How important is it for her to Speak English

[BC]

They are people who met once for a week or two then made a huge decision to get married. In some cases the women spoke English well in others they did not. Often the guy has never visited the womans home town, met her parents/friends and knows nothing about her previous existence apart from what he has been told.

In 4 years hanging 'round the boards I have not seen many that succeeded with this approach.  I have seen quite a few that failed.

In some cases it is not a lack of communication that is the issue, it is not spending enough quality time together and getting carried away with the romance/emotion of an unusual situation. It can take a while to understand a persons character and habits.

This I can agree with.. Unfortunately the majority of seekers seem to have very little time to really dig their heels in.

You can communicate with anyone even if you do not speak the same language, it is just a question of the minimum level of communication you are personally willing to accept at the beginning of a relationship, "beginning" being the important point. At the point when a proposal may occur the level of communication should be sufficient for everyone to understand clearly want is said and the consequences of what is being said.

I remember running a red light in a country where I didn't know the language.  The cop blabbered and I shrugged.  After inspecting my licence and car papers he waved his index finger at me then did a fanning motion with his hand.  I got back in the car and drove away.  I guess our communications were quite good considering the circumstances but I'd hate to start out a relationship that way.  Even though my time and means are quite flexible, starting from scratch would have been beyond them.

My wife has a saying.. 'anything is possible' and she is right, but she never has said 'anything is probable'.

[PeeWee]

BC, it is probable that 50% of all marriages will end in divorce (a US statistic). It is therefore possible that your marrage will end in faliure. The odds are not in your favor nor are they in my favor. 

Anything is possible, anything is probable. It's the degree of probability that predicts the  possible successful outcome of anything. I know but one man who took a foreign bride. One trip to the Philippines, they married. At the 15 year mark they are still married. If I were to use him as my example then I see a 100% success ratio for the one week wonder. I don't read that same success ratio for the OWW who post on this forum. The odds are against the OWW but the odds also allow for a success or two.

No one has a stastic that will document the success ratio of the OWW when compared to the Ten Year Ploder. One would suspect that the man that took more time to know her would have a better chance of success but by what percent? I see a 50% for all marrieds no matter how they went about it. That is the only static that I know. Play the odds is the smart thing to do.

Peewee

[Turboguy]

If I look outside people I have met on this board I only know two couples that were basically one week wonders.   One is a guy who I hooked he and his wife up.  He is a rather average 55 year old guy and she is an OK looking gal in her 40's from Moldova.  She had contacted me from an agency and since I was involved with Luda at the time, I forwarded her info to my friend Mike.  At this stage which is about 4 months into their marriage they both seem deliriously happy.  They are working on building a new house, and have a close wonderful relationship.  She did have reasonable English.

The other is someone Luda met in ESL classes,  a Ukrainian gal and her husband Joe.  She came here knowing almost no English.  They met though friends and not an agency by the way.  They have been married probably just under two years.  He is deliriously happy and she is content and satisfied.

Based on what I see which is a very small sampling, being a one week wonder is not a wise course of action but it can work sometimes.   Being involved with a gal who doesn't speak English well is not a wise course, but it can work sometimes.  There was also my friend in San Francisco that I talked about before who arrived in America knowing a hand full of words.  They have had some struggles but they overcame them and are happy now.

I have to agree with PeeWee.  You are far better off playing the odds and not being a one week wonder.  You are far better off persuing a gal you can communicate with.   You are far better off putting the odds on your side and not bucking them.   It means if you choose to do something different you are taking a risk.  It does not mean there is no chance of success.  Taking a bigger risk is not wise.  People will contiune to do it and some will succeed.

[LatinSwede]

My last visit, I bought my lady a Spanish/Russian phrasebook and dictionary.  It was meant as a joke and she got the gist of my humor.  She gets 2 cuyltures with me, so it's just to get her used to it.  However, learning English is #1 on our list of priorities when she gets here.  After she's gt a good grasp of the English language, she can learn Mandarin Chinese if she feels like it.  Hmm, that's not a bad idea, since the CHinese have lots of commerce going through Panama.  They also run most of neighborhood the stores.

[BC]

PeeWee,

You draw at straws.

I'll stick to the philosophy that the proof is in the pudding.

While you play the 'odds' and Turbo plays the 'numbers game' I'll just sit back and enjoy the pudding.

[PeeWee]

PeeWee,

You draw at straws.

I'll stick to the philosophy that the proof is in the pudding.

While you play the 'odds' and Turbo plays the 'numbers game' I'll just sit back and enjoy the pudding.

I have always enjoyed the pudding. I may just throw in with you on this one because that pudding is too hard to resist.

Peewee

[Jet]

I'd be REAL careful before sticking your spoon in BC's pudding!

[andrewfi]

Swindoom ~ I can only offer my congratulations on your willingness to accept, as you yourself wrote, very low standards. Some people simply are more demanding in this area, some NEED conversation, obviously you did/do not. For this reason, as I have written so often, the need for communication is a continuum. In your case, as presented, you were happy with grunts, perhaps a dictionary and bum sniffing. You were also fotunate that, at least on your part, what you later learned through improved verbal communication did not cause you to need to reassess your position. It does not mean that you knew her without shared language, simply that nothing you learned later was a deal breaker - the kind of thing ordinary couples tend to discover within a few hours or days, certainly not before making a choice of marriage partner.

If you think logically, when ever you write 'not enough time' and couple it with 'not enough language', then, as long as one makes the reasonable assumption that language DOES help in building a relationship, making one's use of time more effective, the outcome is that if the cases you referenced did have the means to communicate adequately, then at the very least they would have had a better opportunity to know each other, a requirement that we both consider important.

I have never suggested that without a limitation on time that one can not build a relationship without, from the start, a common spoken language, but with very few exceptions, posters here do NOT have time as an adequate resource.

[swindoom]

the kind of thing ordinary couples tend to discover within a few hours or days, certainly not before making a choice of marriage partner.

So your saying if a women speaks English well you can discover all her deep dark secrets in a few hours or days, how naive a statement is that!!!

Once again a quality post that is very entertaining in it's total lack of intelligent reasoning, similar to your thread about FSU women being stupid and lazy if from day one they do not have good command of the English language.

You seem to assume that our only communication was during face to face meetings???.
We also had this wonderful new thing called "e-mail", amazing invention, hope it will catch on. You write a letter on your PC, then press the "send" button and magically she receives it very fast even though she lived 4,500 km away and she can do the same. Also when her English improved we used another piece of technology called the "telephone" where we can speak to each other without being in the same room or even the same country, what will these boffins think of next.

Yes I had very low standards when I started searching, all I wanted was a woman who was intelligent, caring, thoughtful, family orientated, beautiful, sexy, her ability at our first meeting to discuss the "Theory of Relativity" was suprisingly not important to me. Now I have a wife who has all these qualities plus can speak English well and thinks I am a "gift from God", in her words.

[Turboguy]

Another thought on this communication thing and I just crawled out of bed and just started on my first cup of coffee so I hope this makes sense.

We have had a lot of conversation about less face to face time here.   I can't recall us ever talking about the fact that often the topics of conversation are different.   What you are talking about with an FSU woman often a few minutes after meeting are things that you may take a long time, even years when you "date" an American girl. 

Often with an FSU woman within a very short time you may find yourself talking about serious life issues, if she wants children, what she wants from a marriage and all the premarriage things that you don't usually do with an AW till you think you might be serious.   When you meet an American woman you do it with the hopes of having a nice evening and maybe a roll in the sack.  When you meet an FSU woman you do it with the hopes she might be your lifemate.    Getting too serious, too quick with AW will have you spending Saturday nights watching reruns.  I guess my thought is since the goal is already established and we can learn about each other in a more direct fashion it may actually enable us to do things in far less time.   After I wake up I will read this again and see if it makes sense to me.

[KenC]

Swindoom,
Congratulations!  It sounds like it all worked out for you and your wife. I don't think anyone here ever said it was impossible, just damn difficult and risky.  Risky because the woman that cannot communicate with you is an unknown quantity until she learns some English.  In spite of all the body language signs and interpretated conversations, one just cannot know the lady well.  As you pointed out, it takes years to really know a woman that speaks your language.  Getting to know a woman that has the big task of learning the language also, would logically take even longer.  The combination of no common language and limited time is a recipe for disaster though.  Pursuing and marrying a RW is a high risk venture on it's own without taking on additional risks.

Turbo (speaking of high risk takers).
You actually make a couple of good points.  Maybe you should do all your posting sans coffee?

In meeting RW, the communication does seem to be on a very fast track doesn't it?  No pussy footing around being all coy and cute, they seem to cut right to the heart of the matter.  I think this is because of two reasons.  #1 Russians in general seem to be direct and to the point.  #2 Everyone knows the end goal in this process: marriage and relocation. Doc Woody used to say "converse in reverse", which I thought was pretty good advice.  First talk to the lady about relocating to America and make sure she is sincere about the prospects before you waste any of your limited time with her.  Of course one can assume that a woman listed with a "marriage agency" is somewhat interested in marriage too.  That by itself takes a lot of gamesmanship out of the dating process.

To take this concept a little further, as Swindoom indicated, the quality of the conversations can continue via email and the phone long after you leave Russia.  I do want to point out that there is a distinct difference between these electronic conversations from before you met the woman face to face.  There is just too much fantasy involved prior to meeting that seriously reduces the validity of the information being transmitted for it to be very useful.  Simply put, the communication prior to meeting is a "dating dance" meant to attract a potential mate, whereas the conversations post meeting can be used as a true "getting to know each other" sharing of information.

I know myself, that there was a big difference in the conversations between Lena and I from before we met and after.  If used properly, this can be a great time to truly get to know each other.  I say "properly" because I have been amazed before by how little important information some people share during this time.
KenC

[Turboguy]

Just a short comment.  You can be married to someone for 30 years and not know them at all.  I am not sure how that relates to marrying a woman from the other side of the world based on a very short time together but life is always going to be a gamble and there are no sure things in Love and Marriage.

[KenC]

Just a short comment.  You can be married to someone for 30 years and not know them at all.  I am not sure how that relates to marrying a woman from the other side of the world based on a very short time together but life is always going to be a gamble and there are no sure things in Love and Marriage.

I dunno, Turbo,
I think it is more that people evolve over time and not that they didn't know each other.  I was married for 21 years and dated the gal for 4 years before we married.  I knew her well, but we certainly weren't the same people at the end of the relationship that we were at the beginning.  People change over a 25 year period!

All we can do is make our decisions based on the facts given at any point in time and hope that the future evolution is along similar paths.
KenC

[catzenmouse]

All we can do is make our decisions based on the facts given at any point in time and hope that the future evolution is along similar paths.
KenC

 I think this is one of the major points here that gets debated. You make a decision to continue a relationship/get engaged/married etc. on that facts that you have at that moment.

 The problem is to separate the facts you have from the fantasy that you have built up. Not an easy thing to do as people can get themselves to believe anything that they want to believe regardless of the facts that are staring them in the face. I think we all go into this believing we have the facts necessary but with time and experience we often see that we were lacking a great deal of information. Sometimes that information is a deal breaker and we see the crash and burn stories. Sometimes that information is an added bonus to what we believed we had to begin with. Do you really know which way it will go when you get started? Not very likely.

Ken

[KenC]

Ken,
Good post.  There are so many additional burdens on a marriage with a foreign woman that one should try to keep those burdens on the relationship which he can control, to a minimum.  This is where I sincerely don't understand a guy like Turbo.  Yes you can push the envelope when it comes to age, English skills, social status, etc etc.  But why would you?  Marrying a RW is already fraught with landmines in it's most simplest form that to take on additional risks seems foolish to me.  It is almost as though he is determined to sabotage himself into one failure after another.

The guys that I see here that have succeeded are the ones that have taken a very conservative approach to this and have not over burdened their relationships with too many mountains to climb.
KenC

[PeeWee]

Yes I had very low standards when I started searching, all I wanted was a woman who was intelligent, caring, thoughtful, family orientated, beautiful, sexy, her ability at our first meeting to discuss the "Theory of Relativity" was suprisingly not important to me. Now I have a wife who has all these qualities plus can speak English well and thinks I am a "gift from God", in her words.

All of that! Sounds as if your standards had been set quite high. The only thing I would add to that, for my taste, is that she would have to look like Jenniffer Aniston.
Other than that, I am easy to please.

Peewee

Peewee

[tbelknap]

This has been a very interesting topic. 

I am wondering of the people that date women with little to no english capabilities, how long does it take to figure out if she is not a good fit with you?

I know sometimes it takes some time when you both speak the same language.  But I couldn't imagine trying to figure out if a woman is a good fit if there is no common language.  Does the interpretors help you regarding this?

[Bruno]

I am wondering of the people that date women with little to no english capabilities, how long does it take to figure out if she is not a good fit with you?

I know sometimes it takes some time when you both speak the same language.  But I couldn't imagine trying to figure out if a woman is a good fit if there is no common language.  Does the interpretors help you regarding this?

Again one difficult question 

If a woman is honest, interpretors can help for the communication and with time, all can be right...

But in case of hidden agenda, a interpretors or a common language is not a great help only time is a help... and when i speak about time, it is not a few week or month face to face but years... When lies is involved, language don't help a lot : lies detector or penthotal can help... Happy for us, we have more good women that bad one... Unhappy for us, we almost always choice the bad one in the pool of free women...

[Turboguy]

This has been a very interesting topic. 

I am wondering of the people that date women with little to no english capabilities, how long does it take to figure out if she is not a good fit with you?

I know sometimes it takes some time when you both speak the same language.  But I couldn't imagine trying to figure out if a woman is a good fit if there is no common language.  Does the interpretors help you regarding this?

Easy question tbelkanp.  Exactly 7 days.  That is why they are called one week wonders.

[Turboguy]

Ken,
Good post.  There are so many additional burdens on a marriage with a foreign woman that one should try to keep those burdens on the relationship which he can control, to a minimum.  This is where I sincerely don't understand a guy like Turbo.  Yes you can push the envelope when it comes to age, English skills, social status, etc etc.  But why would you?  Marrying a RW is already fraught with landmines in it's most simplest form that to take on additional risks seems foolish to me.  It is almost as though he is determined to sabotage himself into one failure after another.
KenC

I don't question your logic Ken, but perhaps when we figure out why I am willing to push the envelope we can then find out why people want to climb Mt Everest or fly a Mig at Mach 3.   It seems to me that you pushed the envelope yoursef a bit, perhaps not as far as you think I do but if the truth were known you may find I push it less than you think.   If everyone wanted a safe route would any of us be chasing women from the FSU

[tbelknap]

Again one difficult question 

If a woman is honest, interpretors can help for the communication and with time, all can be right...

But in case of hidden agenda, a interpretors or a common language is not a great help only time is a help... and when i speak about time, it is not a few week or month face to face but years... When lies is involved, language don't help a lot : lies detector or penthotal can help... Happy for us, we have more good women that bad one... Unhappy for us, we almost always choice the bad one in the pool of free women...

Bruno I understand what you mean.  Lets just say we are only dealing with honest women.   

I have only dated women that speak english so that is why I asked.  When I go out on a date I can see where things are going pretty quickly after talking to her.  It would seem to me that it would take a lot longer when there is no common language.  Is the extra time worth it compared to just finding a woman that you can communicate with from the start?

[tbelknap]

Easy question tbelkanp.  Exactly 7 days.  That is why they are called one week wonders.

7 days per woman.  Wow, that could add up. 

[catzenmouse]

7 days per woman.  Wow, that could add up. 

So many women, so little time, so few K1's available...

[BC]

Being able to communicate is very important to convey wants, needs, desires, goals, interests etc etc.  What speaks for face to face time is being able to meet friends, family and soak in the lifestyle she is accustomed to.  Living together with my wife and her family for an extended period was really what sealed my convictions.  Don't get me wrong there were some aspects that I found were not 'ideal' but the experience prepared me well for the challenges ahead.

I spent a good two months in proximity of and in her home before we married.

In many ways your're just marrying a woman but joining a family.. something often forgotten by WWO's

Investments in communication and face to face, in-house time will pay off with great dividends.

Of course if you can already communicate you've saved yourself a lot of time, effort and are well ahead in whatever game you're playing.

In all, I was able to spend a good deal of time there.. probably 4 or 5 years worth of western vacation time for someone who is working as employee.  I guess being self-employed was my greatest asset which sometimes makes me really wonder about those in similar circumstances who are 'still looking' after long periods of time.

[wiz]

Being able to communicate is very important to convey wants, needs, desires, goals, interests etc etc.  What speaks for face to face time is being able to meet friends, family and soak in the lifestyle she is accustomed to.  Living together with my wife and her family for an extended period was really what sealed my convictions.  Don't get me wrong there were some aspects that I found were not 'ideal' but the experience prepared me well for the challenges ahead.

In many ways your're just marrying a woman but joining a family.. something often forgotten by WWO's

Investments in communication and face to face, in-house time will pay off with great dividends.

Of course if you can already communicate you've saved yourself a lot of time, effort and are well ahead in whatever game you're playing.

Absolutely agree with your points.


The woman I have met in Kos (Olga) last June, speaks very good English and ever since our communication has gone from strength to strength. I have discovered a free telephone system, via Internet, to Russia and I speak to her daily for at least 30 minutes minimum.

Our understanding of each other is improving daily and next month on the 11 August we will meet again in Corfu Island, in Greece for another 7 days and more trips are planned for later.

I hope to visit her sometime in October or later in Moscow for 15-20 days and live with her and her family.

In my view the ability of her to speak good English has saved us very long time and citing also Groov's example also it proves your points further more.