I'm married to an immigrant who learned her first English as an adult. I have seen a clear pattern: Those who marry someone who speaks their native language r

I'm married to an immigrant who learned her first English as an adult. I have seen a clear pattern: Those who marry someone who speaks their native language rarely learn much English--they can communicate with their spouse and the community is enough for most other needs. Those who marry someone who doesn't speak their native language learn at least enough English to reasonably communicate with their spouse. It's a much greater driving force. My wife speaks decidedly broken English (to be expected in someone who learned their first word of English at 43 and didn't even know our alphabet until adulthood), yet now and then she ends up acting as an interpreter for those with even less English than she has.