Do you know and/or have a close personal relationship with anyone whose first language isn't English? If so, how much of a barrier is it when you speak to them?

Nope

No

Just in Mexico.

Nobody close, no.

I have cousins that came over from Italy whom I cannot communicate with. I use hand gestures LOL

Tony Marino wrote:

... I use hand gestures LOL

Your Italian - of course you do!

I am not conversant in Spanish so I get left out of stuff my Hispanic friends are doing.

At least love is international. My Turkish GF and I couldn't carry on deep conversations but we made out OK. Same with a few Hispanic guys I have been with whose English was as poor as my Spanish. Still had fun tho.

Not close. At one of my old jobs, they had a cleaning crew that was comprised of mostly Mexicans....and a few of they didn't speak English very well, or at all. Trying to communicate with them was a task. A few of them I think understood what was being said, but tried to play dumb.

Not CLOSE to any of them but I got relatives on my moms side from Italy that speak Italian and very little English and on my dads side that speak Arabic. I dont see them often so its not a problem for the most part. The few times I have, they usually come with people who can speak at least SOME english and are able to communicate.

My mother was a deaf mute and I learned sign language and was fluent very young. She left when I was 5 and my grandmother worried about what people were saying to me when we went places where there were friends of my mother. Much later she said she was sorry she let me forget it, but I am not sorry I understand why she did it and have no problem with it. I would have done the same given the same set of circumstances.

Thats sort of like my memory of sign language, I still know how to say ice cream, lollypop, chewing gum and I love you! Thats the total.