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Language can be deeply personal, especially when it connects someone to their home, family, and even the way they comfort their dog.

Most partners expect to understand important conversations, but if your boyfriend objected whenever you used your native language around him, would you keep translating everything or suggest he finally learn some of it?

That disagreement leaves one woman defending a normal part of her life while her boyfriend argues that English should be the default whenever he is present.

See why one conversation with a dog sparked a much bigger cultural conflict.

AITA for telling my boyfriend that if he wants to understand what I’m talking about with my dog, he should learn the language?

Background: I (32F) have a dog (6F).

My dog is noise-sensitive, and when she gets upset, I calm her down by talking to her about silly stuff in my native language.

It’s quite a rare language, and fewer than 5 million people speak it.

Language barriers can be difficult.

My boyfriend (38M) moved to my country 3 years ago for work and is a native English speaker (not from the US). We met around a year ago, and have been dating for 5 months.

Recently, we had our first argument that started with me speaking to my dog in my native language, and escalated from there.

The situation: we were hanging out in my living room, and there was a sudden bang outside. The dog startled and came to seek comfort.

I told her that they must have been thinking that it’s a New Year and started fireworks. And I giggled about my not-so-good joke.

He asked what I was giggling about, and I explained.

Really? She can’t talk to a dog in her own language?

He then told me that I shouldn’t use my language when he is visiting, because he feels left out.

I told him that I was helping my dog with her anxiety, and he didn’t have to understand what I was saying.

And then the argument started.

He expressed that it’s an unwritten rule that if someone, who doesn’t speak the local language, is in the room, everybody must speak English.

My counterargument was that we are not at work or a networking event (this is how we met), and if he wants to know what I told my DOG, he could just ask.

Ok, so it sounds like this is more of a pattern.

Carl said that he didn’t need to ask if I was making him feel welcome in my home, and pointed out some recent situations when I spoke my language with him present.

I told him that he only feels left out because he hasn’t made any effort to learn the language.

He then doubled down by saying there’s not much to do with the language outside our country, and he’d rather learn Spanish because 600 million people speak it.

And I doubled down by asking if he wants to speak with 600 million Spanish speakers or to understand what I’m talking about with my dog, a random classmate I don’t even want to talk to, or that I told my sister that the cake I brought to a party is still in the car, and if she takes my bags, I’ll bring the cake in (the situations he referred to previously). And if understanding these conversations is not worth his effort to learn the language, then these conversations are not worth my effort to speak English, too.

Is she just doing this to upset him now?

And then he was sullen and quiet the whole evening while I refused to give up and spoke to my dog in my native language.

But now I wonder if I was the AH, because his main issue was that he feels left out.

But I feel that it’s entitled to ask me to speak to my dog in English.

However, from the dog’s point of view, there’s no difference in what language I talk in outside the normal dog-human interactions, such as “do you want some dinner”, “bring me the ball” and “let’s go for a walk”.

But for me, it would be extremely strange to talk to my dog in English.

AITA?

To me, it sounds like there are more serious issues in this relationship than talking to a dog. These two need to work on working together rather than against each other.

Let’s see what the people in the comments on Reddit think about it.

Yeah, he has some major red flags.

Here is someone in a similar situation.

This commenter says her boyfriend is being unreasonable.

It’s not like he is only there for a few weeks.

She is putting in all the effort here, is he worth it?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a grandson who is tired of driving 5 hours one way to work on his grandparent’s investment property for free.

The boyfriend was not excluded from an important discussion, but from a few comforting words directed at a frightened dog in the language his partner naturally uses.

He had lived in the country for three years yet dismissed learning its language as less useful than studying Spanish, while still expecting everyone around him to accommodate that choice…entitled much?

Commenters overwhelmingly supported the girlfriend and questioned why he viewed her culture as an inconvenience instead of an opportunity to connect with her.

The dog may not care which language she speaks, but it already seems more willing to listen than the boyfriend.