When you think about all of the reasons why you should study a foreign language, being able to communicate with loved ones has to be number one on the list.

Consider this short story about dear friends of mine.

They met and lived in Japan. She is Japanese and he is Swiss-German but to understand each other they speak their common language – English.  Well, actually, it is a bit of a blend of all of those languages put together.

They married and had children in Japan but he had to travel overseas a lot for his work. During this time my friend spoke to her children in Japanese but her husband was not home enough to teach the children his native European language.

Years went by and each time he returned home from a work trip to see his family, the language gap seemed larger and larger. It came to the point that his wife had to act as the translator between him and his children as they did not know enough of each other’s language to communicate clearly.

The last straw came when my friend was absent from the house for a while and her husband was home with the kids but could not understand enough Japanese to know what they were saying.

That is when they decided to move to Australia where everyone would learn and speak English to each other. The plan has worked and they are a happy multicultural family blessed with many languages!  Their decisions may have been different if he had learnt Japanese but I am happy to have them here!