Can You Speak Love?

You live in Montreal. Well, maybe not. But your lover is the native speaker of a different language. What language do you speak to her in? (Her for the sake of this post, throughout, but it obviously could be he — you get the pic).

I find that I can’t speak French to my lover. I speak it pretty well, but telling her “Je t’aime” is just too ersatz, somehow. Or any other words of love, such as when I’m murmuring in her ear when, umm, you get the picture. Why is this so? Is it lingual chauvinism?

In my case it kind of is . . . I know I can’t possibly hope to compete with her legacy of French-speaking lovers -- more frighteningly in her case, Spanish-speaking lovers as well. They will have had all the language of love down pat, years of experience before me. But it’s not that I don’t WANT to speak her language, it’s just that I’m on safer ground if I don’t. No cultural slipups, if you will.

And a definite admission that she speaks my language way better than I speak hers. But then again, what language does your hand or eye or lips speak?

Dans ce cas là I rest my case . . .