In this special bilingual Valentine’s episode, Michelle and Yann step inside their multilingual marriage to explore what intercultural love actually looks like beyond the highlight reel.

Split into two primary segments — Yann in French, Michelle in English — they reflect on how moving between languages reshapes listening, intention, conflict, emotional expression, and identity. They unpack the difference between a language issue and a deeper misunderstanding, what it means to feel “less intelligent” in a second language, and why learning your partner goes far beyond learning their vocabulary. This conversation doesn’t romanticize intercultural love and relationships. It acknowledges the beauty and the work. The patience. The recalibration. The humility required to separate words from meaning and culture from assumption.

At its core, this episode isn’t really about Valentine’s Day. It’s about what happens when two people carry different linguistic histories, cultural assumptions, and emotional reflexes into the same space. And choose to stay in conscious conversation every day.

Yann’s Questions (Answers given in the episode)

• Comment le fait d’être dans une relation multilingue a-t-il changé ta manière d’écouter — pas seulement les mots, mais l’intention ?

• Y a-t-il des choses que tu considérais comme “évidentes” avant, et que tu as découvert être culturelles ?

• Est-ce que certaines émotions ou limites te semblent plus faciles à exprimer dans une langue que dans une autre ?

• Quand un malentendu apparaît, comment fais-tu la différence entre un problème de langue et un problème d’interprétation ?

• Est-ce que cette relation t’a amené à te voir différemment — comme locuteur, mais aussi comme personne ?

• Qu’est-ce que tu aimerais que les gens comprennent mieux sur la communication entre langues et cultures ?

Michelle’s Questions (Answers given in the episode)

• How does moving between languages affect how you express care, disagreement, or boundaries?

• What cultural assumptions about communication have you had to actively unlearn?

• How do you tell the difference between a language issue and a deeper mismatch in meaning or values?

• Has being in a multilingual relationship changed how you relate to your own voice or authority?

• What has this relationship taught you about listening — especially when understanding isn’t immediate?

• What do you wish people understood better about communicating across languages and cultures?

Bilingual Transcript (See box below for English translation of Yann's Q&A)

Michelle:
Happy Valentine's Day. I am so excited to be here today with Yann. If you don't know him, you can get to know him on the website and get to know him a bit more in our holiday episode. But also we had a solo episode come out with Yann as the guest so you can get to know him and his backstory a bit beyond just being my unpaid intern, which I am forever grateful that you are. We're entering year two of we cultivate the pod and we're really starting to imagine a little bit more the stuff that we can experiment with, the new sort of formats that we can introduce to you, our audience. So today, in the spirit of what will soon be Valentine's Day. We have a lot that we could talk about, not only about love and all the things to do with the sort of feelings around it, why are you laughing at me?
But I also feel like it's a great opportunity to talk a little bit about our relationship a bit more. I do keep this stuff fairly non-personal, we'll say, but we are not from the same country. We are not from the same culture. We don't have the same maternal language tongue. We don't have kind of the same background or backstory at all. Technically speaking, up until this point, Yann has never lived in my home country. He has not yet traveled to the continent or land of my family. There's a lot of stuff that I think that we could talk about many times when we look at media celebrating multiculturalism and this idea of the beauty that comes in with diversity. It is incredibly beautiful. Yes, it is also not always simple in the everyday sense. And so I thought today would be a great way, great opportunity for us to speak on our own experiences on the subject, how being in a relationship and now marriage with each other has caused us to reexamine what it is to be a speaker of a certain language, to communicate in certain ways how we express how we receive the other person's way of expression.
And what we've decided to do in terms of format is break it up into a French section, which Yann will go through, and then an English section for me, let's just put this out there. It is very challenging to do not only a bilingual episode, but one where when you're producing and editing and stitching everything together, doing captions if need be, it is complicated given the fact that our audience is predominantly English first. We'll say it in that way, but I don't want English to be sort of the barrier to someone expressing. So I am brainstorming. I'm thinking about ways to make sure that our guests of all sorts can find ways of expressing in ways that are most natural to them. But I also want to make sure that we find that balance with our listeners. We've prepared a couple of questions that are in both languages. Again, transcript translation will all be available online. Make sure that you are looking on the episode page. We are going to answer them separately and we'll kind of come together to process reactions at the end. But for now, let's flip a coin and see who's going to go first. It's a coin I got at a rest stop in Maryland recently. So the Maryland crab is the head and the Washington Monument is the tail side. Do you want to flip it? Do you want to call what you want first?

Yann:
Tail

Michelle:
Tails. Okay. All right. You flip it?

Yann:
Yeah,

Michelle:
Don't drop it. We did rehearse. Okay. Tails? No, so you start, you'll, okay, so you're starting. Okay. So Yann will go first if you don't understand French totally, it's okay. Just go online and look at the translation and then just kind of fast forward ahead if you want to my section, but I will put you on the mic now.

Yann (English translation in box below)
Ok, donc c'est à moi de commencer. Donc on a préparé quelques questions. Je vais vous lire la question. Et puis ensuite je vais essayer d'y répondre. 
La première question, c'est comment le fait d'être dans une relation multilingue a-t-il changé ta manière d'écouter pas seulement les mots, mais l'intention?
Comment répondre à ça? Je dirais que c'est surtout un rappel, un rappel que le contexte est important. Ça m'a aussi appris à être patient, à écouter les gens jusqu'à la fin. Donc contextualiser, écouter les gens jusqu'à la fin et requestionner derrière, pour être sûr d'avoir bien compris. Parce que souvent on associe un sens qui n'est pas forcément celui du locuteur et ça arrive dans les deux sens. On peut comprendre ou vouloir dire quelque chose qui n'est pas qui n'est pas compris comme on voudrait. Donc ça m'apprend aussi à être un peu plus tolérant, plus à l'écoute du sens général, à accepter aussi les erreurs de langage, de choix, de mots, etc, même si ça n'a jamais été vraiment mon problème principal.
Donc voilà, je dirais ça. Contexte, plus d'écoute, requestionner. 
Deuxième question, y’a-t-il des choses que tu considérais comme évidentes avant et que tu as découvert être culturelles? Alors même si ça peut paraître être évident une fois qu'on pose la question comme ça… est ce que c'est évident qu'il y a des différences culturelles? Ça ne l'est pas forcément naturellement. Et il y a des choses qui sont tellement naturelles qu'on les voit même pas. Donc j'ai envie de répondre que toute conversation déjà initialement peut être propice à des malentendus culturels, et qu'il faut y faire attention et que ce qui se paraît évident au départ peut avoir une tout autre signification, une toute autre résonance, un tout autre impact chez la personne à qui l'on parle. Et je dirais que c'est vraiment le danger des traductions mot à mot, par exemple d'expression. On pense que c'est ça coule de source, que ça a du sens, alors que ça peut avoir un sens tout à fait opposé ou pas de sens du tout dans la langue et dans la culture de l'autre.
Donc oui, il y a beaucoup de choses que je considérais évidentes et que je me suis aperçue que non, ça ne l'était pas.
Autre question. Est ce que certaines émotions ou limites te semblent plus faciles à exprimer dans une langue que dans une autre?
Alors carrément! Carrément, et je m'aperçois qu'il y a des émotions, c'est même d'ailleurs amusant, quand j'ai de l'admiration ou de l'étonnement ou un plaisir particulier, ça me vient assez facilement en anglais, contrairement à ce qu'on pourrait croire, non, ça ne me vient pas forcément en français, ça me vient plus facilement en anglais. Et inversement, pour d'autres choses, peut être plus profondes ou plus complexes. Ça me viendra plus facilement, évidemment en français. Quelque chose que j'ai remarqué aussi, c'est que dans les conversations, j'ai quand même même nettement. Et je pense que c'est très commun aux gens qui pratiquent d'autres langues.
Je me sens beaucoup moins intelligent en anglais. Ça me paraît assez naturel de dire ça, mais ça me paraît aussi important de le souligner. Une autre limite que je vois avec l'anglais pour moi, c'est quand il y a plusieurs conversations en même temps, par exemple, dans une soirée ou plusieurs gens parlent évidemment qu’il va m’être très difficile ou plutôt assez difficile de raccrocher une conversation qui est déjà en anglais et dont je ne connais ni le contexte ni rien. Donc ça va me prendre beaucoup plus de temps, alors qu'en français, ça va être assez facile pour moi. Je ne suis pas quelqu'un timide, je suis quelqu'un qui contextualise assez vite. Et donc forcément là, je vais être un peu limité et un peu bloqué. On passe à la suivante. Quand un malentendu apparaît, comment fais tu la différence entre un problème de langue et un problème d'interprétation?
Je dirais que c'est une des choses qui est le plus compliquée pour moi, parce qu'avoir du recul et l'état d'esprit nécessaire pour dissocier un problème de langue ou un problème d'interprétation dans un contexte ou souvent les émotions et la sensibilité peuvent être en jeu. C'est pour moi un vrai challenge. C'est vraiment une des choses les plus compliquées. J'imagine que ce que j'essaye de faire aujourd'hui, c'est de requestionner mon interlocuteur, d'être sûr que j'ai bien compris ce qu'il a voulu me dire et d'être sûr que ce que j'ai voulu dire a été bien compris, surtout quand je vois une réaction un peu inattendue ou que j'ai une réponse qui est complètement en déconnexion avec mon propos. Mais ça reste la difficulté de savoir dans ce contexte là quand est-ce que c'est un problème de langue ou un problème d'interprétation. Je n'ai pas trouvé d'autres alternatives que requestionner aujourd'hui.
C'est vraiment ma seule solution. Et ce n'est pas encore parfait.
Autre question. Est-ce que cette relation t'a amené à te voir différemment comme locuteur, mais aussi comme personne?
Évidemment que oui. Évidemment que oui, mais fondamentalement, intrinsèquement, non. Je suis toujours le même, mais je suis clairement beaucoup plus conscient des mots que j'utilise, de mes tournures de phrases et de ce que cela implique. Ça se décline sur deux plans, je dirais. Le premier, c'est le fait que ce que je peux considérer anodin, complètement transparent dans une phrase ou complètement clair, ne l'est pas forcément pour mon interlocuteur et voire totalement diamétralement opposé, avoir une réaction que je ne pouvais pas imaginer. Et sur l'autre plan, c'est que je suis beaucoup plus conscient que les mots qu'on l utilise, les tournures de phrases, la façon dont on pose des questions, la façon dont on tourne ces phrases, c'est très porteur de signification.
Ça peut être très porteur d'histoire, de sens caché. Je pense que je n'avais pas assez conscience jusqu'à présent de tout ça. J'en avais un peu conscience. C'est pour ça que je dis que fondamentalement, ça ne m'a pas complètement changé, mais quand même, je pense que je suis beaucoup plus, beaucoup plus attentif à ça et dans ma façon de m'exprimer, mais aussi dans la façon dont j'interprète ce que les gens disent dans des conversations tout à fait anodines, même en français, ou je vois que l'emploi de tel mot peut être porteur de telle signification et aller beaucoup plus loin que juste une petite discussion sur la signification d'un mot précise, mais être porteur de toute une histoire, toute une signification dont la personne n'est même pas forcément consciente.
Une dernière question. Qu'est-ce que tu aimerais que les gens comprennent mieux sur la communication entre langue et culture?
Je dirais que chacune ont un impact l'une sur l'autre, mais qu'aussi chacune ont un impact direct sur sa manière de communiquer. La culture va évidemment avoir un impact sur les choix des mots et leur signification par exemple. La langue, elle va te limiter à un vocabulaire connu et les deux ensemble vont déterminer comment le locuteur va communiquer. Je ne sais pas si je suis très clair, mais de manière plus concrète, ça implique non seulement que le locuteur soit conscient de ce processus, mais que celui qui l'écoute également. Et donc je dirais qu'il est fortement recommandé de ne pas trop supposer que l'on a compris quelqu'un sans avoir pris en compte tout ça, tout ce jeu entre culture, langue, ce que cela implique, quel a été le choix? Comme je disais tout à l'heure, je parlais d'histoire, d'histoire des mots d'histoire de la façon dont on communique.
Et donc il faut faut vraiment en avoir conscience et essayer de lire entre les lignes, de ne pas surinterpréter non plus, mais d'essayer de lire aussi entre les lignes et toujours d'être un recul par rapport à ce qu'on reçoit, toujours d'être en recul par rapport à sa propre première interprétation ou émotion. Donc, je dirais que le danger, c'est de coller sa propre culture sur les propos d'une autre personne et de faire des raccourcis, en fait, de faire des raccourcis, des interprétations qui sont qui sont parfois très fausses. Comme je le disais précédemment, il faut faire attention parce que quelque chose qui peut paraître complètement anodin peut absolument ne pas l'être pour pour l'autre. Et inversement, quelque chose qui, et ça ça arrive dans notre couple assez fréquemment, quelque chose qui résonne très fort en moi, une phrase, un mot qu'elle dit qui a résonné très fort en moi en fait n’a pas du tout cette signification.Et donc, apprendre aussi à prendre du recul sur ça. 
Voilà, j'espère que j'ai pu répondre un petit peu et que ça vous évoqué des choses. Je suppose aussi que dans beaucoup de couples multiculturel, vous avez ce genre de questions et ce genre de réponse je suppose, parfois. C'est très compliqué. Si je devais résumer, c'est beaucoup d'écoute, de patience. Apprendre, à savoir dire stop de temps en temps, à savoir dire là, je ne suis pas en état mental de faire tous ces allers retours entre langue, culture, interprétation. Mais c'est aussi drôle, comme je l'ai raconté dans un autre dans un autre épisode, de se retrouver dans des situations ou on ne comprend pas tellement ce qui se passe. Voilà pour, mais pour mes réponses en tout cas, ce que ce que je ressens et ce que je pense de tout ça.

Michelle:
All right, my turn. Now, see, I didn't want to know Yann's answers because I felt like they would bias mine, but it's not like I prepared mine either. So this is going to be quite in real time as everything is.
First of all, how does moving between languages affect how I or one expresses care, disagreement or boundaries?
 Personally in my relationship with Yann in particular, I feel that we sometimes have to be a little bit kind of detached from the language and kind of see beyond it and look at the person. Because sometimes when we are speaking in different languages, so if I'm speaking in French or if he's speaking in English, potentially one person's going to misinterpret or misunderstand what the other person means simply because that person is not speaking in something that they grew up with. And as a result, if I filter it completely through my mother tongue brain, I might be like, wow, that was really rude, or I don't know that was really mean.
And we do have those moments. I feel like the huge challenge for me and the responsibility of being in a couple like ours is needing to make sure that I still keep my eye and my focus on my partner and understand who he is, irrespective of what language we're using, even of how he expresses does not conform, let's say necessarily to the rules that I might impose on a speaker of my own native language. I hope that's somewhat clear for people listening to me, but yeah, I think it's really tough. I think that how I express care or disagreement, I think that sometimes we have to go back and forth and do more checks because we're just not sure sometimes.
Number two, what cultural assumptions about communication have you had to actively unlearn?
A big difference for me, again, moving abroad, living in other countries, France is not the only country that I've lived in before.
And I would say that something I maybe took for granted is how much a society's kind of status quo, baseline or the communication culture might influence how I see multiculturalism when I talk about cultural assumptions on communication. I didn't know how many people, even if they came from very diverse backgrounds when I was living in the states, I didn't realize how much of that was them scaling their communication to what we consider appropriate or good or professional -I'm doing a lot of air quotes if you can't see me- in the US . And I think that I had to really check my own biases on this when I started living in other places, having to check myself on did I think that somebody was inherently rude or too forward or out of line or this and that, simply because I was scaling it also to my perspective as someone who had been born, raised, educated, but also I spent many years working in the US, was I even as someone outside of the US in the English language scaling everyone's communication to my US standards or could I, again detach from that?
And I think I really did have to actively unlearn what is the USness or the US flavor of the English language because many different countries speak English. And one of my very first experiences working abroad was in Malaysia, which is an English speaking country. It is not the same type of English that we might find where I'm from, but it is still English nonetheless. And I really had to unlearn and recalibrate my understanding of and my expectations of a language and detach it from my home country and really, really check myself on what did I expect from the other person in front of me. I expect that they scale themselves to me and what I would consider normal or appropriate. And I think that jumps another barrier once you enter into new places, into new countries, new societies and speakers of other languages who are using language as a tool to communicate.
It's what really drove me to, I think invest more in myself, getting my certification in English as a foreign language, teaching it, instructing it, getting deeper and working with clients, how they would communicate across teams, all this stuff. I think I had to unlearn it for myself first in order to feel like I could be more effective for other people around me and to, okay, this is Valentine's Day, so I'm trying to put it back into romance. But I think that where it concerns Yann and I, we don't have the same baseline with each other's language. And because of that, all of these assumptions that unless you work to recognize and unlearn or relearn for how your partner expresses, you're going to run into some issues. And we definitely have had them and we still have them today. 
How do you tell the difference between a language issue and a deeper mismatch in meaning or values?
Oh God, this is where if you've studied some psychology and you or you were someone who takes an interest in psychological topics, you will understand that language communication expression is just what we see on the other end of thoughts and feelings and emotions and logic and otherwise. So when I first met Yann, and to be honest, right now we're releasing this in February, 2026. Yann and I didn't meet each other until only a couple years ago. And granted, it's been definitely a huge journey since then. This is the first relationship for me where I've really been challenged to find what I know to be true about humans and trust that at this point in life I have gone through enough, I have been in enough relationships and I've met enough people to understand what is or how to read one's character. In the beginning of a relationship when you're just starting to meet someone you are a little bit like, is this person pulling my leg all the time? Come on. It can't possibly be a language issue every time. He's just probably crazy. That's the easier thing to think about. And I think if you've also had a history of, obviously both of us had histories of relationships where things did not turn out well and you meet someone and you feel really strongly for them, but then you're like, come on, it's impossible that these disputes are coming up. And so that's where a lot of this inner work, self-awareness stuff, not only do you trust your own gut, but how much of this is actually your skill level of discernment coming in to say, my brain is kind of flagging something, which is not a wrong thing, right? It's good to be like, Hey, potential red flag coming on here, like why do we keep having these little arguments?
But then I think it's on both people to be doing the work with each other to sit down and to really unpack how come this happened this way? And I think when both of us met, we had never had a relationship like this. I'll be really, really honest if you want to know Michelle's personal dating history, it's been very diverse, but it's been also different in many ways. A lot of it was scaled again to people who were based, who had already been living in the US. So even if they were from other parts of the world, they had already been working there, living there, had adapted to how society works there. And I would say that it was my first time entering into something serious in a country that wasn't my home country. I think especially as a female, you feel really, really vulnerable and you feel really like, I don't know if this is correct or safe or like what if… had a bunch of conversations with a lot of friends on this topic, best friends at the time, male, female, whatever, really really there to support me and make sure that I had my head on straight.
But I do think that there's no direct way to tell a difference. Even now, even if he and I have created controls to be like, Hey, signal to each other. We think this is a language issue and it's not actually a person issue. I don't know that in a heat of an argument or a moment, both people can always exercise not only the maturity but the patience and willingness to be like, let's tone this down, let's sit and discuss about it. Realistically you're going to be like, how many times does that need to happen? And I think that it behooves both people, both sides to really, really work on seeing beyond the language. Again, just seeing into who this person is and making the best judgment for yourself. We will make mistakes, we will misread people. You will have mind for lack of a better term, for not understanding whether or not someone is actually there in your best interest, but you're going to have to exercise your own discernment as we always do in life.
So that's my answer for number three. 
Number four, as being in a multilingual relationship changed how you relate to your own voice or authority?
I now have a podcast, so I'm going to say, yeah, I had no idea that I cared so much about this. Just I guess I did because I would be that person. You invite someone out, your coworker, friend of a friend to drinks, and there's always that person who's very passionate talking about how everything connects. I'm probably that person, I'm probably the friend of the friend who you're like, oh my god, I can't believe she talked for so long. But I think I didn't realize for myself how much I had to say on it because I was not really taking notes as I was going through all my different experiences. Life was moving really quickly. I was both in half survival, half growth, half, I know it doesn't make sense, but half trying to build a career build, I dunno, a network, that sort of life.
And I think that I could feel the beginning of something that was inside of me and is growing, but it really wasn't until more recently that I felt like I needed to actually create a place not only for my voice but for the voices of other people. And I wonder how much of my journey to this actually was also influenced by what I was living in the early stage of dating with Yann, growing our relationship, our understanding with each other. I think that there's always kind of a spark point for a lot of people when they decide to do something. This was not like some lifelong dream, let me be really honest. I had no idea that this would be happening. And yet here you see me almost every single day. If you see me on Instagram, I'm there all the time just talking about how much this stuff matters.
And I think once I realized it's like an everyday thing, I do think there is that direct connection between our relationship and what I'm doing here. And I think that's why even though it is somewhat personal, I do want to do this episode and share this with you all just because I feel like this is all related. 
So what has this relationship taught you about listening, especially when understanding isn't immediate?
Okay, when we get into arguments or even not only, not only Yann, but I'll have family members who'd be like, you're a communications trainer, you're supposed to know all this stuff. It's so annoying because yeah, sure, I train people. It doesn't mean I am perfect. And it's like how there are therapists who are needing to navigate their own issues as well. You can be someone who helps someone navigate their problems and their different scenarios and experiences in life, but you don't have to necessarily be perfect or that paragon of perfection in whatever field.
And I think that that goes and rings and holds true for listening. When I'm working with a client, I am probably not the same person a hundred percent as I am in my relationship. I have learned that I had a few blind spots. Being a good communicator is always something that you'll see across my resume no matter what field I'm in, no matter what I've done, you'll see that it's something that has been very important to me, but I didn't really see where I was lacking personally until this recent romantic experience and personal life experience. And I think that that's why being in a relationship with someone who doesn't share a mother tongue is very, very life-changing. I think that it makes you see yourself in ways you just could never have expected. It's more than just love. It's more than just we really want to make this thing happen.
It's taught me that even as someone who has done quite a lot in terms of my own education experiences, training, it's a lot of things I've done on the soft skills side or best practices and whatnot. Also just realizing there's work I need to do sometimes in areas that are not as obvious and that's very much because I'm very human and I'm learning every day. Everyone I hope is learning every day in different ways. 
Last question. What do you wish people understood better about communicating across languages and cultures? 
 You'll hear me say this again and again and I know that I seem like a Debbie downer with this whole thing, but I wish people understood it's not rainbows and unicorns and walks in a park and yay celebration and yay diversity and yay multiculturalism and I'm flash backing to an elementary school, international Day Fair or I don't know what it's called.
I just remember there being this, yeah, international Night has always kind of routed me the wrong way I think as someone who was in an incredibly multicultural area but also experienced all of the things that minorities experienced, that people of color experience, and there's a structural hierarchy when you are in a marginalized group, when you are also fighting as a diaspora kid. This sense of understanding who you are in terms of your identity culturally speaking as well. Yeah, I feel like I wish that more people understood that this journey is incredibly tough and I don't need a badge. I don't think most people want a badge. I wish that we would just be less binary with it. I don't think it's wrong to talk about the real life struggles and I do not shy away from having these very hard and real conversations. Doesn't mean the good stuff is not there.
It doesn't mean that we can't celebrate, but there's something wrong when we're only looking at the beauty of it because it is extremely untrue. It is extremely skewed in the opposite direction. It is incredibly hard, I think to understand how to create your sense of self inside and between languages and cultures and countries and value systems and interpersonal relationships and career ambitions and more. And I feel that the more we avoid talking about what's real and the more that we kind of brush it off as like, oh yay, everyone so-and-so's family is from this country and let's celebrate that. Yeah, let's celebrate that. And we can also talk about how so-and-so is living something that other kids aren't living at this time because just because you're from a minority group or just because you're not or whatever doesn't mean that you have an easy life or there's something very strange about the lack of nuance in the conversation.
I wish that people would just understand that things can't be wrapped up in a neat bow and they shouldn't be. I wish more people understood that we don't need to shy away from talking about this stuff and that the more that we do, the more we're creating a disservice for generations to come because the world is here, the future is now. We are already living something thanks to technology, thanks to a lot of things that are quite different about the last few generations of humans. We are going to need to figure out how to not shy away from reality as it is. So we're going to listen to each other's responses now and reconvene later for reactions. If you don't understand French, go online and look at the translation before you skip ahead to the next part.

Michelle:
Okay, so we are back.

Yann:
Okay, so we send each other answers to the question. What can I say? For sure? My first impression is that I have a really less professional way to talk about these topics. It's more feelings I give you like, oh, I feel like it sounds professional in French, but not as much as it seems. And when I'm listening Michelle, of course I can feel that she's talking. It's a topic you're talking about all the time and you probably, I don't know, thought about more than me. I dunno what your feeling.

Michelle:
I've definitely done a billion more hours of podcast recordings compared to you. So that's not, I mean it's interesting you say that. I don't think I have the same read on what I heard in your segment. I kind of felt like it definitely sounds professional. I mean I would say that is it mostly feelings I'm asking myself if I don't talk enough about my feelings, I just don't think feelings are really the whole picture. But I do feel I'm passionate. I just think I channel it differently. Maybe there is something different about the way that we expressed it, but also really important to say our questions were not completely the same word for word kind of on purpose though, because what we wanted to know from the other person, given the difference in our backgrounds, given obviously this is what I'm doing every day versus you do this occasionally, but you live this every day. And so I think that it just is worth mentioning that that's also probably why we approached it differently.

Yann:
I do feel in the end that we can find some similarities in some answers. I think the one that is most difficult for both of us, the question about when do we know it's a language problem or a misunderstanding or do you remember that question? And we both said in different ways, but that in this situation, if you add emotions and sensitivity and everything, it's very hard in this moment to find the way to, even if you are a professional, I dunno what you think about it.

Michelle:
Yeah, I think that was probably one of the hardest questions to answer because I don't think there really is a great answer. What was my answer? Self-awareness, right? But a lot more than just that. It's probably one of the most important questions that I think every multicultural multilingual couple has to ask themselves. Is it the language or is this person crazy? Is really a good question to be asking. Both things can be true as well. And so I

Yann:
In your ideas and the way in your honesty finally to say this, I didn't say it like that and I didn't express the same way because I said yes, the best way is to ask the other if you understand each other and blah blah blah blah. But can you really do that in the moment you are shouting and oh you said that and you are not even listening the other one, but you're not even yourself anymore because you are in this bubble of anger or emotion or whatever it is or sadness or whatever it is. And it's only sometimes hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks after you can just process and say, oh, but you told me that and now I realized that first I didn't understand. And second, even if I understood, did I understand the right thing? I understood your words, but does it mean what I

Michelle:
Think it means? Yeah,

Yann:
Think it means, and I think in bilingual relationship it's very the most general problem

Michelle:
And we're talking, I mean of course you can have couples that are multilingual who grew up in the same with the same languages, isn't the same. It is not a language thing. This is people who have come like you, me, from totally different parts of the world, different ways of expressing different languages at our base. And because of that there is just this intersection that I think every couple needs to find how they go through. It's more than just learning the other person's language. And by the way, we're doing this segment in English so that it's less work on us to translate and all that. Because I also feel like the reason why I want to emphasize that it's not just about language is because people could be like, well yeah, and just get better at English, Michelle, just get better at French. Your problems take over. It doesn't work that way. It's already hard enough when you're in a relationship with anybody to understand communication in that relationship. Now add on, add the cultural aspects. Add the values that you have as a person, the beliefs that you hold, right? Add in personality differences. Yeah, add in all these kind of competing sometimes agendas, let's say from family, from friends, from if you have kids also the way that you parent is going to be different. Also ‘cause you’re different people. I don't know, the complexity is just so massive and I hate when people just say it's as if you don't speak the language well enough.
That sort of issue. It's so misplaced. It's such a red herring. So not the thing that is actually the, yeah, it could seem like it's the issue,
But what you need to be learning is your partner not just or not solely the language. You need to learn the way your partner is using the language. And that's actually a bigger ask I feel, but I feel like this is stuff we all need to be doing even in relationships that don't have this type of complexity, how your partner communicates. That's the thing to be focusing on. This is now couples therapy. This is now, oh my god, so sorry, this is now my psychology degree talking. Let's move on.
I noticed a difference in the way that you answered the question on languages differently like language and expression differently than I did. I guess my question was more,

Yann:
And in French it was different

Michelle:
It was different. My profile is different than yours and so I could talk about how I unquote would feel different in each language, which is I think the approach you took, but it's not really about the language for me. And this question is written exactly in the best way for me It's about going between languages. It's not just three languages, it's three totally different worlds. Totally different access portals for who I talk to, what I talk about. And inside of those individual portals, there are infinite variations as well. Apparently when I speak Mandarin guys, there's all these different ways he hears me. So apparently there's a special way -she's just going to kill me- there's a special way that I use Mandarin apparently for my mother that he has never heard me use to threaten anyone else. Apparently he can tell when I'm on the phone with my mother and not another family member and just by the way that I use how I modulate my voice, I don't know. I can I guess. Is that true for you? Could I tell if it's about? Yeah,

Yann:
Can you tell? I don't know, but probably I have different voices.

Michelle:
Yeah. Oh, for sure you have different voices, we all have different voices.

Yann:
Everybody.

Michelle:
You guys think welcome to WeCultivate the pod. Do you think I talk like that with Yann? Absolutely not. Right? Clearly not what you like. I know you wish I would

Yann:
Could be fun. Yeah, I would sometimes.

Michelle:
I know I was really interested by your answer on how you feel differently, let's say in English. You mentioned that you feel less intelligent in English, which a lot of people talk about this. There's a really, really funny clip from Sophia Vegara who's from her family. I probably sent it to a bunch of people. Yeah, basically how she's like, oh, do you know how smart I sound in Spanish? Which is her mother tongue. Do you feel like sometimes that's what you're fighting when you talk to people? Or do you feel like

Yann:
Yeah,

Michelle:
Yeah,

Yann:
Yeah. Clearly. For example, in conversation, if I want to be funny, I can't, I really, I can sometimes but so much less as in French. I'm not saying I'm funny every time in French, but I really can. And it's so much easier of course in my native language than in English for sure. And I do think it's similar for a lot of people living abroad with another language. I do think we all feel so slow.

Michelle:
Sorry. You don't live abroad currently. You're in your home country.

Yann:
Yeah. But you're talking another language of course. I mean I feel abroad when I’m with you

Michelle:
He enters another world when he comes home. No, I mean

Yann:
I feel so less intelligent really. And I can't explain and I can't explain everything I want. And especially in situation, we were talking together previously about when there is emotion and everything, so I have to deal with my emotion, deal with the language, deal with the cultural difference sometimes because I know now it exists. In the beginning I didn't know, so I couldn't imagine it was so huge.

Michelle:
Oh yeah,

Yann:
Yeah.

Michelle:
We both
I guess. Okay, so for me, do I feel you didn't ask me, I'm just answering. Do I feel, I just ask myself, do I actually feel that I'm less intelligent? Yeah, because I have less to work with, but I don't actually believe I'm less intelligent, so I actually don't have an issue sounding it. Do you know what I mean? I don't let that get to me. Of course there are moments where I'm like, ah, I need more words to say what I, because I'm tired. But that can happen in English too

Yann:
Sometimes. Yeah, I understand this.

Michelle:
Yeah. I feel like it has so much to do with how another person sees you. I feel like that is the biggest indicator that weighs so much more than how I would see myself then I don't see. Yeah, I don't know. This is like I see why you said my response was philosophical. I see. So my laptop is dying, so we're going to have to cut this now. Well we hope that you all enjoyed this. We brought Yann back for kind of a feature month of episodes. Did you enjoy this?

Yann:
I really enjoyed and I really enjoyed the fact that you left me the possibility to speak in French because globally, as I said, it's easier and I like also when we speak in English. So I like this format. Yeah, I really like

Michelle:
Great. Yeah, I didn't pay him to say that. I don't pay him at all. Alright, we wish you all a very happy Valentine's Day if you are celebrating. If not, eat some cake or I don't know. Just listen to this episode and think about thoughts. Okay,

Yann:
That was a try.

Michelle:
This was an attempt that kind of failed. Okay. Happy Valentine's everyone and we will be back with more later.

Yann:
Thank you. Bye!