about is my boyfriend doesn’t speak English (all of our conversations are in Japanese) and my parents don’t speak Japanese. Both have offered to study a little of the opposite language, but obviously you can’t get fluent in just a few months, so I’m also wondering what is the best way to handle a relationship where there is a language barriers between parents and one of the partners.
3 comments
First, although it’s less common, it is still widely the case : meeting boyfriend / girlfriend parents generally means that marriage is in the corner.
Second, I assume that your parents don’t speak Chinese. Being present most of the time is still the easiest way to have parents interacting.
Our parents had a very nice connexion so most of the time, gesture and facial expressions were enough to convey the important information. But my parents still got frustrated so they are currently learning Japanese for the next time they meet up.
>The other thing I’m worried about is my boyfriend doesn’t speak English (all of our conversations are in Japanese) and my parents don’t speak Japanese.
I’ve been in the same boat. It’s probably not particularly encouraging but when my ex met my mom I was interpreting the whole time. It was exhausting but there wasn’t any other option unless they wanted to be on their phones the whole time and using crappy google translate (though they did do that when I left their side for whatever reason).
tbh your parents will be able to clock a lot about your partner just by their vibes and seeing how they treat you. If they can use some basic japanese and your bf basic english I’m sure that will help too.
Try to make it fun, you can mistranslate some things on purpose 